TL;DR: Ideogram 2.0 AI Image Generator for labels with text or Tensor.art Daily Free Credits for general art. Since you are making candle labels, you definitely want Ideogram 2.0 AI Image Generator. It is seriously the king of typography right now and I have been so satisfied with the results for my own branding stuff. Their free tier is decent for a few gens a day. If you need more volume, SeaArt.ai Online Image Generator is my secret weapon. They give you a ton of free daily credits and the quality is basically on par with the big guys. I havent paid a subscription in months because between those two, I get everything I need for zero dollars. It is a total lifesaver when you are trying to keep costs low for a small shop. Good luck with the holiday rush!

Yo! Like someone mentioned, running things locally is the dream, but I remember when I was starting out and my hardware just couldn't handle the VRAM requirements. I spent weeks hunting for alternatives and fell in love with Playground AI Pro Plan. Even their free tier is totally insane for budget users because it lets you use massive models with tons of custom filters! I used it for a project last month and the speed was just fantastic!! If you want more control, I really recommend checking out SeaArt.ai VIP Membership which is like 10 bucks. It is basically a cloud-based interface for Stable Diffusion but way more user friendly! I love it because you can tap into the whole library of models without needing a top tier GPU. Quick tip: Stick to SDXL Lightning or Turbo models. They use fewer sampling steps, meaning you get images faster and way cheaper than standard XL!

honestly, running Stability AI Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 locally on your machine is the ultimate budget move since its totally free. i am super satisfied with how it handles 1024x1024 base resolution without any monthly fees. if you want cloud-based, Leonardo.ai Free Tier 150 Tokens is a solid bet for labels. it works well for me and i havent had any complaints about the output quality at all.

Re: "TL;DR: Ideogram 2.0 AI Image Generator for labels..." - i totally agree with the shoutout for Ideogram because getting text right on labels is such a headache. if you want something super stable and free though, i have been really happy with a couple of other options that haven't let me down yet.

• Microsoft Designer Image Creator is my go-to when i just want something that works. it uses the DALL-E 3 tech so the quality is high, and you get free daily boosts. i havent had any issues with it being glitchy or weirdly blocky like the chatgpt version sometimes gets.
• Adobe Firefly Free Plan is probably the most reliable bet for a business. it gives you 25 monthly credits for free and since its trained on licensed assets, i feel way better using it for stuff i am actually selling. i have been using these for a while now and honestly i have no complaints. they just work. it definitely takes the stress out of the holiday rush when you dont have to worry about another sub hitting your bank account... let me know if you need help with prompts for these!