Midjourney License Explained: Commercial Use, Ownership, and the Fine Print (2026)

Midjourney is the most popular AI image generator for creative professionals — and one of the most misunderstood when it comes to licensing. The terms seem simple on the surface, but there are traps that catch even experienced users.

Here's everything you need to know about using Midjourney commercially in 2026.

Free vs. Paid: A Hard Line

Midjourney draws an absolute boundary between free and paid users.

Free trial users get no commercial rights whatsoever. Images generated during a free trial are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0). You can share them with visible attribution to Midjourney, but you cannot sell them, use them in ads, put them on products, or use them in any way that generates revenue.

All paid subscribers — Basic ($10/mo), Standard ($30/mo), Pro ($60/mo), and Mega ($120/mo) — get full commercial rights. You can sell prints, create client work, use images in marketing campaigns, put them on merchandise, and monetize them however you want.

There's no middle ground and no ambiguity here. If you didn't pay, you can't profit.

The $1 Million Rule

This is the restriction most people miss.

If you work for — or own — a company with more than $1,000,000 in annual gross revenue, you must be on a Pro ($60/mo) or Mega ($120/mo) plan to use Midjourney commercially. Basic and Standard plans are not sufficient.

Key details that matter:

The threshold is based on gross revenue, not profit. A company doing $1.2M in revenue but losing money still needs Pro or Mega.

It applies to the entire corporate entity, not your department or team. If you're a freelance designer at a $5M agency, your personal Midjourney account needs to be on a Pro plan — even if you're only generating images for internal brainstorming.

It's based on the prior calendar year's revenue. If your company crossed $1M last year, you need to upgrade now.

Using a Basic or Standard plan for a company above the threshold violates Midjourney's terms. In practice, Midjourney doesn't actively audit this, but it puts you in breach of contract — which matters if a licensing dispute ever arises.

Your Images Are Public by Default

This surprises many commercial users. On Basic and Standard plans, every image you generate is publicly visible in Midjourney's community gallery and can be found by other users.

Other users can view your images, your prompts, and even remix your creations to make new images. You grant Midjourney a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free license to reproduce, display, distribute, and create derivative works from your content and prompts.

Stealth Mode — which keeps your images out of the public gallery — is only available on Pro and Mega plans. If you're doing client work, developing products, or generating anything you want to keep confidential, you need at least a Pro plan.

Even with Stealth Mode enabled, Midjourney retains the right to use your content for service improvement. Your images are private from other users, but not from Midjourney itself.

Ownership: What "You Own It" Actually Means

Midjourney's terms state that you own all assets you create "to the fullest extent possible under applicable law."

That phrasing is deliberately careful, because there's a big asterisk:

U.S. copyright law may not protect purely AI-generated images. The Copyright Office has consistently held that copyright requires human creative authorship. If you typed a prompt and Midjourney did the rest, the resulting image may not be copyrightable.

What this means in practice:

You can use Midjourney images commercially — Midjourney's license gives you that right. But if someone copies your image, you may not have the legal standing to sue them for copyright infringement. You have a commercial use right from Midjourney, but you may not have copyright ownership recognized by law.

The more human creative work you add — editing in Photoshop, compositing multiple outputs, adjusting colors and layout — the stronger your copyright position becomes. Raw AI output is legally weaker than AI output substantially modified by a human.

No Indemnification

Unlike Adobe Firefly (which offers IP indemnification on paid plans), Midjourney provides zero indemnification on any plan.

If a third party claims your Midjourney image infringes their copyright, trademark, or other IP rights, Midjourney won't defend you, cover legal costs, or pay damages. You're entirely on your own.

For personal projects and small-business marketing, this risk is manageable. For Fortune 500 ad campaigns, product packaging, or high-visibility commercial work, the lack of indemnification is a real concern — and it's why some agencies have switched to Adobe Firefly for client-facing AI imagery.

What You Can and Can't Do

Use Case	Allowed?
Sell prints of Midjourney art	✅ Yes (paid plans)
Use in client work and deliverables	✅ Yes (paid plans)
Use in ads and marketing materials	✅ Yes (paid plans)
Put on merchandise (t-shirts, mugs)	✅ Yes (paid plans)
Submit to stock photo platforms	✅ Yes (check platform's AI policy)
Use at a company with >$1M revenue on Basic plan	❌ No — need Pro or Mega
Sell images from a free trial	❌ No — non-commercial only
Keep images private on Basic/Standard	❌ No — need Pro for Stealth Mode
Register copyright on a raw AI image	⚠️ Unlikely under current law
Claim indemnification if sued	❌ No — not offered on any plan

Midjourney vs. Other AI Image Tools

Feature	Midjourney	DALL-E/ChatGPT	Adobe Firefly	Stable Diffusion
Free commercial use	❌ No	✅ Yes	Limited	✅ Yes (older models)
Paid commercial use	✅ All plans	✅ All plans	✅ Paid CC plans	✅ Yes
IP indemnification	❌ No	Enterprise only	✅ Yes ($10K cap)	❌ No
Revenue threshold	$1M (Pro/Mega)	None	None	$1M (SD 3.5+)
Images public by default	✅ Yes	❌ No	❌ No	N/A (local)
Best for	Aesthetic quality	Ease of use	Legal safety	Customization

The Bottom Line

Midjourney's commercial terms are generous for paid users — you can do almost anything with the images you generate. But three things trip people up:

The $1M rule means larger companies can't use cheaper plans. Public-by-default images mean confidential work requires Pro or Mega. No indemnification means you carry all the legal risk if something goes wrong.

For most individual creators and small businesses, Midjourney is an excellent tool with clear commercial terms. For enterprise use or high-stakes commercial work, the lack of indemnification and privacy controls on lower tiers are worth weighing against alternatives like Adobe Firefly.

For the full picture of AI image licensing across all platforms, see our complete AI commercial use guide.