ngl it is kinda sad how hard it is to find the good stuff for cheap these days. unfortunately a lot of the best models have gotten super expensive or just dont give out free credits anymore... i have been doing this for years and i had some issues with the newer updates being a bit wonky lately. honestly for ten dollars your best bet is Midjourney Basic Plan 3.3 hours fast GPU time. it is exactly your budget and nothing else really touches it for cover art quality even if learning the discord thing is a total pain. if that is too much of a headache just use Microsoft Designer Image Creator DALL-E 3 since it is free for beginners. i am not as impressed with it as i used to be tho... they really nerfed the creativity but it will get the job done by tomorrow morning.

I used Adobe Firefly Premium Monthly Plan for my last cover and felt very happy. It feels safer for copyright.

• easy tools
• reliable results No complaints, it worked well.

> Adobe Firefly Premium Monthly Plan for my last cover and felt very happy. Building on the earlier suggestion, im really satisfied with Ideogram AI Plus Monthly Subscription for ebook covers. It works well because the prompt adherence for text is 10/10. For 8 dollars, you get priority rendering and high-res downloads. Honestly, no complaints here, the output quality and typography handling are basically industry leading right now. Itll definitely hit your deadline.

Lol I was literally about to post the same thing. Glad someone else brought it up.

Finally someone says it. Ive been thinking this for a while but wasnt sure.

Bookmarked, thanks!

Saw this thread a bit late but figure id throw my two cents in anyway. Ive spent a lot of time testing different sites to see what actually sticks for a long-term workflow. Honestly, Leonardo.ai Apprentice Plan is a solid choice for around ten bucks. I used it for months when I was first starting out. The interface is way more intuitive than Midjourney and you dont have to deal with Discord which is a huge plus for me. It has a feature called Canvas that lets you expand images... basically a lifesaver for ebook covers when you need extra room for the layout or spine. Compared to that, something like SeaArt.ai VIP Plan is usually cheaper and gives you tons of daily credits. It uses Stable Diffusion under the hood so you can pick very specific styles from their library. Leonardo feels more like a polished product for creators, while SeaArt is more for people who want to experiment with a million different community models. If youre in a rush and know nothing about AI, Leonardos prompt guidance is way more helpful. SeaArt can get a bit overwhelming with all the settings tho.