Which model should I use?

Find your job below and start with the model named against it. Every pick reflects the model definitions, so plan gating and feature support match the app.

For making images

What you want	Start with	Why
A photoreal portrait	Guava 2 Pro	Mage’s photorealism line at its higher-quality setting. Guava 2 is the faster sibling for iterating.
The same face across many images	Mango 3 with Characters	Built for character consistency, with Characters and References.
Anime or illustration	Anima, or an Illustrious checkpoint	Anima is anime-tuned and takes LoRAs. Illustrious and Pony checkpoints bring the community fine-tune catalog.
An edit to an image you already have	Mango 3, Flux Kontext Dev, or Qwen Image Edit Plus	Mango 3 for precise edits with a Character; Kontext Dev for a text-instruction edit; Qwen Image Edit Plus for edits across several inputs.
A prompt written as instructions	GPT Image 2 or Nano Banana 2	Both follow instruction-style prompts and edit an input image. Their labs’ safety filters apply.
Speed above everything	Z-Image, Krea 2 Turbo, or Flux Schnell	The fast, lightweight models, all unlimited from Basic at 1K.
Unlimited images on the cheapest plan	Stable Diffusion, Flux, Chroma, Z-Image, or GPT Image 2 at Low quality	All run unlimited from Basic.

For making video

What you want	Start with	Why
The best quality available	Cherry 2 Pro	Up to 50 reference images, 1080p, and 30 seconds on Gems. Unlimited on Max is 4 seconds at 480p.
Every feature at once, with sound	Plum	Characters, References, Character Voices, and frame control, with audio on every clip. Plum Max starts unlimited on Pro Plus.
Quality and price balanced	Lemon	Every video input type, unlimited from Pro, and clips up to 30 seconds on Gems.
The cheapest unlimited video	Peach, Peach Max, Melon, Lemon, Berry 2, or MiniMax-H3 Turbo	All run unlimited from Pro at 480p.
The longest unlimited clip	MiniMax-H3 Turbo or Melon	MiniMax-H3 Turbo runs 15 seconds at 480p unlimited from Pro. Melon reaches 16 seconds at 540p on Max.
Anime video	Melon or Melon Pro	Anime-tuned, unlimited from Pro.
A character carried from image into video	Plum, Lemon, Melon, Berry 2, MiniMax-H3, Raspberry, the Cherry line, or Grok Video	All take Characters and References. Blueberry 2, Kiwi, Peach, and Veo 3.1 Lite do not.
Control over the opening and closing frame	Plum, Lemon, Melon, MiniMax-H3, Blueberry 2, Peach Max, Veo 3.1 Lite, Framepack, or Wan 2.1	These take a first and last frame. On the Mage models it is a separate mode from Characters and References.
Movement copied from a video you supply	Motion Control with Pear	Transfers the movement in a reference video onto a Character. Unlimited on Max up to 8 seconds.
A cheaper way to Cherry quality	Cherry Mini	The same line at a lower Gem cost, unlimited from Pro Plus.

For making audio

Audio generation runs on Seed Audio and covers voices, music, and sound effects in one model, in clips of 5 to 120 seconds. Clips up to 10 seconds run unlimited from Basic, 30 seconds from Pro, 60 seconds from Pro Plus, and 120 seconds on Max. For a voice that should recur across video clips, set it up as a Character Voice and use a model that supports voices. See Seed Audio and Character Voices.

Other factors

Your plan sets which models run unlimited. Every model can also be run with Gems on any account, including Free, so a model above your tier does not lock you out. See how Gems work. Models run by their lab carry their own filters. GPT Image 2, Grok Image, Grok Video, Nano Banana 2, Veo 3.1 Lite, and Veo 3 are run by OpenAI, xAI, and Google, and their content rules apply on Mage as they do elsewhere.

​For making images

​For making video

​For making audio

​Other factors

For making images

For making video

For making audio

Other factors