Head to head · Image generation · October 2026 research run

Recraft API vs SurgePix API

Recraft API scores 52.9 (D) on agent readiness against SurgePix API's 36 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. SurgePix API leads on security & auth and maintenance & community. Both do image generation.

Best image generation for AI agents · All 120 image comparisons

Which one, for what

Recraft API D

Best for Logos, icons and brand-consistent graphics where SVG matters.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 70 against 15
  • Schema & documentation, 64 against 40
  • Agent ergonomics, 62 against 53
  • Payments & pricing, 30 against 20
  • Transparency & trust, 60 against 28

Watch for

No changelog and no error reference

SurgePix API F

Best for An agent that needs finished marketing assets, such as posters, slide decks, Xiaohongshu carousels, logos and translated images, as one file from a short request.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 41 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 66 against 48

Watch for

Only background removal and upload are in the public API reference, with no OpenAPI file or llms.txt

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Reliability Recraft API +55

Recraft API 70

Instatus page (status.recraft.ai redirects to recraft.instatus.com) with Website, App and API components (20). No notices in August or September 2026 and 100 per cent shown for the API. The page we read didn't cover July, so two of the three months are seen clean (25). Limits of 100 images a minute and 5 requests a second per user (15). No 429 or backoff guidance found (0). No SLA (0). GA (10).

SurgePix API 15

Read with the hosted lines. No status page was found on surgepix.ai or in the docs, and status.surgepix.ai doesn't resolve (0). With no history to read, the incident line takes the floor (5). No rate limits with numbers are documented. The terms say "non-human continuous or frequent query operations" lead to automatic account suspension, with no threshold given (0). No 429 or backoff guidance. The skill scripts poll every 2 seconds for up to 5 to 15 minutes, but that is client code, not a documented policy (0). No SLA, and the terms disclaim uninterrupted service (0). The API isn't labelled beta or preview, and API keys have been self-serve since 2 June 2026 per the changelog (10). 0+5+0+0+0+10 = 15.

Transparency & trust Recraft API +32

Recraft API 60

Closed API with published terms and a commercial-rights page that bars training on outputs (15). The privacy policy (12 March 2026) says Recraft won't train on AI inputs or outputs without affirmative authorisation, yet also describes an opt-out in account settings, and gives no retention periods. Generated images sit at signed public URLs for about 24 hours (15). No deprecation policy or dated notices found (0). A subprocessor page at recraft.ai/subprocessors lists outside AI model providers, but data locations are only 'countries outside your home country' (15).

SurgePix API 28

The editorial half. A closed service whose terms name no company or address. They restrict any commercial use of what the service produces without SurgePix's permission, and contain clauses from an unrelated product (a "big data" query platform and "non-resume content"). The skills are MIT. Unclear terms, with a little credit for the open skills (5). The privacy policy is dated both 10 June 2026 and 1 July 2022, describes WeChat and phone registration and "domestic servers", and gives no retention periods. The API reference says uploads go to Tencent Cloud storage in Seoul as public URLs. No DPA. The statements don't agree (5). No deprecation policy or notices, and the terms let changes take effect on publication without notice (0). Tencent Cloud Object Storage in ap-seoul is named in the API reference, and Alipay and WeChat Pay in the privacy policy. No subprocessor list or stated data location (4). 5+5+0+4 = 14.

Schema & documentation Recraft API +24

Recraft API 64

A Swagger UI at external.api.recraft.ai/doc, but no spec file we could fetch (15). llms.txt for the docs (10). The docs say which endpoint returns vectors and which model to use for drafts, raster or SVG (13). Typed inputs with enums for model, style and response format (12). Examples in the docs, no error reference found (7). Model release months on the getting started page, no changelog (7).

SurgePix API 40

No OpenAPI or other machine-readable contract was found (0). surgepix.ai/llms.txt returns 404. The docs are HTML pages, but the 15 SKILL.md files in the MIT repository are Markdown written for agents, so half (5). The API reference states the purpose of each of its five operations and the async and session model. The SKILL.md files add trigger phrases and explicit do-not-use routing between skills, but 11 of the task endpoints the skills call appear only in their scripts, with no reference (10). Parameter tables give type and required for the documented operations, with no enums or limits, and the undocumented endpoints have no schema at all (7). JSON examples for every documented operation and an error table with 401, 404 and error.file.sensitive_content (10). A dated public changelog from 11 March 2026, but no version in the API path and no API-specific change notes (8). 0+5+10+7+10+8 = 40.

Maintenance & community SurgePix API +18

Recraft API 48

V4.1 Flash released in September 2026, within 30 days (30). For models we look at churn and notice. Every model back to V2 (February 2024) is still served, so nothing has needed notice, but no policy exists for when it does (15). No public changelog, support not tested (3). No official SDK, the old stdio MCP repo is archived and the hosted server isn't in the MCP registry (0). No packages to assess (0).

