Recraft is for vectors, not photos

Recraft rows are illustration, vector, and icon jobs. They are not packshot photography. Keep Recraft for marks, glyphs, and layout-quality graphics. Leave the white-sweep bottle to a photoreal row.

That is a catalog boundary, not a slight. Recraft is good at the thing it was built for. Recraft's V4 launch post (17 February 2026) still names the unique claim: editable SVG files with structured layers and clean geometry, no tracing step. Recraft's V4 docs, re-read on 19 September 2026, call that line "the only model capable of generating editable, production-quality SVG graphics." A packshot is a photograph of a SKU you ship. Recraft is not that camera.

On this catalog as of 19 September 2026 there are twelve Recraft rows. Four of them are published model pages. The rest sit in models.json with credit numbers you can cite and no /models URL. Older posts on this site that printed Recraft V4 at 5 credits and Recraft 4.1 at 4 credits are stale. Live display prices are 4 and 3. Use the live file.

Recraft's catalog job is design

Recraft ships one capability across three generations: a design-first still. Recraft's provider roster says it in the parent note. Every Recraft model is text-to-image. The differences are generation (V3, V4, V4.1), tier, and whether the file comes back as pixels or as a vector. None of them have a duration menu. audio is null. They do not move.

The published cards already tell you the job if you read the descriptions instead of the vendor name.

Recraft V3 Image is the catalog's own line: design-first generation with clean vector-ready output, controlled brand styles, and dependable typography. "The pick for logos, icons and layout-quality graphics." Four credits, flat. Max output resolution is listed at 4K. Quality chips: SD, HD, 4K. Styles include Realistic, Artistic, and Anime. A Realistic chip is a look. It is not a studio strobe. Use V3 when the still has to sit on a brand sheet.

Recraft V4 is the later raster still with listed features design_quality, typography, and vector_style. Four credits, flat. No max output resolution is listed on this slug. Do not advertise 4K. Aspect is a designer's list, not a camera list: 1:1, 4:3, 3:4, 3:2, 2:3, 16:9, 9:16, 1:2, 2:1, 14:10, 10:14, 4:5, 5:4, 6:10. 14:10 and 6:10 exist because layouts exist. Pick the ratio of the lockup.

Recraft 4.1 Text to Image is V4.1's published raster row: high-quality generation with strong style control and consistency. Three credits, flat. No max resolution listed. Recraft released V4.1 on 14 May 2026. The V4.1 model page is where Recraft talks about quieter photorealism and new illustration styles. On Versely, this slug is still the 3-credit design still. Style control is the listed pitch. Packshot photography is not.

Recraft 4 Text to Image is the other published V4-family raster sibling at 4 credits. Same generation family, a separate slug. Same rule: it is a stills row for designed graphics.

Recraft's own prompting guide for logos and icons is the brief in one sentence: distill identity into simple, recognizable shapes that work at any scale, with minimal detail, clear geometry, and a restrained palette. That is an illustration job. A bottle on marble with condensation and a barcode is a different brief.

The vector SKUs make the split even louder. Recraft 4 Text to Vector is 7 credits. Recraft 4.1 Text to Vector is 7 credits, and the catalog line is explicit: editable SVG from a prompt, ideal for logos, icons, and illustrations. Recraft 4 Pro Text to Vector and Recraft 4.1 Pro Text to Vector are 24 credits each, for crisper paths. None of those four are published as /models pages as of 19 September 2026. You can run them from the catalog picker. You cannot send someone a model URL. A PNG that "looks vector" from a raster Recraft row is still a PNG. Paths come from a text-to-vector row.

The door for all of this is text-to-image. Name Recraft when the deliverable is a mark. Name something else when the deliverable is a photograph.

A packshot is a photograph of a SKU

A packshot, in the sense a merchant or a marketplace reviewer uses the word, is a picture of the unit you ship. White sweep or tabletop. The label that is on the bottle. The count that is on the blister. Lighting that shows the object, not a campaign mood. If legal would not hang that file as the listing photo, it is not a packshot. It is artwork.

Recraft will happily draw a bottle. Recraft's V4 launch post even uses a sage-green bottle set as a prompt-accuracy demo: three bottles and a jar, labels intact. That is Recraft arguing it can follow a product-mockup brief. It is still a generated mockup. It is not a photograph of the SKU in the warehouse.

Recraft Studio's own mockup tool is the honest version of this. How to create a mockup (Recraft docs, collections screenshot dated 4 June 2026) is about placing artwork onto product photography: apparel, packaging, devices, outdoor ads. You either drop a design onto a pre-made mockup, generate a mockup frame, or convert an existing product photo into a frame. The photograph is the substrate. The mark is Recraft's job. That is the opposite of asking Recraft to invent the listing photo.

