Recraft

There are two things to consider: whether you need a file editable after generation, and whether you are ready to pay in dollars for the right to own the image.

What people come to Recraft to do and whether they get it: the six most frequent Yandex requests for the month.

Search volume — Wordstat, Russia region, 06.09.2026; the first row is the generic query “AI for logos,” the rest are queries with the Recraft name

Who it is for. For people making not just an image but a design: a logo, a set of icons in one style, a print-ready illustration, packaging artwork. The vector comes as an SVG file and is editable by nodes directly on the canvas, a custom style is set with ten images without training, and a mockup on a T-shirt or box is assembled in the same window.

Who else. For people who want one window for every model: alongside its own V4.1, it includes Nano Banana, GPT Image, Flux, and a dozen others, plus video through third-party models on Pro. Also for developers, because there is an API with per-image billing and an MCP server for Claude Code and Cursor.

Who it is not for. For people who want free images for work: images on the free plan belong to Recraft, are visible to everyone, and cannot be sold, while a later subscription does not buy them out. For people who need Cyrillic text in the image: the vendor does not promise it, and Lifehacker wrote in 2025 that the text tool “does not support Cyrillic.” And for people who pay in rubles only: checkout charges dollars through Stripe.

It is a fit: section 3 takes you from sign-up to your first vector. Choosing between it and Midjourney, then see the fork in section 7.

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Three layers: an image and vector generator with its own model, an editor with a canvas, styles, and mockups, and a marketplace of third-party models, including video.

Vector. A prompt becomes an SVG file, not an image: lines, fills, and letters remain separate objects, and since 09.07.2026 their nodes can be edited directly in the editor, without Illustrator. The V4.1 Vector model draws such a file in 11–12 seconds for 4 credits, Pro Vector for 12. Vector generation and its editor are available on every plan, including the free one.

Vectorization. A finished photo can also be converted to vector, but the vendor warns that photos and 3D produce artifacts; the format works with simple shapes.

Images and styles. Its V4.1 lineup is split into the standard 1K and Pro 2K versions, expressive models, and Utility for mockups and product photos with even lighting. A custom style is set from one reference image or ten, without training, and since 26.08.2026 this is handled by a separate V4 Styles family. The older V3 and V2 are still available: the vendor recommends V3 when you need precise text placement in the image, while V2 retains rare styles.

Third-party models. Since 02.04.2025, the same selector has included models from other companies: GPT Image, Nano Banana, Flux, and eight more families, each with its own credit price from 1 to 40. They are available only in the editor and only on paid plans; they are not available through the API. The full list is in the questions below.

Edits and mockups. An image is edited with words, the background can be removed or replaced, the eraser deletes an object, and upscaling has two modes: Crisp for 1 credit without inventing details and Creative for 20 with added details. Any image can be placed on a T-shirt or box mockup for 2 credits. Chat mode with context memory builds a series of images from one description, while Design Agent, since 29.07.2026, returns a set of about 12 elements from one prompt: a logo, palette, app icon, and posts.

Lettering. V4.1 writes Latin text reliably; the vendor promises “multi-language text” but never specifically mentions Cyrillic: Russian is listed in the help center as a prompt and interface language, not a text-in-image language. Lifehacker wrote in April 2025 about the text tool: “Cyrillic is not supported.” There is a workaround: upload a font with Russian letters to the editor and add it as a text layer.

Video. Recraft has no video model of its own; videos are made by Sora, Veo, Kling, Seedance, and five other third-party models, only on Pro and Teams, with pricing per second: from 7 to 142 credits. Two thousand Pro credits buy 14–40 seconds of footage, by our calculation using the vendor's prices.

What the vendor itself shows. The video in the header comes from the recraft.ai homepage; it is an excerpt from a six-minute screen recording: the prompt “Freckled redhead girl portrait,” four portraits on the canvas, an aspect-ratio picker, and a right-side panel with edits, reuse, and export. We did not run Recraft ourselves for this task; the figures come from the help center, marketplace, terms, and third-party tests.

You can get started from Russia: the site opens, the Android app installs; payment in dollars is the only obstacle.

Step 1. Go to recraft.ai and sign in with email, Google, or Apple; no password is needed. The site responds from Russian IP addresses: a test on 06.09.2026 from a Moscow node received a normal response, while a control Instagram test from the same node at the same hour did not open, and the domain is not in the blocked-domain registry. In 2025, users saw a “service unavailable in your region” notice; by September 2026, the test no longer finds it.

