Getting Started with Leonardo.Ai

An image generator with a free allowance that refills every day — built for characters, worlds and concept art.

Current prices: Free, from $28/mo · See all plans

Last reviewed 2026-09-07 · for Leonardo AI

How it works

You type a description of the picture you want — that description is a prompt, the message you type — and Leonardo draws it in seconds. You look at what came back, change a few words, and go again, each attempt spending from a balance on screen.

What it is

A browser tool at app.leonardo.ai — nothing to install, no card to start.

The free plan is why beginners land here: a daily allowance of credits (Leonardo calls them tokens), with a standard image among the cheapest things to make. Midjourney has no free tier; Firefly and Ideogram give a monthly allowance that runs dry and makes you wait. Leonardo's tomorrow brings more.

It leans toward game art and character work, and the controls show it — reference-image slots, character consistency, trainable styles. There are also Blueprints: prebuilt setups where you fill in a field or two instead of writing a prompt.

Before you start

You need an email address and a browser, plus a reference image if you already have a character in mind.

Free credits reset every 24 hours and do not carry over, so you cannot save up for something big. Paid plans swap that for a monthly allowance that banks what you don't spend. Costs vary by feature and are shown before you commit.

Learning costs nothing. What pushes people to pay is privacy — free work is public — and video, where one clip can eat a day's allowance. Paid plans come in several monthly tiers, cheaper billed annually; current prices are on its Launchpad page.

First step: sign up, open the image generator, type one plain sentence describing a scene, and generate. Don't touch a setting yet.

Security & privacy

Understand this before your first generation: on the free plan, everything you make is public. Others can see, copy and remix your images, and Leonardo's policy states free-tier content is used to improve its models. Private generation needs a paid plan — you pay with visibility, not money.

What that means in practice

Generate nothing on the free plan you'd mind seeing in a public gallery — nothing you agreed to keep confidential, no unreleased designs, no personal photos.
Reference images you upload are content submitted to the service — treat other people's work with public-site caution.
Commercial use is allowed on every tier including free — but on free that is a licence to use your images, not exclusive ownership of them.
On paid plans you keep full ownership and copyright, and that survives if you later downgrade to free.

What it's good (and not good) at

Best at

Characters, creatures and concept art — what the platform was built around
Stylised illustration, fantasy and sci-fi, painterly game-art looks
Cheap, high-volume iteration without watching a meter
Getting a usable result with no prompt-writing skill, via Blueprints

Okay at

Photorealistic product shots — good, not always best in class
Readable text in an image — newer models are far better, but check every character
Short video clips from a still — capable, but expensive on a free allowance

Avoid

Confidential or client work on the free plan — it all lands in a public gallery
Expecting images to be exclusively yours on free: commercial use is allowed, exclusivity is not
Video on the free daily refill; one clip can swallow the lot
Layout-critical design — logos, exact typography, brand fonts

Starter prompts to try

Generate one image with no settings touched

A weathered brass diving helmet on a wooden dock at sunrise, salt crust on the metal, background softly out of focus, low warm light from one side

Why this one: Leonardo picks a model — the AI "brain" doing the drawing — when you don't, so you get a competent result before you know what a model is. A plain image costs very little of a daily allowance that refills, so you can run it dozens of times for nothing.

Tweak: Change only the last clause — swap the warm side light for flat overcast light. One variable at a time is how you learn which words do work.

Run a Blueprint instead of writing a prompt

Opens a Blueprint, fills in the one or two fields it asks for, checks the credit cost it shows, and generates.

Why this one: Blueprints are Leonardo's answer to the blank prompt box, and each shows its credit cost before you generate — which matters here, because some cost more than a free user's whole daily allowance.

Make a character concept sheet

Character concept sheet for a swamp ranger, front view and side view, muted green leather armour, oversized canvas satchel, weathered boots, flat neutral grey background, painted concept art style

Why this one: This is the work Leonardo was shaped around: its models are built and sold for game and concept art rather than photography, which is why the concept-sheet convention — several views, neutral background, painted finish — is the thing to ask it for.

Hold one character steady across several images

Uploads a picture of your character into the character-reference slot in the generation panel, then generates new scenes with the reference in place.

Why this one: Character reference sits in the generation panel as a plain image upload, not behind prompt syntax you must memorise. That is what turns a pile of nice pictures into a set.

Common pitfalls

Free generations are public — that is the actual price. Others can view and remix them, and free content feeds model training.
Free credits don't roll over. Unused ones vanish at reset, so a little most days beats planning a marathon.
Costs vary enormously by feature. A plain image costs very little; video and heavy workflows many times that. Read the number first.
Much of the advice online points at legacy features. Alchemy, PhotoReal and Elements still work but are no longer core — if a guide leads with those, check its date.

Where to next

Compare it with other image tools Turn your images into motion

Want the full picture first? See the Leonardo AI overview for pricing, the free tier and related tools.