AI headshots
AI headshot generators
What they do, what they cost, and the five places they fail.
AI headshots
What they do, what they cost, and the five places they fail.
AI headshot services are not photography tools. They are the thing a client compares a photographer against, so it is worth being straight about what they do.
You upload between ten and thirty selfies. A model is trained on your face. It returns portraits you never sat for.
| Service | What you get | Price as published |
|---|---|---|
| HeadshotPro | Upload selfies, receive generated headshots. | Individual from 29 US dollars, one-time plans listed at 39 and 59 |
| Aragon AI | Same model, more output variations. | Basic 35 US dollars for 40 headshots, Standard 45 for 60 |
| BetterPic | Generated headshots with paid edit requests. | From 35 US dollars, edits 8, a redo 10 |
| Remini | Enhances and restyles a photo you already have. | Subscription |
Prices and features on this page were read from each vendor's own website on 25 September 2026. Vendors change plans often. Check the current page before you buy.
You upload a set of selfies, wait, and receive a batch of generated portraits in a studio style.
Listed from 29 US dollars for an individual, with one-time plans shown at 39 and 59.
The output is consistent across a team, which is the real selling point for a company with staff in several countries.
Backgrounds repeat across customers, so two people at different firms can end up in the same imaginary office.
The same idea with more variations per order. Basic is listed at 35 US dollars for forty headshots, Standard at 45 for sixty.
More variations means more chances of a usable frame, and more chances of an odd one reaching a profile by accident.
Check the hands and the collar on every image you keep.
Generated headshots with paid edits: the site lists 35 US dollars to start, 8 for an edit request and 10 for a redo.
Paying per fix is honest pricing for a process that needs fixes.
It also tells you something. If a result needed two edits and a redo, a session would have cost less in total time.
Remini enhances a photograph you already have rather than inventing one.
That makes it the safest of this group, because the person in the frame is the person who was there.
It still smooths skin heavily by default, so a professional portrait usually looks worse after it, not better.
You upload between ten and thirty photographs of one person.
The service trains a small model on that face and then generates new images from it.
Everything in the output that is not the face comes from the training data of the base model: the suit, the office, the light, the hands.
That split explains every failure in the category. The face is learned from you, the rest is borrowed from elsewhere.
It also explains why the same backgrounds keep appearing across different customers.
A batch of generated headshots runs between 29 and 45 US dollars on the services checked here.
A two-hour portrait session starts at 600 pounds and produces images you can license, print and publish with your name attached.
For a company photographing forty staff, the generated option is cheaper by an order of magnitude.
For one founder whose face will appear in press, the session costs less than the risk.
Hands, if any part of one is in the frame.
Ears and glasses, which drift out of symmetry.
Collars, seams and buttons, which fail to line up across the shoulder.
Hair against the background, where the edge gives the process away.
Likeness, judged by someone who knows the person rather than by the person themselves.
Speed and price. A usable profile picture in an hour for the price of a lunch.
Consistency across a remote team. Forty people in twelve countries get the same background.
That is a real job and a real answer. If that is the brief, use one.
Hands. If the frame includes a hand, look closely.
Ears, glasses and jewellery. Asymmetry appears between two versions of the same person.
Clothing. Collars and seams do not line up across the shoulder.
Likeness. The face is close, not exact, and people who know you notice within a second.
Reuse. You cannot ask the model for the same person again next year in new clothes.
Mariya's verdict. For a founder raising money, a speaker profile or a press page, a generated face is a risk. For an internal directory, it is fine.
A frame you can license, print and publish without a disclaimer.
Several looks from one sitting, and files that stay usable for years.
The comparison in detail is on AI headshots against studio portraits.
Feed it good source pictures. Even light on the face, no sunglasses, several angles.
Keep the clothing simple. Patterns and logos come back wrong.
Pick the output that looks least retouched. The glossy ones age badly.
Never use a generated portrait where a person must be identified, such as a press pass or a visa document.
A firm of twelve people needs consistent portraits. Four are in London, the rest are in three other countries.
A session for the London four costs one booking. The other eight would need travel, or eight separate local photographers with eight different styles.
Generated portraits for the remote eight cost roughly the price of one lunch each and arrive the same week.
The trade is visible if you look: the generated eight share backgrounds and lighting that the real four do not.
For an internal directory that is fine. For a press page with named partners it is not, and that is the line worth drawing in advance.
| Situation | Tool | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Internal staff directory | A generated batch | Nobody inspects it and the price is trivial |
| Remote team, one look | A generated batch | Consistency across countries in a week |
| Founder raising money | A session | A spotted fake raises a question about everything else |
| Press page or speaker profile | A session | Publications ask for a photographer credit |
| Passport, visa or press pass | A session | These require a photograph of you |
Every price and feature on this page was read from the vendor's own website on 25 September 2026.
Plans change often, and a tool that was a one-off purchase last year may be a subscription now.
Check the current page before you buy, and treat the figures here as a starting point for comparison rather than a quote.
Nothing on this page is sponsored. No vendor paid for a place in the tables, and there are no affiliate links.
This page is written by Mariya Harley, a fashion, portrait and hotel photographer working from a studio in west London.
The tools described here are the ones that reach a working photographer's desk, and the failures described are the ones that reach a client's screen.
Prices and features are read from vendor pages rather than repeated from other articles. The date of that check is printed above each table.
Nothing here is sponsored, and there are no affiliate links. A tool appears because it does the job, or because people ask about it.
What is deliberately absent: benchmark scores copied from press releases, rankings that change with the season, and any claim that software can replace direction, light or responsibility for the result.
If a price here is out of date, the vendor page wins. Tell me and I will correct it.