Step 2. Switch the language: the profile has a Language list with Russian, but only for the editor; the site and prices remain in English. Then choose the generation type, Image or Vector, choose a model, and write a prompt. The vendor understands Russian but promises better accuracy in English. The free plan gives two images per prompt and three style generations per day.

Step 3. To make images yours and private, you need a subscription from $12 per month. The vendor accepts dollars only through Stripe and Google Pay; a Russian card will not work, so you will need foreign payment. The marketplace opens to the annual tab by default, where $10 per month means $120 paid upfront for the year; the monthly price is behind the toggle.

Apps. Android: Google Play opens from the Russian storefront, with one million downloads and Android 8.0 required. iPhone: the app is available in the US and Kazakhstan App Stores, but not the Russian store, where searching “Recraft” finds an unrelated ReCraft app from a Danish company. There is no desktop app; vectors, mockups, and team collaboration live on the website.

Plugins. Figma, Framer, the Chrome extension, and Google Docs and Slides add-ons use credits from the same account; vectors cannot be generated in Google Docs, and the vendor directs users to the website for them. There are no plugins for Photoshop or Canva. Developers get an API and MCP server, with Claude Code connection available through one command from the documentation.

Steps verified on 06.09.2026 using the live recraft.ai marketplace, vendor help center, an access test from a Moscow node, a blocked-domain registry export, and app-store listings

In fall 2024, the Recraft model was first in the world; as of 06.09.2026, its best model ranks 26th on the Artificial Analysis arena and 21st on LMArena.

Arenas. On Artificial Analysis, Recraft V4.1 Utility ranks highest among 157 models, at 26th with a rating of 1018 versus 1178 for the leading GPT Image 2. On LMArena, in the table dated 04.09.2026, recraft-v4.1-utility-pro ranks 21st out of 76 models with 1169 versus 1382 for gpt-image-2, but it has 2.5 thousand votes while the older V3 has 192 thousand. In its 30.05.2026 release, the vendor called V4.1 Utility Pro fifth; in three months the arena moved on. V3, which held first place on 30.10.2024 with a rating of 1172, is now 107th on the same arena with 874.

What this means. The 2024 first place is no myth: the anonymous red_panda overtook Midjourney, Flux, and OpenAI in four days, and TechCrunch reported a 40-point lead. Since then, every vendor has released new generations, while Recraft measures itself not by image beauty but by vector output and brand style, which the arenas do not measure. The word “best” will not appear here.

Demand. “Recraft” is searched for 7.5 thousand times a month, “recraft” another 2.7 thousand, and Yandex and Google suggestions include “doesn't work in Russia,” “how to pay from Russia,” and “paid or free” (09.06.2026). Its place among image tools is shown below the card title; the full tool ranking is on the main page.

Entry costs $12 a month, not the $10 shown in the listing: it opens to the annual tab by default. There is a free plan, but it buys rights rather than images.

Credits. A subscription provides a monthly credit balance that expires at the end of the month. A V4.1 vector costs 4 credits, Pro Vector 12; background removal, vectorization, and standard upscaling cost 1 each, generative upscaling 20, a mockup 2; third-party models range from 1 for Flux to 40 for Nano Banana Pro in 4K. The vendor does not publish the price of a standard image from its own models in its help center; the app listing shows 2 credits for V4.1 and 10 for V4.1 Pro.

Free. A daily credit balance, whose amount the vendor removed from the listing in July 2026; in June it showed 30 a day. Two images per prompt, three generations per style a day, three uploads of your own images, Recraft models only. All images are public, belong to Recraft, and cannot be used commercially, but vectors and the vector editor are available.

Basic and Pro. Basic for $12 a month or $10 when paid annually provides 1,000 credits, third-party models, privacy, and rights, roughly 250 V4.1 Vector images. Pro for $20 or $16 provides 2,000 credits and video; the 4K, 8K, and 16K tiers cost $40, $80, and $160. Teams starts at $22 per seat. Top-ups come in packages at $0.01 per credit, do not expire, and are available to paid users only.

