Can You Sell AI Art? Model Licences Explained (2026)

FLUX.1 dev is labelled non-commercial, but its own licence explicitly permits selling the images you make with it. Only the model is restricted, not the output. That single distinction decides whether the best free image model is available to your business, and most articles get it backwards.

Key takeaways

• FLUX.1 dev outputs are commercially usable. Black Forest Labs states: "You may use Output for any purpose (including for commercial purposes)."
• FLUX.1 schnell is Apache-2.0: model and output both unrestricted, the zero-ambiguity choice.
• Stable Diffusion 1.5 and SDXL use CreativeML Open RAIL-M, which permits commercial use royalty-free.
• SD 3.5 is free commercially only under $1 million in total organisational revenue, not revenue from AI work.
• Getty dropped its main copyright claims against Stability mid-trial in November 2025.

The distinction that matters: model licence vs output licence

Every AI image model carries two separate permissions, and conflating them is the most common error in this topic.

The model licence governs what you may do with the model itself: run it, modify it, redistribute it, build a service on it.

The output licence governs what you may do with the images it produces.

These are frequently different. A model can be non-commercial while its outputs are freely sellable, which is exactly the situation with the best free image model available today.

FLUX.1 dev: non-commercial model, commercial output

FLUX.1 dev is widely described as non-commercial, and readers conclude they cannot sell its images. That conclusion is wrong.

Black Forest Labs' licence states, verbatim:

"We claim no ownership rights in and to the Outputs. You are solely responsible for the Outputs you generate and their subsequent uses in accordance with this License. You may use Output for any purpose (including for commercial purposes), except as expressly prohibited herein. You may not use the Output to train, fine-tune, or distill a model that is competitive with a FLUX [dev] Model."

The restrictions are clear and narrow:

• You may not build a paid service or product around the model itself
• You may not use outputs to train a competing model

Selling prints, using images in client work, putting them on products, using them in commercial design are all permitted.

FLUX.1 schnell removes the question entirely. It is Apache-2.0, so both the model and its outputs are fully commercial with no conditions. If you want zero licensing risk, use schnell.

Stable Diffusion licences, version by version

The Stable Diffusion family is not one licence, and the differences are consequential.

SD 1.5 and SDXL use the CreativeML Open RAIL-M licence. Its operative wording:

"Except as set forth herein, Licensor claims no rights in the Output You generate using the Model."

Commercial use is permitted royalty-free. It attaches use-based restrictions in an attachment prohibiting illegal content, harassment, discrimination, disinformation and unlicensed medical or legal advice. Those restrictions travel with the model if you redistribute it.

SD 3.5 uses Stability's Community License, which is materially different. Free commercial use applies only while your organisation earns under $1 million a year in total revenue, and Stability's own wording specifies this is total revenue "regardless of whether derived from Stability's Models."

That catch trips people up constantly. Most articles describe it as revenue from AI work. It is not: it is your whole organisation's revenue. A business turning over $2 million from unrelated activities needs an enterprise licence to use SD 3.5 commercially.

Stability does state it "will never ask you to delete resulting images."

Quick reference

The hosted free tiers with catches

Local models are not the only place licensing bites. Several hosted free tiers grant less than people assume.

Leonardo's free tier grants you a non-exclusive royalty-free licence for commercial use, but its terms also state that Leonardo "holds rights to use, reproduce, modify, and distribute any images you create," and other users can access your publicly available assets through platform features. If exclusivity matters to your work, that is disqualifying.

Recraft's free tier does not give you ownership at all. Free-plan images are owned by Recraft, appear in its public community gallery, and are not licensed commercially. Its paid plans do grant ownership, worded as applying while you remain subscribed.

Microsoft Designer prohibits commercial use outright. Its terms restrict use to "personal use only and not for use in the course of trade or commerce," and Microsoft support has confirmed this applies even to paid Copilot Pro subscribers.

Where the litigation stands

Anyone selling AI art should know the legal position, which shifted meaningfully in late 2025.

In Getty Images v Stability AI, decided in the English High Court in November 2025, Getty dropped its main training and output copyright claims mid-trial, and its secondary infringement claim was rejected. The court accepted that model weights do not contain copies of the training images. Only limited trade mark findings survived.

In the United States, Andersen v. Stability AI in the Northern District of California is further along. DMCA claims were dismissed with prejudice in 2024, but direct copyright claims are proceeding, with trial scheduled for September 2026. That is current as of writing, and an outcome could change the picture, so check the status before relying on this.

The practical position today: generating and selling images from these models is legal and widely done. The unresolved questions concern how the models were trained, not what you make with them.

Can you copyright AI images?

A separate question from whether you may sell them, and the answer differs.

The US Copyright Office's January 2025 report concluded that "copyright does not extend to purely AI-generated material, or material where there is insufficient human control over the expressive elements," and stated that "prompts do not alone provide sufficient control."

So an image produced by typing a prompt is likely not protected by copyright, meaning you generally cannot stop someone copying it. The same report confirms that human authors retain copyright in "creative modifications of the outputs" and in the creative selection and arrangement of material. Meaningful editing earns protection for the parts you contributed.

Selling is permitted. Exclusivity is not guaranteed. Those are different things.

What we would actually do

If you are selling AI art: use FLUX.1 schnell (Apache-2.0) or SD 1.5. Both give clean commercial rights with no revenue threshold and no platform retaining an interest.

If you want the best free quality: use FLUX.1 dev and read the licence clause above. Its outputs are yours to sell.

If your organisation earns over $1 million: avoid SD 3.5 without an enterprise licence, and check Midjourney's tier requirements.

If you are using a free hosted tier: read the terms before selling anything, particularly on Leonardo and Recraft.

For setup and hardware requirements, see free AI image generation at home. For a comparison against paid services, read free image generation versus Midjourney.

The verdict

The single most useful thing to take from this is that "non-commercial model" does not mean "non-commercial images."

FLUX.1 dev produces the best free image output available and its licence explicitly permits selling it. A lot of people are avoiding it because they read two words and stopped. Read the actual clause, and the best free model is open to you.

Related reading: best free AI image generators and how to sell AI art on Etsy.

Pricing verified against each vendor's own pricing page in September 2026. Plans change often, so check the vendor's page before you buy.