Ideogram Vector 1.0 Review: SVGs for $0.10 to $0.32, With a Catch

On October 22, 2026, Ideogram shipped its first vector model on the same day Canva launched Craft, its own first image model. The two launches answered the same question from opposite directions: Canva built a model that renders better pixels, while Ideogram built one that skips pixels entirely. Ideogram Vector 1.0 returns editable SVG files — shapes, paths, and gradients you can open in Illustrator or Figma and change — instead of the flat raster images every other AI image tool hands you. It works two ways: describe a design, or upload an image and convert it. And unlike its rival, it publishes its price in plain dollars: $0.10 to $0.32 per file. The catch is printed on Ideogram's own documentation too.

In short: Ideogram Vector 1.0 makes real SVG files from a prompt or an image, live in the Ideogram app, on the API, and on partner platforms. Text-to-vector costs $0.13, $0.16, and $0.20 at low, medium, and high quality, rising to $0.32 at high with reference images. Converting an existing image costs a flat $0.10. The files are editable, resizable without loss, and animation-ready, according to Ideogram's launch video. The limitation is that the vectorizer cannot group shapes into layers yet, so a complex design arrives as one flat stack of shapes.

What Ideogram Vector actually is

An SVG is a file made of shapes and paths, not pixels. A logo saved as an SVG stays sharp on a business card and on a billboard, and every element can be selected, recolored, or deleted in a vector editor. That is the whole point of Vector 1.0: the output is a working file, not a picture to look at.

Ideogram's pitch leans on what the company is already known for: it says it was first at spelling correct text in AI images, and Vector carries that typography strength into SVG — logos, wordmarks, hand lettering, labels, and flat illustrations where the lettering has to be right. The model page shows styles from engraving and pop art to flat color and line art, and names logos, print designs, illustrations, and labels and stickers as the intended uses.

Two things the model is not. First, ordinary Ideogram images are still raster files — writing "vector" in a normal prompt does not produce paths, per Ideogram's help pages. Second, the two paths are different jobs: text-to-vector generates original artwork, image-to-vector converts a file you have. Both end in a single clean SVG.

Two ways in: text to vector, image to vector

Text to vector. Describe the design — a logo, a wordmark, a label, a flat illustration — and optionally attach reference images to steer it. In the API the model is called ideogram-vector-1, and it arrives through two new endpoints: one that generates SVGs from a prompt plus optional references, and a vectorizer that converts an uploaded image. Both endpoints run asynchronously: you get a generation ID back and fetch the result later, or have it sent to a webhook. There is no synchronous option — a problem for live, user-facing flows, not for batch pipelines.

Image to vector. Upload a JPEG, PNG, or WebP up to 50 MB and the vectorizer turns it into an SVG with editable colors, shapes, and smooth gradients. That is the path for existing artwork — a hand-drawn sketch, a scanned logo, a raster mascot — that needs to become a scalable file.

Both endpoints take a dry-run flag that prices a request without running it, a free way to budget a batch before you commit. The API's default rate limit is 10 in-flight requests, per Ideogram's API overview, with higher limits available by contacting the company. Vector is live in the Ideogram app, on the API, and on partner platforms.

What a file actually costs

Ideogram publishes the API price per SVG on the Vector model page, in dollars, with no credit conversion to decode:

The batch math: 100 logos cost $13 at low and $20 at high; 1,000 files at medium cost $160; converting 100 images costs $10. Note the table: reference images are free at low and medium quality — only high jumps $0.12, from $0.20 to $0.32.

Subscriptions are a different billing system. Ideogram's pricing page lists Plus at $20 a month, or $15 billed annually ($180 a year), with 2,400 priority credits a month; Pro at $60, or $42 billed annually ($504 a year), with 7,500; Team at $30 per user, or $20 billed annually ($240 a year), with 3,600 per user. Pay-as-you-go credits cost 1¢ each, and free accounts receive weekly credits of a varying amount.

The fine print matters here. Prices exclude tax, which is added at checkout. Unused subscription priority credits expire at the end of each billing cycle — a quiet month is money spent on nothing — while top-up credits carry over. There are no free trials or discounts on subscription plans. On ownership, Ideogram's FAQ says it claims no ownership of generated images and allows commercial use, though a trademark check on a logo is still yours to do. One gap in my own check: the pricing page's per-model credit table did not render when I read it, so I cannot state how many credits a Vector generation costs inside the app. Treat the dollar API prices above as the firm numbers.

How it compares

The Inference, tracking the same launch week, put the price ladder at $0.01 per image for Meta's Muse Image, $0.06 for a Krea 3 edit, and $0.10 to $0.32 for an Ideogram SVG. Muse Image and Krea sell raster pictures; Ideogram sells a file a designer keeps. That is the premium.

