List of tools for creating prompts for text-to-image AI generators

How this list was made

Research ran on 23 October 2026. It covered the full November 2022 version of this list, US-English web searches, and the first page of results only from three official directories: the Chrome Web Store (16 searches, about 10 listings each), Firefox Add-ons (10 searches, the first 25 results each) and the Discord App Directory (20 searches). Official vendor pages and docs were then read for every candidate. The seven assistants and the pixexid entry were checked separately against official vendor pages the same day.

A product was included only when its official page showed a live feature and a stated cost term (free, a free quota, credits, a price, an open-source licence, or a requirement to use your own API key). For some Firefox add-ons the only cost term is the store's flag that the add-on itself does not require payment; those are labelled "install price only". Pages that were blocked, timed out or needed a login were left out, not called dead. Non-English tools, mobile-only apps, other browser stores, Discord servers and communities, further result pages and the ComfyUI and AUTOMATIC1111 extension catalogs were not covered.

So this is a curated list of 64 checked products, not a census of every prompt tool on the web. Each of the 56 retained entries was checked on 23 October 2026 by one researcher and then rechecked by a different verifier. The 7 assistant entries and the pixexid entry were read against official pages the same day. A page that loaded that day is not the same as a tested service, and the writer has not tested any feature.

Quick chooser

How to read the cost labels

Prices change, so every price below is as shown on the official page on 23 October 2026. Each tool gets a cost type, because "free" means very different things:

• Free (publisher claim): the publisher says it is free. Usage limits may not be stated.
• Free tier plus paid plans: amounts are the ones on the official pricing page.
• Credits: a credit count is not a dollar price. Where a credit's price was not stated, we say so.
• Bring your own key (BYOK): you paste an API key from an AI provider such as Google, OpenRouter or Groq. The extension may cost nothing, but the API is the provider's service under the provider's terms. It is not a free API.
• Open-source software: a licence such as MIT, Apache-2.0, GPL-3.0 or AGPL-3.0 describes your rights to the code. It is not the price of a hosted service. You supply the computer, often with a capable GPU.
• Install price only: Firefox Add-ons shows whether an add-on itself requires payment. That flag says nothing about the cost of any service the add-on uses. We include these only where the listing or its permissions indicate the function runs in your browser or on your own machine.
• Per-run estimate: Replicate shows an approximate cost per run that varies with your inputs.
• Promotional price: a discounted price shown that day. It can change at any time.
• Assistant plans: the assistant prices below are consumer chat plans in US dollars as shown on 23 October 2026. A developer API price is a different product and is never substituted for the consumer plan.
• Generation is not description: a product that edits an uploaded photo has not thereby shown it can describe one, and a product that describes uploads does not necessarily generate images. Each row states only what the vendor page showed.

Prompt galleries and style libraries

Galleries are the fastest way to learn prompt vocabulary. Read a prompt as a worked example, not a recipe: the same words can give different results on another model or version.

Prompt builders and prompt expansion

Builders help you assemble a prompt from parts. Expanders take a short idea and write a longer one. Both give you text to paste into your generator, so check that your generator understands the phrasing.

Prompt helpers inside image generators

Two generators document prompt helpers of their own. These work inside that generator, with its account and pricing.

General AI assistants that can help with prompts

The seven products below are general chat assistants, not prompt specialists. Each one can look at an image you upload or turn a short idea into a longer prompt inside a chat. What each one can actually do differs: one of the seven does not generate images at all, and free image generation is claimed only where the vendor says so. Prices are consumer plans in US dollars as shown on 23 October 2026. Developer API prices are a separate product and are never quoted here.

pixexid: a prompt library, Sema and styles

pixexid is an AI image gallery where published images show a public prompt where one is available. Copy a public prompt for any generator, pick a style, or ask Sema to help edit a prompt or photo.

