Getting Started with Recraft

The AI image tool that makes real logos and icons, not just pictures of them.

Last reviewed 2026-09-07 · for Recraft

How it works

You type a description of the image you want, pick a style, and Recraft draws it on a canvas in a few seconds. You edit what comes back in place, generate variations beside it, and keep what works. Then the same for the next piece.

What it is

An AI image generator with a design canvas, for people making things they intend to use — logos, icons, illustrations, patterns, mockups — rather than one-off art.

Its distinctive output is vector artwork: an image made of shapes, so it stays sharp at any size, unlike a photo, which blurs when you enlarge it. Most generators hand you a picture of a logo someone still has to redraw. Recraft draws the shapes and exports them as SVG, the file Figma, Illustrator and Canva all open.

The second piece is consistency: build a custom style from up to around ten reference images, then generate everything else in it — the difference between one nice icon and a matching set of twelve.

Canva is a layout tool with AI added; Recraft is a generator with editing added. Canva assembles a poster from existing pieces; Recraft makes the pieces.

Before you start

There is a free plan, it is genuinely usable for learning, and you do not own what you make on it. Recraft's documentation is blunt: free-plan images belong to Recraft, appear publicly in the community gallery, and aren't licensed for commercial use.

A browser and an email address is the whole requirement.

Everything costs credits, the platform's unit of spend: a small free allowance that refills daily, or a monthly paid pot that resets without rolling over. Vector generations currently cost more than plain images — a few credits each, more if you pick one of the higher-quality vector models (the AI "brains" doing the work) — so a vector-heavy afternoon empties an allowance fast.

If you want to use what you make, you'll be paying. Paid plans are monthly, with a discount for paying annually. Paying flips your images to private and hands you ownership and commercial rights for anything generated while subscribed — and those stay yours if you later cancel.

Security & privacy

The most important thing to know: on the free plan your generated images are public. Recraft's docs state they may appear in the community gallery and that Recraft, not you, owns them. Keep anything confidential or client-identifying out of a free account — what you type and what you upload alike.

Commercial use, by tier

Free: owned by Recraft, publicly visible, not licensed for commercial use, and not listable on stock platforms, which require proof of ownership.
Any paid plan: full ownership and commercial rights for images generated while subscribed, client work included.
After cancelling: images made while subscribed stay private and stay yours, not retroactively made public.
On every plan: Recraft's terms forbid using its output to train other AI models or systems.

You can upload your own images as references, or to trace and edit, and free accounts are capped at a few uploads a day. Only upload artwork you have the right to use — the public-gallery rule covers free-plan work built from it too.

What it's good (and not good) at

Best at

Logos and app icons you need as clean, editable files rather than flat pictures
Matched sets — a dozen icons, an illustration series — that share one look
Turning an existing image or rough sketch into artwork that scales
Short, readable text inside a design: labels, badges, a poster headline
Repeating patterns and backgrounds, using its dedicated seamless-tile mode

Okay at

Photorealistic scenes and product photography — decent, not its headline strength
Long paragraphs of text in an image; short phrases are far more reliable
Multi-page layout — it makes the pieces, it isn't a layout tool

Avoid

Commercially usable assets on the free plan — the licence simply isn't there
Anything requiring a real person's likeness, or images passed off as photographs of real events
Asking for a logo "like" a famous brand's — that's legal exposure, not a shortcut

Starter prompts to try

Make a logo mark you can actually use

A minimalist logo mark for a coffee roastery, one coffee bean formed from two curved leaf shapes, flat vector, two colours, deep brown and warm cream, no text, plenty of space around it

Why this one: This is Recraft's core trick: the result arrives as shapes you export into Figma or Illustrator, so you can recolour it, shrink it to a browser-tab icon, or hand it to a printer at any size.

Tweak: Swap "two colours" for "single colour, black" — one-colour marks are the real test, and what you need for stamps and dark backgrounds.

Build a matching icon set

A set of interface icons in one style, line art with rounded corners and the same line thickness throughout, single accent colour on a transparent background: a calendar, an envelope, a bar chart, a padlock

Why this one: Consistency is what Recraft sells and what beginners underestimate. Generate the set, pick your favourite, save its look as a custom style, then generate the rest against it — that's how icon eleven still matches icon one.

Rescue a low-resolution image

Turns a pixel image you already have into shapes you can rescale and recolour.

Why this one: Recraft has a dedicated tracing function and an editor on the same canvas, so you clean up the result without exporting elsewhere — useful for an old logo that only survives as a small blurry file.

Tweak: It works best on flat, high-contrast artwork; on a photograph you get a poster effect rather than a usable trace.

Common pitfalls

The free plan is a demo, not a supply of assets. People generate a logo they love, put it on a real product, and only later read that free-plan images are owned by Recraft and publicly visible. Rights attach to what you make while subscribed, so subscribe before you generate the thing that matters.
Scalable output is a mode, not something you apply afterwards. Generate a pixel image and then ask for shapes and you get a traced approximation, not clean geometry. Choose the vector model or style up front when the output needs to scale.
Credits vanish faster than you plan for. Vector generations cost several times a basic image, the pro-quality vector models several times that again. Explore with cheap drafts, then spend vector credits once you know the composition you want.

Where to next

More AI image and editing tools Marketing and brand tools that use these assets

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