Recraft's vectorizing docs are just as direct about the other direction. Not all images can be cleanly vectorized. Photorealistic images, 3D renders, or highly textured illustrations may produce artifacts when converted to SVG, because the format supports only simplified shapes, lines, and fills. If you needed a photo, tracing it into SVG is not a rescue. You chose the wrong file type, then asked Recraft to pretend.

On Versely, the packshot stills live on photoreal rows.

Flux 2 Max is the catalog's ultra-detailed photorealistic still: 6 credits, flat, features photorealistic and detailed. No 4K badge on that card. Use it when the brief is a product on a table, metal, glass, fabric, a bottle that has to look photographed.

Nano Banana 2 is the live Google still: 4 credits discounted from 7, text-to-image plus image-to-image plus edit-image, up to 14 references. Imagen 4 is shut down on Google's API (17 August 2026). Do not open a leftover Imagen card because an old comparison named it. Use Banana 2 when the vendor you wanted was Google. Use Flux 2 Max when the brief is a photographed bottle.

GPT Image 2 Text to Image is the high-fidelity OpenAI still: 9 credits discounted (50 percent off a 17-credit full floor), up to 4K, prompt adherence. Use it when the brief is long and specific and the object has to match the paragraph.

Those three are cameras in the catalog sense. Recraft is not. Ideogram V4 is the other design sibling: 5 credits, posters and logos, accurate text rendering. Ideogram letters a poster. Recraft draws a mark. Neither of them is the listing photograph.

Recraft's V4.1 docs do say the Utility models are the ones to go for when simplicity matters more than creative surprise, "perfect for mockups or product listing photos," with flat lighting and front-facing composition. That is Recraft Studio talking. On Versely, Recraft 4.1 Utility Text to Image is 3 credits, same as standard 4.1 T2I, and it is not published as a model page. Recraft 4.1 Utility Pro Text to Image is 17 credits, also unpublished. A Utility SKU is a lightweight raster pass with calmer defaults. It is not a camera you send to a marketplace. If the listing has to be a photograph of the unit you ship, shoot it, or generate it on a photoreal row and still treat it as a render until legal says otherwise.

Do not launder a Recraft illustration into a packshot by prompting "photoreal, 85mm, white sweep." You will get a designed picture of a bottle. The label will look like Recraft type. The plastic will look like a fill. A reviewer zooming to 100 percent will not say "that is the SKU." They will say "that is artwork."

Four published rows, eight unpublished

Count the family on 19 September 2026. Twelve Recraft rows in models.json. Four published. Eight you may cite without linking.

Published, with live credits:

• Recraft 4.1 Text to Image: 3 credits. Style control. Raster.
• Recraft V4: 4 credits. Typography, vector-style, design quality. Raster. Layout aspects including 14:10.
• Recraft V3 Image: 4 credits, 4K listed. Logos, icons, layout-quality graphics. Raster.
• Recraft 4 Text to Image: 4 credits. Raster.

Unpublished, credits only, no /models URL:

• Recraft 4.1 Utility Text to Image: 3 credits. Lightweight raster, same price as standard 4.1 T2I.
• Recraft 4.1 Utility Pro Text to Image: 17 credits.
• Recraft 4 Pro Text to Image: 20 credits.
• Recraft 4.1 Pro Text to Image: 17 credits.
• Recraft 4 Text to Vector: 7 credits.
• Recraft 4.1 Text to Vector: 7 credits. SVG. Logos, icons, illustrations.
• Recraft 4 Pro Text to Vector: 24 credits.
• Recraft 4.1 Pro Text to Vector: 24 credits.

Recraft's own API table, read the same day, bills in dollars, not Versely credits. V4 is $0.04 per image. V4 Pro is $0.25. V4 Vector is $0.08. V4 Pro Vector is $0.30. V4.1 is $0.035. V4.1 Pro is $0.21. V4.1 Vector is $0.08. V4.1 Vector Pro is $0.30. That is Recraft's bill. It is not a conversion of the credit column above. Do not write Versely credits as dollars.

Recraft's V4.1 family on Recraft's site also names Utility Vector and Utility Pro Vector. Those two SKUs are not in Versely's catalog. Do not invent them.

A Recraft alternative is the switcher from Recraft-the-app: the same Recraft rows on one credit pool, plus the rest of the stills roster. Versely vs Recraft is the format page: SVG as a file type, not a look. This page is neither of those. This page is the photography mistake. People open Recraft because it sits in an image-model list, then prompt a packshot, then wonder why the bottle looks illustrated. The list was never a camera list.

