Seedream 5.0 Flash

Seedream 5.0 Flash is an AI image generator from ByteDance, the Chinese company that created TikTok: you describe a picture or give it reference images, and it draws or edits one. It is the fast, low-cost version of Seedream 5.0, with the same features as the top Pro model, including editing by pointing at parts of an image and splitting a picture into layers, at $0.018 an image on ByteDance's BytePlus platform. BytePlus lists it among its September 2026 releases, and OpenRouter added it on 1 October 2026.

Seedream 5.0 Flash is an AI image generator from ByteDance, the Chinese company that created TikTok: you describe a picture in words, or give it reference images, and it draws or edits one. It is the fast, low-cost version of Seedream 5.0, ByteDance’s current image family, at $0.018 an image on ByteDance’s BytePlus platform. BytePlus lists it among its September 2026 releases, and OpenRouter added it on 1 October 2026.

BytePlus’s tutorial pitches Pro at work where image quality is the priority, and Flash at latency- and cost-sensitive work, because it generates images faster and costs less.

It has Pro’s features at a lower price

Seedream 5.0 Flash has “the same capabilities as Seedream 5.0 pro, including interactive editing, layer decomposition, and native multilingual generation”, BytePlus’s release notes say. It draws from a text prompt, or edits and combines up to 10 reference images. Interactive editing lets a user point at the part of an image to change, by coordinates, a box or an arrow. Layer decomposition splits a picture into a base image and up to 16 separate PNG layers with transparency, so each element can be moved or recoloured.

A generated poster: a fluffy white Bichon dog sitting on a small wooden chair on a green lawn, under huge dotted white capital letters reading PEACOCK SCREEN and a small line of text beneath. — A sample poster from BytePlus's Seedream 5.0 documentation, which covers both the Pro and Flash tiers, showing the family's text rendering. Image: BytePlus.

Prompts work in Chinese and English and 14 more languages, among them Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Thai and Vietnamese, according to BytePlus’s API reference. Flash runs prompt optimisation in standard mode only, where Pro also offers a fast mode. Both Pro and Flash allow up to 500 images a minute.

It costs $0.018 an image

BytePlus charges $0.018 per output image for Seedream 5.0 Flash, 60% less than a single Seedream 5.0 Pro image at 1.5K or below, on its pricing page read on 2 October 2026. Above 1.5K, Pro doubles to $0.09 and the gap widens to 80%. Pro’s layer decomposition costs $0.0225 at 1.5K or below and $0.045 above, while BytePlus lists one Flash price for every job. Flash takes reference images free, where Pro charges $0.003 for each one after the first. Images that fail moderation are not billed.

Model	BytePlus price per output image
Seedream 5.0 Flash	$0.018
Seedream 5.0 Pro, layer decomposition, 1.5K or below	$0.0225
Seedream 4.0	$0.03
Seedream 5.0 Lite	$0.035
Seedream 4.5	$0.04
Seedream 5.0 Pro, single image, 1.5K or below	$0.045
Seedream 5.0 Pro, layer decomposition, above 1.5K	$0.045
Seedream 5.0 Pro, single image, above 1.5K	$0.09

That makes Flash the cheapest model in the Seedream line on BytePlus. A thousand images cost $18. In China, Volcengine charges 0.12 yuan an image, about $0.018 at the Federal Reserve’s exchange rate for 25 September.

Other hosts set their own prices: OpenRouter charges the same $0.018 with image input free, Runware $0.0193, and fal and WaveSpeed $0.027.

OpenRouter's page for ByteDance Seed: Seedream 5.0 Flash, showing its description, text-to-image modality, a price from $0.018 per image and a release date of 1 October 2026, above an example output of a neon OpenRouter shop sign generated at 2048 by 2048 pixels for $0.018. — Seedream 5.0 Flash on OpenRouter, which added it on 1 October 2026. Source: OpenRouter, 2 October 2026.

Images go up to 2K

Seedream 5.0 Flash generates images at 1K, 1.5K or 2K, with 2K as the default, and custom sizes from 921,600 pixels (1280 by 720) up to about 4.62 million pixels, at aspect ratios from 1:16 to 16:1. A 1.5K image costs the same as a 1K one. For 4K output, BytePlus offers Seedream 5.0 Lite, which runs from 2K to 4K, and the older Seedream 4.5 and 4.0.

	Seedream 5.0 Flash	Seedream 5.0 Pro	Seedream 5.0 Lite
Output sizes	1K, 1.5K, 2K	1K, 1.5K, 2K	2K, 3K, 4K
Reference images	Up to 10	Up to 10	Up to 14
BytePlus price per image	$0.018	$0.0225 to $0.09	$0.035

Where to get it

Flash runs on BytePlus ModelArk outside China, with the model ID dola-seedream-5-0-flash-260915, and on Volcengine inside it as doubao-seedream-5-0-flash-260915. It is also on OpenRouter as bytedance-seed/seedream-5-0-flash, and on fal, Runware and WaveSpeed. ComfyUI, the open-source image workflow tool, supports Flash in its ByteDance partner nodes.

Flash is the cheapest Seedream model on BytePlus

Seedream 5.0 Flash costs $0.018 an image, less than any other Seedream model BytePlus sells, with the feature set Seedream 5.0 Pro brought on 8 July 2026. BytePlus positions Pro for image quality and Flash for speed and cost. For the rest of the family, see Seedream 5.0.

Questions people ask

What is Seedream 5.0 Flash?

Seedream 5.0 Flash is ByteDance's fast, low-cost image generation model in the Seedream 5.0 family. BytePlus says it has the same capabilities as Seedream 5.0 Pro, including interactive editing, layer decomposition and multilingual generation, and that it 'generates images faster and costs less', for latency- and cost-sensitive uses. BytePlus lists it among its September 2026 releases, with the model ID dola-seedream-5-0-flash-260915.

How much does Seedream 5.0 Flash cost?

BytePlus charges $0.018 per output image, on its pricing page read on 2 October 2026. That is 60% less than a single Seedream 5.0 Pro image at $0.045 for 1.5K or smaller, 80% less than Pro's $0.09 above that, and 49% less than Seedream 5.0 Lite at $0.035. Pro's layer decomposition is priced lower, at $0.0225 and $0.045. OpenRouter charges the same $0.018.

What resolution does Seedream 5.0 Flash support?

Flash generates images at 1K, 1.5K or 2K, with 2K as the default, and custom sizes from 921,600 pixels (1280 by 720) up to about 4.62 million pixels, at aspect ratios from 1:16 to 16:1, according to BytePlus's API reference. The 4K option in the Seedream family is on Seedream 5.0 Lite, 4.5 and 4.0.

Where can I use Seedream 5.0 Flash?

Through BytePlus ModelArk outside China and Volcengine inside it, and through hosts including OpenRouter, fal, Runware and WaveSpeed, each at its own price. ComfyUI supports it in its ByteDance partner nodes.