Photoroom API vs Shotstack

Photoroom API

A call costs $0.02 for background removal or $0.10 for any combination of edits, and a sandbox key gives 1,000 free watermarked calls a month without a card. No status page or official SDK was found, and Photoroom's privacy policy and security page disagree on whether API images train its models.

Shotstack

A public OpenAPI definition, Markdown docs, a hosted MCP server with OAuth and a free watermarked sandbox let an agent draft, check and render video with little setup. API keys have no scopes, webhooks are unsigned, no security contact or certification of Shotstack's own was found, and the published Node and Python SDKs date from July 2024.

Photoroom API

1. Send the key in the x-api-key header. Prefix it with sandbox_ while testing, because calls with the plain key consume paid images
2. Save the response body as a file. A 200 returns image bytes, PNG by default, and any other status returns JSON with error.message or detail
3. Send model selectors such as pr-ai-shadows-model-version: 2026-04-15 as HTTP headers, not form fields. They are not in the OpenAPI file
4. Stay under 60 images a minute. On 429 back off with an exponential delay, and set a client timeout of at least 60 seconds for AI edits
5. Use POST /v2/edit with imageFile for local files and GET /v2/edit with imageUrl for hosted ones. Each call takes one image

Shotstack

1. Fetch https://shotstack.io/docs/api/api.edit.json and the conventions guide before writing an edit. Track order is reversed, so the first track renders on top
2. Render in stage first. It is free and watermarked, but AI generation there is charged from the production credit balance
3. Call POST /generate/quote before POST /generate, and send an Idempotency-Key header on generation. POST /render has no idempotency key, so do not resubmit blindly
4. Do not store the url from the render status response. It expires after 24 hours. Use the CDN address built from owner and the render id
5. On a 429, wait for the 60-second window to reset and retry with backoff. Limits are per API key, 300 a minute on the Edit API in production