Midjourney

Midjourney meters by GPU time, and the friction is that every new capability layered onto that meter costs disproportionately in fast-hours. The V1 video model (June 2025) made a video job run about 8x a typical image job — enough, the user report confirms, to drain a Basic plan quickly. Flagship launches have repeatedly arrived gated and degraded: V8 Alpha (March 2026) was confined to alpha.midjourney.com with Relax mode — the unmetered valve — unsupported, and sref/Moodboard jobs costing and running 4x, so 'unlimited' renders effectively didn't apply for that stretch. V8.1 later reached midjourney.com with native 2K HD, but HD burns ~33% more GPU time than SD; it became the default in June 2026, with a draft mode added soon after. Sitting over all of it is the June 2025 Disney/NBCUniversal/DreamWorks copyright suit, which seeks injunctive relief that could force output-restricting changes to the image service. Capability keeps shipping — but each new tier of it (video, HD, alpha models) is metered harder or temporarily stripped of the unmetered Relax path lighter plans lean on. Judged strictly on constraint stability rather than image quality: headline 'unlimited Relax' claims hold mainly for mature models on the main site; budget video and new models at multiples of image cost, expect the newest model to route through an alpha site without Relax for weeks, and note the unresolved litigation over what outputs stay permitted.