The two plans
Creator
$19 /month
or $13.30/mo, billed $159.60 a year
100 credits a month. Build it yourself, layer by layer.
- YouTube thumbnail builder
- Reel and TikTok cover builder
- Carousel builder, layer by layer
- 1080p export
- Credits roll over, bank up to 200
Studio
$39 /month
or $27.30/mo, billed $327.60 a year
200 credits a month. Automation, variants and your brand kit.
- Everything in Creator
- Video-to-carousel and text-to-carousel makers
- A/B variant sets, three per thumbnail
- Brand kit: fonts, colours, saved layer templates
- 4K export
- Priority generation queue
- Credits roll over, bank up to 400
Annual billing is 30% off in both cases. There is no third enterprise tier, no per-seat maths and no sales call.
What a credit is, and what it is not
A credit is spent when the system generates something: rebuilding a reference into a thumbnail, drafting a carousel from a video or a script, producing a cover. That is the expensive part, and pricing it directly is the only honest way to charge for it.
Everything after the generation is free. Dragging the subject two inches left, swapping the background layer, changing the font, recolouring the type, fixing the typo you spotted at 11pm: none of that is a generation, so none of it costs a credit. This is the practical payoff of the layer model. In a tool that returns one flat image, every fix is another generation, which means every fix has a price.
The three rules that protect the balance
Failed generations refund automatically. The credit returns to your balance the moment a generation fails. You do not open a ticket for it.
A bad result gets one free re-roll. Not every disappointing output is a technical failure, and being charged twice for one attempt is the fastest way to make a credit system feel dishonest.
Unused credits roll over, capped at twice the grant. Creator banks up to 200, Studio up to 400. The cap keeps the balance a buffer for a busy month rather than a growing obligation nobody can ever spend.
If you run out early, top-ups are $9 for 50 credits. They never expire, and they are for subscribers only rather than a way to buy in around the plans.
Which plan is which creator
| You are | Plan | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Posting one or two videos a week | Creator | 100 generations is far more than one thumbnail per upload, and every revision after the generation is free. |
| Shipping to YouTube, Reels and TikTok from the same video | Creator | All three builders are included. The extra formats cost you edits, not generations. |
| Repurposing videos into carousels every week | Studio | The video-to-carousel and text-to-carousel makers live here, and a carousel is a multi-slide draft. |
| Testing thumbnail variants seriously | Studio | A/B variant sets give three per thumbnail, which is a generation habit rather than a one-off. |
| Running a consistent visual brand | Studio | The brand kit holds fonts, colours and saved layer templates so the next asset starts where the last one ended. |
No free tier, said out loud
There is no free plan and no free credit grant. Generations cost real money to run, and a free tier paid for by subscribers usually ends up degrading the thing they are paying for.
What is free is everything on this site that does not need a generation: the entire free tools section, which runs in your browser and never uploads your images, and the blog. Those are free permanently, not a trial. Once the product opens there is also a demo on the homepage so you can move real layers before paying anything.
Prelaunch status, plainly: as of August 2026 DesignerOP has not launched. You cannot buy a plan yet, and nothing on this page is charged today. Payments open at launch, and waitlist members go first.
What you are buying, in one line each
- YouTube thumbnail builder — 16:9, exports 1280 × 720, rebuilt from a reference into real layers.
- Reel and TikTok cover builder — 9:16 vertical covers that survive every grid crop.
- Instagram carousel builder and makers — multi-slide sets with consistent type, drafted from a video or a script on Studio.
Questions people ask
How much does DesignerOP cost?
Creator is $19 a month with 100 credits and Studio is $39 a month with 200 credits. Annual billing takes 30% off both, which works out to $13.30 a month billed $159.60 a year for Creator and $27.30 a month billed $327.60 a year for Studio.
What counts as a credit?
One credit is one generation. Building a thumbnail from a reference, drafting a carousel, generating a cover: those spend credits. Everything you do afterwards inside the editor is free forever. Moving a layer, swapping a font, recolouring a background and retyping a headline never cost anything, no matter how many times you do them.
Do unused credits expire at the end of the month?
No. Unused credits roll over, and the balance is capped at twice your monthly grant: up to 200 banked on Creator and up to 400 on Studio. A quiet month is not money burned, and the cap exists so the balance stays a buffer rather than an obligation.
What happens if a generation fails or comes back wrong?
A failed generation refunds its credit automatically, the moment it fails, with nothing to claim. A result that technically worked but is not what you wanted gets one free re-roll. Beyond that, the honest answer is that the layer editor is usually the faster fix, and editing costs nothing.
Is there a free plan or a free trial?
No free tier and no free credit grant. Generations cost real money to run and a free tier funded by paying users tends to make the paid product worse. What is free is the whole tools section, the blog, and once we open, a demo on the homepage so you can move real layers before you pay.
Can I pay for DesignerOP yet?
No. DesignerOP is in prelaunch as of August 2026 and payments open at launch. The waitlist is the only thing to join today, it costs nothing, and members get one email when the builders open. Prices are published now so nobody has to guess what this will cost them.
Still deciding whether this is the right kind of tool? The honest Canva comparison covers what a template library does better, and the about page covers who is building this and what exists so far.