The real rival is Recraft, not Canva. Craft is a raster model that happens to have launched the same day; Vector is a vector model, and the two solve different problems. Recraft has been the default answer for AI-generated vectors, with brand-style training and a published conversion of two credits per vector output. Its API vector price of about $0.08 is reported by third-party trackers, not published on Recraft's own pricing page, so treat it as indicative rather than official. Ideogram's edge is transparency — a dollar price list, a dry-run flag, and typography as a first-class feature. Neither company has published a head-to-head quality test, and none of the launch coverage I read tested either tool hands-on, so the quality question is still open.

For the wider context, see our Canva Craft review and our roundup of free AI image generators, where Ideogram's raster models already appear.

The catches

No layer grouping yet. This is the limitation Ideogram prints on its own documentation. The vectorizer's docs say the option to group shapes into layers is "not yet available." A simple logo may arrive tidy enough to use as-is. A complex illustration will arrive as a flat pile of shapes that you organize yourself in Illustrator or Figma before it is production-ready. Budget that cleanup time into any per-file cost comparison.

Async only. Both API endpoints return a generation ID, not a finished file. If your product needs an SVG in the same request, you are polling or waiting on a webhook. Batch pipelines will not notice; interactive ones will.

No independent testing exists yet. Every quality claim in this article traces to Ideogram's own pages, its launch video, or launch-week reporting that read the same pages. No publication I found has run Vector against Recraft on the same prompts or measured tracing accuracy. The $0.10 to $0.32 prices are verified facts; the quality of the shapes at those prices is still a vendor claim.

Pros and cons

Pros: real, editable SVG output; published per-file dollar prices with a dry-run flag; reference images free at low and medium quality; commercial use allowed; async API with webhooks fits batch pipelines; typography strength for logos and wordmarks.

Cons: no layer grouping on the vectorizer yet; async-only API; no independent quality testing or head-to-head against Recraft; in-app credit cost for Vector not readable on the published pricing page; subscription priority credits expire each cycle.

Who it is for

Vector 1.0 fits small brands, merch and print shops, and developers who need SVG assets from code instead of tracing PNGs. If your deliverable is a logo, a sticker sheet, a label, or a print file that gets recolored and resized, a $0.10 conversion or a $0.13 low-quality generation is easy arithmetic against an hour of manual tracing. It fits less well for complex illustrations that need organized layers, and for interactive products that need a synchronous response. Teams already on Recraft should wait for a head-to-head quality test before switching.

FAQ

Is Ideogram Vector 1.0 free?
There is no free tier with a published Vector allowance. Free accounts receive weekly credits of a varying amount, and the API charges per file: $0.10 to convert an image, $0.13 to $0.32 to generate one. The cheapest way in is a single $0.10 conversion.

Can I use the SVGs commercially?
Yes, under Ideogram's terms: the company claims no ownership of generated images and allows any use, including commercial. A trademark check on a commercial logo is still your responsibility.

Do the SVGs open in Illustrator and Figma?
Yes, according to Ideogram. The output is a standard SVG with editable shapes, colors, and gradients.

How is it different from Recraft?
Both produce editable SVGs. Recraft is subscription-credit based — two credits per vector output, Basic at $10 a month billed annually for 1,000 credits — with brand-style training and a reported API price near $0.08 per vector. Ideogram charges per file in dollars, with a dry-run pricing flag. No independent head-to-head quality test exists yet.

What does the dry-run flag do?
It returns a price quote for a request without running the generation or billing you, so you can price a batch before committing to it.

Key takeaways

• Ideogram Vector 1.0 launched October 22, 2026, and returns editable SVG files from a text prompt or an uploaded image, instead of flat raster images.
• API prices are $0.13, $0.16, and $0.20 per text-to-vector file at low, medium, and high quality, $0.32 at high with references, and a flat $0.10 to convert an image.
• Subscriptions start at Plus, $20 a month or $15 billed annually, with 2,400 priority credits; pay-as-you-go credits cost 1¢ each, and all prices exclude tax.
• The vectorizer cannot group shapes into layers yet, so complex files need manual organization in Illustrator or Figma before they are production-ready.
• Against Recraft it is priced per file in dollars rather than credits; against Canva Craft it is a different product — vector files versus raster images — and Craft publishes no per-image price.

Four days in, Ideogram Vector 1.0 is the rare AI launch where the price list and the limitation are both printed on the front of the box. If your work ends in a file a designer can edit, $0.10 to $0.32 a file is easy arithmetic. If it ends in a layered Illustrator document, budget the cleanup time too.