• Public prompts on published images. Published image pages show a public, copyable prompt where one is available. For edits and compositions it is an adapted standalone prompt, not the exact execution prompt, and protected-source images can show none. The examples are display-only; results with your photo may vary.
• Sema. Talking to Sema is free: reading, refining and talking cost nothing. Generating an image spends credits, and the cost is always shown before you approve. A square image at standard quality costs 1 credit; other shapes cost 2. Credit packs are one-time purchases with no subscription, starting at 100 credits for $7.00 (credits). No free generation is promised.
• Style catalog. The styles pages collect looks you can browse before generating. Read the about and Sema pages for the current terms.

Image-to-prompt tools and captioners

These tools look at an image and suggest a prompt or caption. The result is a description, not the original creator's prompt. If you need the exact prompt, the file has to still contain its metadata (see the next section).

Only use images you have the right to use, and treat the suggestion as a starting point for your own prompt.

Recovering prompts from image metadata

Some generators save the prompt and settings inside the image file. A metadata reader shows that saved text exactly, which no image-to-prompt tool can do. It only works if the file still carries the data: many sites strip metadata on upload, and screenshots never have it.

Several browser extensions do the same job: see Metadata readers.

Browser extensions by purpose

Extensions put these jobs into your browser, usually as a right-click on any image. Each listing below is the publisher's description. Store dates are the "last updated" date shown on 23 October 2026; a recent date does not guarantee a listing will stay available, and an old one is worth checking before you rely on it. Names are copied from the listings; where a store name contains a long dash, it is written here with a plain hyphen.

Being named after a model, such as Midjourney or Nano Banana, does not make an extension official. Check the publisher line on each listing.

Prompt builders, enhancers and prompt collections

Image-to-prompt extensions

Most of these send the image to a remote AI service, either the publisher's or one you connect with your own key. That is how the category works, so read each listing's privacy section before you use it on anything private.

Metadata readers

These read prompts that are already saved in a file or on a page. They cannot recover a prompt that was never saved or has been stripped.

Prompt managers

Discord: what actually helps with prompts

Of the image apps found in the official Discord App Directory, only one offers a prompt helper: the Midjourney Bot's Describe command, listed as "Describes your image as a prompt". It is the same Midjourney feature covered above, so it is counted once, with Midjourney's paid plans and no free trial.

The other relevant apps in the directory are image generators. Their /imagine-style commands take a prompt you have already written and make a picture; they do not help you write or analyse prompts. They are not prompt tools, so they are not listed or counted here.

Two example images, step by step

The two illustrations below were made for this guide with an OpenAI GPT Image 2.5 family (nominal), Codex-backed image generation tool (exact served backend unreported). That tool is not pixexid, Sema, or any tool listed in this guide. Reported quality is the generator's report, not a setting we chose. Each figure shows both full texts: the exact prompt that was submitted, and the generator's rewritten rendering text. The two texts differ; the rewritten text is quoted machine provenance, not catalog copy. The two images are independent scenes with different cats, ratios, light and viewpoints: an illustration pair, not a controlled benchmark, and none of the tools in this guide produced these examples.

Figure 1: ginger cat behind a rainy window

Figure 2: small cat under a huge moon

What creators report trying

Four public posts on X, read directly, in which creators describe their own workflows. Each is quoted briefly with attribution. These are personal reports, not guarantees, and popularity is not used as proof. Reddit is not covered: read attempts there were blocked, so this guide makes no Reddit survey claim.

1. Plan with six parts. Ndidiamaka (Design and AI, @Auradesigner1, 21 October 2026) opens: "Your AI images look random because your prompts are missing these 6 things." The post then walks through subject, setting, style, lighting, camera angle and composition with examples. Treat the six parts as a planning checklist, not as a proven reason images fail.
2. Work from references, iterate fast. neeha (@neeha7777, 21 October 2026) describes combining inspiration, detail and background references for fairy-tale illustrations: "I start with an inspirational piece - currently old black and white or sepia vintage photographs." The editing note from neeha: "You have to do this as efficiently as possible or the image gets muddy." That is their observation about their workflow, including using Grok Chat to interpret intentions, not a measured model limit.
3. Expand an intention with an assistant. Eric Wenger (@metawenger, 19 October 2026) describes asking a reasoning assistant "how to expand a short intention into precise, high-quality prompts", with rules and fixed parts supplied up front and the expansion inspected before generating. "Meta-Prompt" is Wenger's name for this workflow, not a Meta AI feature or an official standard; reported results are Wenger's.
4. Continue a chat that worked. Joe.exe (@talk2_joseph, 18 May 2026) suggests: "Pro tip: If your output does not look like you, go back to your old chats where it worked before and continue the conversation from there." Take it as an iteration tactic, not a guarantee of likeness or a verified memory mechanism; the author's other assertions in that post are not repeated here.