API. A separate wallet: $1 equals 1,000 units, prepaid with no refunds and no expiration date; a key is issued with a non-zero balance. A standard V4.1 image costs $0.035, V4 Pro $0.25, a vector $0.08, a Pro vector $0.30, vectorization and background removal $0.01 each. Third-party models and video are unavailable through the API.

Paying from Russia. The vendor accepts cards and transfers only through Stripe and Google Pay in dollars, and says nothing about Russian cards. Tinkoff Journal in March 2025, Lifehacker in April 2025, and Habr in July 2026 all report the same thing: a Russian card will not go through. Intermediaries charge from 20% on top; on plati.market, a month of Basic sells for 1,548–1,700 ₽ against the official $12, and some listings ask for your account login and password.

Overseas payment. How to arrange an overseas payment, in the guide to paying for AI services from Russia.

Refund. Only at the vendor's discretion, and only if the payment is less than 30 days old and fewer than 30 credits have been used over the account's lifetime. This is exactly what nearly all the one-star Trustpilot reviews are about.

Three questions: whose images are these, what does the vendor do with your prompts, and who is behind it?

Whose images. On paid plans, they are yours: terms dated 11.08.2026 give you all rights, including commercial rights, and they remain yours after you cancel. On the free plan, it is the opposite: images belong to Recraft, you irrevocably transfer rights to it, publish them in the public gallery, and cannot use them commercially. A subscription does not retroactively buy them out; the vendor states this explicitly, and the rule has applied since 12.08.2024. The only restriction for everyone: you cannot train your own neural networks on the results.

Your prompts. Training on your input and results is enabled by default for free and paid accounts; it can be disabled with the “Help improve Recraft” toggle in the profile, but the help center says opting out is unavailable on the free plan, disabled by default for teams, and API data is never used for training. The terms nevertheless promise everyone an opt-out “at any time,” while the help center denies it to free users; two vendor documents contradict each other.

Who is behind it. The company was incorporated in the US in 2022, is headquartered in London, and disputes are governed by New York State law. Founder Anna Veronika Dorogush is, according to the company release, the creator of CatBoost; according to TechCrunch, she led machine learning at Yandex. Funding is American and European: $12M from Khosla Ventures and Nat Friedman in January 2024, $30M from Accel in May 2025; NVIDIA later joined the round.

Data. Stored with contractors in the US and EU; SOC 2 Type 2 and AIUC-1 certified.

Lawsuits and reviews. The vendor does not disclose what the base model was trained on; no lawsuits by rights holders against Recraft were found as of 09.06.2026. Trustpilot gives it 1.7 from 29 reviews; the profile is unclaimed by the vendor and has no replies; nearly all one-star reviews concern non-refunded money, while Midjourney has 1.6 from 373 on the same platform. Product Hunt gives it 4.8 from 37, Google Play 4.6 from 3.2 thousand; Russian reviews there complain about glitches and limits and praise the vector tools and understanding of Russian.

The choice is not about who draws more beautifully, but what you take away: an editable file or a finished image.

File or image. Midjourney delivers a finished image and charges for the visual appeal of the image; it has no editable file. Recraft delivers an SVG with nodes, an icon set in one style, and a mockup - work that would need to be finished in Illustrator with Midjourney. The vendor itself compares it with Midjourney in a blog post from 30.04.2026.

One checkout. Both charge in dollars through Stripe; a Russian bank card does not work with either. Midjourney starts at $10 with no free trial, Recraft starts at $12 with a free plan, but the vendor owns free images. Only Recraft has a mobile app.

Who else is nearby. Shedevrum from Yandex is free, understands Russian, and accepts rubles, but does not make vectors and without a subscription only delivers an image after publication. Ideogram is strong at text in images, and its V4 is available directly inside Recraft for 4–17 credits, as is Nano Banana from Gemini. Kandinsky in GigaChat promises Cyrillic; Recraft does not.

Vectors are not a monopoly. Besides Recraft, two others also create vectors from descriptions. Adobe's Firefly Vector model lives inside Illustrator, and Creative Cloud Pro costs $69,99 per month after the promo. And QuiverAI has delivered SVG as the only output of its Arrow models since September 2026, with no raster alongside it, and starts at $8 per month according to the vendor's pricing as of 17.09.2026.

Over three years, the product went from a vector generator on Product Hunt, through first place in the global arena, to a studio that sells third-party models alongside its own.