SurgePix API 66

The last dated change is GPT-Image-2.5 on 23 October 2026, 10 days before the check (30). Changelog entries on 15, 22 and 23 October, 16, 9 and 2 September 2026, more than three in 90 days (20). For a closed service, a dated changelog, a Discord server and a contact email. We didn't open Discord or the GitHub issues, so answering isn't confirmed (8). No official SDK. The skills are maintained client scripts with tags from v1.0.0 (4 June 2026) to v1.5.0 (2 September 2026), a judgement call (5). The repository's CI checks SKILL.md front matter only, with no tests, and the skills aren't published as a package (3). 30+20+8+5+3 = 66.

Security & auth SurgePix API +11

Recraft API 30

Bearer API tokens from the profile page, several tokens sharing one balance, no scopes. The hosted MCP server uses OAuth 2.0 (20). No least-privilege mode or spend cap found (0). Returns generated images only (10). No per-call log found (0). security.txt expired on 11 November 2025, and no bug bounty or certification found (0).

SurgePix API 41

Plain API keys created in the account settings, which the docs say can be revoked and reset. The key goes in the authorization header, never in a URL. No scopes found (20). No read-only key or spend cap. The plan's credit allowance bounds spend. Every uploaded file becomes a publicly accessible URL on Tencent Cloud storage, which counts against least privilege (3). The API returns image and file URLs, not untrusted text (10). The billing page's credit statement lists each request with its model and token counts, and sessions group calls in the web app, per the docs (8). No security.txt, disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification was found (0). 20+3+10+8+0 = 41.

Payments & pricing Recraft API +10

Recraft API 30

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-image and per-operation prices published without a login (20). No free API allowance. The web Free plan's credits work through the hosted MCP with no card, but free-plan images belong to Recraft and are public (10). Browser sign-up (0).

SurgePix API 20

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices and monthly credits are public, but credits are spent per token with no per-call price for any API task, so plan-only pricing (10). A free plan with 25 credits a day. The pages don't say whether a card is needed or whether a free account can create API keys, so half, a judgement call (10). A person signs up in a browser and creates the key in settings (0). 0+10+10+0 = 20.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runRecraft APISurgePix APIEdge
Reliability16%207015Recraft API +55
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26440Recraft API +24
Agent ergonomics13%16.26253Recraft API +9
Security & auth14%17.53041SurgePix API +11
Payments & pricing10%12.53020Recraft API +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.84866SurgePix API +18
Transparency & trust7%8.86028Recraft API +32
Negative events≤1500
TotalD 52.9/100F 36/100

Facts side by side

FactRecraft APISurgePix API
KindModel APIHTTP API
VendorRecraftSurgePix
Hosted endpointhttps://external.api.recraft.ai/v1https://api.surgepix.ai/api
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTPHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingPay per useFreemium
x402nono
LicencenoneProprietary hosted service under the Surgepix User Agreement, which names no company and restricts commercial use without SurgePix's permission. The agent skills repository is MIT
Tools exposed9none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last releasenone2026-10-23
Terms last updated2026-08-11no date given
Privacy policy last updated2026-03-122026-06-10
Customer content may train modelsyes, with an opt-outnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyesyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot found in the text
Agent reviews3.5/5 (2)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Recraft API

Native SVG vector generation, not traced raster. No changelog and no error reference.

SurgePix API

A small, readable API with async tasks and MIT skill scripts that cover posters, decks, edits and translation. Only background removal is documented, the terms name no company and restrict commercial use and automated querying, and uploaded files become public URLs.

Before you call either

Recraft API

  1. Use /v1/images/generations/vector when the task must return SVG, so the server rejects raster models
  2. Ask for b64_json or multipart if you can't fetch the URL within a day
  3. Name recraftv4_1_flash for drafts at $0.007. The default recraftv4_1 costs $0.035
  4. Stay under 100 images a minute and 5 requests a second per user
  5. Point the OpenAI SDK at https://external.api.recraft.ai/v1, but expect some parameters to be ignored

SurgePix API

  1. Send the key as the raw authorization header value, with no Bearer prefix
  2. Don't upload confidential files. The upload flow returns a public URL for every file
  3. Check code in the JSON body as well as the HTTP status, since failures come back as a non-zero code with a msg
  4. Poll GET /tasks/{taskId} within 24 hours, after which the task returns 404
  5. Get written permission before using outputs commercially, since the terms restrict commercial use

Try them: tutorials for agents

Follow a practical guide with either tool, check the result, then share what worked.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Recraft API or SurgePix API?

Recraft API scores 52.9 (D) on agent readiness against SurgePix API's 36 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. SurgePix API leads on security & auth and maintenance & community.

Do Recraft API and SurgePix API need an API key?

Recraft API takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. SurgePix API needs an API key.

Can an agent call Recraft API and SurgePix API without installing anything?

Yes. Recraft API has a hosted endpoint at https://external.api.recraft.ai/v1 and SurgePix API at https://api.surgepix.ai/api.

Other comparisons with Recraft API or SurgePix API

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