The SVG-versus-raster format job is already written: text to vector when you need an SVG, not a raster. Use that page when the question is paths versus pixels. Use this page when the question is Recraft versus a photograph. Do not collapse them. A vector file of an icon is the Recraft win. A photograph of a carton is someone else's row.

What Recraft is for, in the order the catalog actually sells:

1. An icon, a logo, a badge, a mascot, a UI glyph. Prefer a text-to-vector row when the file has to open in Figma or Illustrator. Prefer a published raster Recraft row when the file is a PNG on a slide.
2. A layout-quality graphic: a brand frame, a merch comp, a poster lockup where type sits like a designer placed it. Recraft V4 at 4 credits, or Recraft V3 Image at 4 credits if you need the 4K chip.
3. A consistent illustration style across a set. Recraft 4.1 at 3 credits is the cheap published iterate. Recraft's own brand-style tools live in Recraft Studio. On Versely you pick the row and you keep the prompt tight.

What Recraft is not for:

• A listing photograph of a physical SKU.
• Beauty-hero product photography: glass, condensation, fabric nap, metal brushing that has to look shot.
• A cinematic still you intend to pass off as a campaign photo. That is a photoreal or lighting-premium stills row.
• A clip. Empty duration list. If you needed motion, that is a later image-to-video spend on a plate you already approved, and the plate for a packshot should not have been Recraft.

The test

Hold the brief up to two questions.

First: would you open the output in Figma and recolor a path? If yes, Recraft is in the right neighborhood. If the file is SVG, you wanted a text-to-vector row. If the file is a PNG of a mark, a published Recraft raster row is enough.

Second: would a marketplace reviewer accept this as a photograph of the unit you ship? If the honest answer is no, do not open Recraft. Open Flux 2 Max at 6 credits, or Nano Banana 2 at 4 credits discounted if you already have a photo to edit onto white. If the honest answer is "it is a mockup of the label on a bottle we have not manufactured," say mockup. Recraft can draw that mockup. Recraft cannot make it a photograph by adding the word photoreal to the prompt.

A third question catches the mix: is the type the object, or is the object the object? Recraft and Ideogram will letter. Flux 2 Max will photograph. Banana 2 will iterate or edit. A pack with a readable label is two jobs if you are generating both the bottle and the type. Generate the mark on Recraft if the mark is artwork you own. Photograph or photoreal-generate the pack if the pack is the SKU. Do not ask Recraft to be both the designer and the photographer. That is how you get a cousin bottle with a cousin label.

The Recraft app is allowed to be a design studio. Recraft Studio has a canvas, a vector editor, mockup frames, and a vectorizer with a written warning about photographs. Versely is allowed to run Recraft as one family on a shared bill next to Flux and Banana 2. Living in Recraft because "it also does photos" is how a week of icon work turns into a week of bad packshots. Keep Recraft. Leave the camera.

If the job is a mark, sign up and name Recraft on text-to-image. If the job is a photograph of a bottle, name Flux 2 Max or Banana 2. Recraft stays for vectors. It does not become a camera because the prompt said product.

FAQ

Can Recraft generate a photoreal product photo?

Recraft's V4 and V4.1 docs say the raster models can emit photoreal images, and V4.1 Utility is marketed for mockups and product listing photos. On Versely that does not make Recraft a packshot row. The published Recraft cards are design-first stills (logos, icons, typography, vector-style). A listing photograph of a SKU you ship belongs on Flux 2 Max (6 credits) or Nano Banana 2 (4 credits discounted) if you are editing a real pack photo. Imagen 4 is shut down. Recraft's own vectorizer warns that photorealistic images produce artifacts when forced into SVG.

Which Recraft rows have model pages?

Four, as of 19 September 2026: Recraft 4.1 Text to Image at 3 credits, Recraft V4 at 4 credits, Recraft V3 Image at 4 credits with 4K listed, and Recraft 4 Text to Image at 4 credits. The vector SKUs (7 or 24 credits) and the Utility and Pro raster SKUs are in the catalog with those prices. They do not have published /models URLs. Do not invent them.

Recraft V4 or Recraft 4.1 for an icon?

If the icon has to be an SVG, neither published row is the file type. That is a text-to-vector SKU at 7 credits (24 on Pro), unpublished as a model page. If the icon is a PNG, Recraft 4.1 Text to Image is the cheap published iterate at 3 credits. Recraft V4 is 4 credits with the stronger typography and vector-style pitch. Recraft V3 Image is 4 credits with a 4K chip and the logos-and-icons catalog line. Pick the file type first, then the published raster row if you actually want pixels.