Midjourney vs Nano Banana for ads

What each does for ad images

Midjourney is built to hold one look across a set; Nano Banana is built to edit the photo you upload.

Midjourney steers images by style references, moodboards and personalisation codes. V8.2 has been the current model since 24 July 2026. A V8.2 edit model with instruction edits and up to 4 image references went into public testing on 27 August 2026 (updates).

Nano Banana edits uploaded photos, combines several reference images into one scene and renders short text. Nano Banana 2 is the default in the Gemini app and Flow, and Nano Banana Pro sits behind a “Redo with Pro” step on paid plans (Gemini Apps Help). Product shoots with it: Nano Banana product photography.

Which Midjourney plan does your company need?

A company with more than a million dollars a year in revenue needs Pro or Mega to own what it makes. Pro lists $60 a month, unverified, on the plan page archived 20 September 2026. Below Pro, images are also public.

Midjourney’s terms (effective 27 May 2026) say “You own all Assets You create with the Services to the fullest extent possible under applicable law”. Section 4 adds that “a company or any employee of a company” above the revenue line “must be subscribed to a “Pro” or “Mega” plan to own” its assets. Ownership survives a later downgrade or cancellation.

Below Pro, everything you make is “publicly viewable and remixable” by default, because Stealth mode starts at Pro. The full clause: the Midjourney profile.

Google states one rule for every plan: “Google won’t claim ownership over that content” (Terms of Service, 30 July 2026). The Gemini API terms add that Google “may generate the same or similar content for others”.

What an ad image costs on each

Nano Banana prices each API image; Midjourney sells GPU hours and publishes no image count, so no Midjourney cost per image exists to compare.

Midjourney’s live plan page did not load on 2 October 2026, so its prices print as unverified. The prices and plan details below come from a Wayback Machine copy of 20 September 2026 (plan comparison).

Google’s Gemini API pricing lists Nano Banana 2 at $0.067 for a 1K image, checked 2 October 2026. Input tokens are extra.

In the Gemini app, Google AI Pro at $19.99 a month gives four times the free usage limits, with no image count (Google AI plans). Every route: Nano Banana pricing, and both rows in the price tracker.

Who sees and trains on your images

Both train on what consumer users make; only Midjourney shows it to other users by default.

Midjourney’s terms (section 4) grant it a perpetual licence to your prompts and outputs, and its AB 2013 documentation (20 January 2026) lists “data our users provide through use of the Midjourney service” among its training sources. Stealth mode keeps images out of the gallery, and the documentation names no plan that leaves training.

Google uses Gemini app activity “including training generative AI models” while Keep Activity is on (Privacy Hub). The paid Gemini API does not use your prompts or responses to improve products; the free tier does. Clause by clause: Midjourney and Nano Banana in the rights matrix.

What users report about each

Midjourney users praise its look (13 of 47) and move literal work to Nano Banana or GPT Image (5 of 47). Reddit supplies 16 of the 47 Midjourney sources and 33 of the 38 Nano Banana sources.

On Midjourney, 47 public sources from October 2025 to September 2026:

• The look is the draw: “nothing else finds a look like it does” (13 of 47 sources: Reddit, G2)
• Prompts are followed loosely, so usable images take many rerolls (9 of 47 sources: Reddit, Trustpilot)
• Hands, extra fingers and plastic-looking skin still appear (7 of 47 sources: Reddit, Reddit)
• Fast hours used up in days, charges after cancelling, refunds refused (10 of 47 sources: Trustpilot, The Decoder)
• Users who need literal images move to Nano Banana or GPT Image (5 of 47 sources: Reddit, Reddit)

Midjourney V8: Did They Cook, or Are They Cooked?Theoretically Media

On Nano Banana, 38 public sources from November 2025 to September 2026:

• Product shots stay faithful to the real product (5 of 38 sources: Reddit, Reddit)
• Moderation refuses harmless edits, users’ own faces among them (5 of 38 sources: Reddit, Reddit)
• Beside Midjourney, the look reads as plain stock photography (2 of 38 sources: Reddit, Reddit)

One Midjourney user: “I just wish Nano Banana had the same style reference consistency that MJ has” (Reddit).

If neither fits

For literal images, 5 of 47 Midjourney sources report moving to Nano Banana or GPT Image 2 (GPT Image 2 vs Nano Banana). For a written commercial-safety statement, Adobe Firefly’s plans page calls outputs of its own Firefly models “safe for commercial use” (read 23 September 2026). More by job: Nano Banana alternatives and the static ad tools hub.