A practical workflow

1. Collect examples. Browse a gallery for a subject like yours and note the words that recur: the medium, the light, the framing.
2. Draft a plain sentence. Black Forest Labs' FLUX guide, for example, suggests covering the subject, setting, style, lighting and composition.
3. Expand or vary it. Use a builder to swap one term at a time, or a template tool to try combinations, so you can see what each change does.
4. Learn from a reference image you are allowed to use. Run it through an image-to-prompt tool or your generator's Describe feature, then rewrite the suggestion in your own words.
5. Check for a saved prompt first. If the image came from a generator, a metadata reader may show the exact prompt, which beats any guess.
6. Keep notes per model. What works on one model or version may not carry over to the next.

Here is an illustrative prompt to start from. It was not run through any tool for this guide:

A lighthouse on a sea cliff at dusk, warm light from the lantern, soft fog over the water, wide shot from the beach below, watercolor illustration with loose brushstrokes.

Before you install an extension

• A store listing is not a security audit. Permissions, privacy statements and "runs locally" claims in this guide are the publishers' own words. We did not test or audit any extension and do not vouch that any is safe.
• Image-to-prompt extensions usually upload images. Unless a listing says the work happens in your browser, assume the image leaves your computer.
• Your own API key is a credential. It can carry charges and access to your provider account. Read the provider's terms and the extension's privacy policy before pasting one in, and remove keys you no longer use.
• Prefer listings that are recently updated and clear about their publisher. Check the "Updated" column: a listing not updated for a year or more may not work with current sites or models.

Official prompting guides worth reading

These are vendor documents, not tools, and are not part of the 64. They were checked on 23 October 2026.

• FLUX prompting guide (Black Forest Labs): suggests describing "the subject, setting, style, lighting, and composition".
• Nano Banana image generation (Gemini API docs): includes a prompting guide and strategies for generating and editing images.
• The ultimate Nano Banana prompting guide (Google Cloud blog, March 2026).
• Ideogram prompting docs: how to write a prompt for Ideogram, including the parts of a prompt, their order and length.

What changed since the 2022 version

The first version of this page, published on 17 September 2022 and expanded in November 2022, was a long categorized list of links compiled from a community thread on r/StableDiffusion, which the archived page credits as its source. It was among the links shared by participants in a Creative Commons webinar on AI outputs and the public commons in November 2022. The archived November 2022 version remains available for the historical record.

This October 2026 rewrite is a separate, new guide, not a refresh of that list. Every entry of the November 2022 version was rechecked on 23 October 2026. Twenty entries pointed to pages that are gone (domains that no longer resolve, are parked or for sale, or were repurposed, and pages that were removed), and they are not linked here. Some products appeared more than once in the old list, so that is a count of entries, not of distinct tools. Another 23 entries could not be checked because they were blocked, timed out or needed a login. They were left out without being called dead.

Several 2022 favorites still exist but now do something different, so they are not described here with their old features. A few, including PromptHero, promptoMANIA, MagicPrompt, CLIP Interrogator, img2prompt and AUTOMATIC1111, carried over after a fresh check.

This October 2026 revision adds 7 general AI assistants and 1 pixexid entry to the retained 56, with two original example illustrations and four attributed creator reports. The 20 dead and 23 unchecked entries from the 2022 list remain out.

Thanks to Ralph Nas for the original compilation, and to the r/StableDiffusion community members whose thread it drew on.