A remove.bg alternative for developers
Both services do the same core job: you POST an image, you get it back with the background gone. This page sets out where CutMeOut is cheaper, where the two APIs differ, and where remove.bg is genuinely the better choice — because you will find that out eventually anyway.
The short version
On published list prices we work out cheaper per image at every tier we can compare — roughly half the cost on one-off credits. The core API parameters are the same, so a basic integration will usually migrate with a change of URL and key. In exchange you give up raw speed, some advanced parameters, and the reassurance of using the established name.
Price per image — one-off credits
Each service's own published packs. The per-image figure is the pack price divided by the credits it contains, in pence, which is the only like-for-like way to read two different sets of tiers.
| Service | Pack | Price | Per image |
|---|---|---|---|
| remove.bg | 10 credits | £8 | 80.0p |
| CutMeOut | 40 credits | £9 | 22.5p |
| remove.bg | 75 credits | £45 | 60.0p |
| remove.bg | 200 credits | £89 | 44.5p |
| CutMeOut | 200 credits | £39 | 19.5p |
| remove.bg | 500 credits | £179 | 35.8p |
| CutMeOut | 1,000 credits | £149 | 14.9p |
| remove.bg | 1,200 credits | £349 | 29.1p |
Price per image — monthly plans
| Service | Credits / month | Price | Per image |
|---|---|---|---|
| remove.bg | 40 | £8 | 20.0p |
| CutMeOut | 100 | £12 | 12.0p |
| remove.bg | 200 | £35 | 17.5p |
| remove.bg | 500 | £79 | 15.8p |
| CutMeOut | 500 | £49 | 9.8p |
| remove.bg | 1,200 | £169 | 14.1p |
| CutMeOut | 2,500 | £199 | 8.0p |
| remove.bg | 2,800 | £349 | 12.5p |
Read those tables with three caveats
1. A credit is not quite the same unit on both services. remove.bg charges a quarter of a credit for a 0.25-megapixel preview. Our previews are free, and a full-resolution render is a flat 1 credit whatever the size, up to our 30-megapixel cap.
2. Tax treatment may differ. Our prices are the total you pay — we are not VAT registered, so nothing is added at checkout. We could not determine remove.bg's VAT treatment from their pricing page, so check what you are actually charged there before treating these figures as directly comparable.
3. Prices move. remove.bg's figures were those shown to a UK visitor on 18 September 2026. Please check their current pricing rather than taking our word for it.
Where remove.bg is the better choice
Four reasons to stay where you are, and we would rather you heard them here.
| If you need… | Why they win |
|---|---|
| Speed | Our full-resolution renders take roughly 10–15 seconds because inference runs on CPU. Theirs come back in about a second. If a user is watching a spinner, that gap matters. |
| Very large images | They handle up to 50 megapixels. We cap uploads at 30 megapixels. |
| Fine-grained control | They offer crop, roi,
scale, position,
add_shadow and bg_image_url.
We have no equivalent for any of those. |
| Maturity | Official SDKs, plugins for the tools your designers already use, and years of production track record. We are a small operation and you should price that risk in. |
Where we are different
Free preview on every image
You can check the cut-out before you spend anything. A preview costs you nothing, at up to 640px on the longest edge.
Pack credits never expire
Buy a pack and use it whenever. Subscription credits are granted monthly and do not roll over — we say so plainly on the pricing page.
A failed render refunds itself
If a job fails twice we mark it failed and return the credit automatically. You do not have to notice or ask.
Deleted after 72 hours
Uploads and results are removed on a schedule, and your images are never used to train models.
Priced and run in the UK
Billing in GBP with no currency conversion, and a UK-based operation if that matters for your procurement.
Edges are the whole point
A 1024px segmentation model with edge-aware refinement and colour decontamination. It is the one thing we optimise for.
Switching the API call
Both APIs take the same core parameters. If your integration uses
image_file, image_url,
size, format or
bg_color, those behave the same way here, and an
X-Api-Key header works on both. A basic integration will usually
migrate with a change of URL and key.
# Before curl -X POST https://api.remove.bg/v1.0/removebg \ -H "X-Api-Key: YOUR_REMOVEBG_KEY" \ -F "[email protected]" \ -F "size=auto" \ -o out.png # After — the URL, the key, and size=full instead of size=auto curl -X POST https://cutmeout.uk/v1/removebg \ -H "X-Api-Key: cmo_live_…" \ -F "[email protected]" \ -F "size=full" \ -o out.png
Two differences worth knowing before you migrate. Our size takes
full or preview rather than their
auto/hd/50MP
scale. And because a render can take ten seconds or more, a synchronous call that runs past our
80-second ceiling returns 202 with a poll URL instead of image bytes —
so check the status code before you write the response to disk. The
quickstart has code that handles this properly.
Try it on your own images first
New accounts get 3 free credits, and previews are free forever — so you can compare the edge quality on your actual photographs before you move anything.
Create a free account Read the API docsremove.bg is a trademark of its owner. CutMeOut is an independently built product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or a replica of theirs. Figures on this page were taken from their public pricing page on 18 September 2026 and are reproduced for the purpose of comparison.