A-06 · Category market reportarchive-recorded · snapshot 2026-09-17
Design AI Tools: Category Market Report
Archive-derived market report for the Design category: 55 tool archives, median overall score 78.4/100 across five recorded dimensions, 40 free-tier listings and 165 recorded use-case entries. All figures are archive-recorded, computed from data/tools with the method and N published below.
Key numbers
Archives
55
data/tools · N=55
Overall median
78.4
score.overall · N=55
Free-tier listings
40
pricing.model · N=55
Median mo starting price
$9/mo
pricing.startingPrice.amount (unit=mo) · N=35
Recorded use-case entries
165
finder.useCases · N=55
Dated in snapshot window
53
updatedOn · N=55
Top 12 of 55 archives by overall score
score.overall as recorded; ties broken by slug
| # | Tool | Overall | Quality | Features | Usability | Performance | Value | Starting price | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | FLUX | 88.3 | 89 | 88 | 87 | 89 | 88 | $0.04 / image | 2026-09-14 |
| 2 | Canva | 87.1 | 86 | 88 | 96 | 84 | 84 | $12/mo | 2026-09-06 |
| 3 | Nano Banana | 83.4 | 90 | 80 | 86 | 80 | 80 | Free in Gemini app (limits) · Gemini API per-image pricing | 2026-09-17 |
| 4 | Leonardo AI | 83.2 | 84 | 86 | 84 | 82 | 80 | $12/mo | 2026-09-13 |
| 5 | Krea AI | 83.1 | 84 | 84 | 86 | 84 | 78 | $9/mo | 2026-09-13 |
| 6 | Recraft | 82.9 | 86 | 82 | 84 | 84 | 78 | $10/mo | 2026-09-06 |
| 7 | Adobe Firefly | 82.8 | 84 | 86 | 84 | 86 | 74 | $9.99/mo | 2026-09-06 |
| 8 | Ideogram | 82.4 | 82 | 78 | 87 | 80 | 86 | $8/mo | not recorded |
| 9 | Figma Make | 82.3 | 84 | 84 | 86 | 84 | 74 | $16/user | 2026-09-15 |
| 10 | Clipdrop | 82.1 | 82 | 78 | 88 | 84 | 80 | $15/mo | 2026-09-13 |
| 11 | Freepik AI Suite | 81.9 | 83 | 86 | 82 | 78 | 80 | Free plan · Premium subscription tiers with AI credits … | 2026-09-17 |
| 12 | PhotoRoom | 81.9 | 80 | 76 | 90 | 84 | 82 | $10/mo | not recorded |
Dimension medians
Median of each recorded dimension across the 55 Design archives (score.dims, scale 0–100).
Method
- Population: all archives in data/tools with category = "design" (N=55). No sampling.
- Medians use the standard median (middle element, or mean of the two middle elements rounded to 1 decimal) over score.overall and score.dims as recorded; scores are never recomputed or re-weighted.
- Starting price statistics use only numeric pricing.startingPrice.amount values in unit "mo" (N=35); archives with null amounts are excluded and displayed via pricing.label fallback instead.
- Benchmark coverage in this category: 0 of 55 archives carry a benchmark entry; T1 benchmarks recorded: 3 / 448 across the whole library.
- Freshness: 53 of 55 archives carry updatedOn inside the ten-day snapshot window 2026-09-06 → 2026-09-17.