remove.bg is shutting down: how to choose a background remover

• The remove.bg website and accounts stop being accessible at 9:00 CET. Export your credit usage report and invoices from the Account page before then — remove.bg says they cannot be downloaded afterwards.
• All unused credits, including pay-as-you-go and monthly rollover credits, expire on that date and are not refundable. remove.bg recommends using pay-as-you-go credits before then.
• Subscriptions keep working until the cut-off and then end automatically. Annual plans get a pro-rata refund for the unused time; a final monthly renewal on or after 1 November is free.
• The self-serve API stops accepting requests. Enterprise API contracts are not affected.
• The Photoshop plugin will no longer be available, and remove.bg’s other integrations and plugins are discontinued. As the alternative to its desktop app, remove.bg points to Canva’s bulk background removal; for Photoshop it suggests Affinity, whose built-in remove.bg background removal runs on Canva AI and needs a Canva Pro subscription.

Sources: the remove.bg FAQ and General Terms and Conditions.

Costs are as shown on each vendor’s own pages when this was checked; some vary by region. A dash means the vendor’s pages do not say.

Check what your own device already does before signing up for anything.

• iPhone and iPad: touch and hold the subject of a photo, then choose Copy, Add Sticker or Share. Apple lists iPhone XS, iPhone XR and later on iOS 16 or later (Apple Support).
• Mac: Preview has a Remove Background button (Shift-Command-K), documented from the macOS Tahoe 26 edition of its guide; the Finder offers Remove Background under Quick Actions (Preview User Guide).
• Windows: the Photos app has a Background panel with Blur, Remove and Replace; Paint has one-click Background Removal (Microsoft Support, Paint).
• On the web: Adobe’s remove-background page is free with an Adobe account and a daily allowance, and accepts JPEG, PNG or WebP up to 50 MB. Adobe’s own pages disagree on this — the Express pricing FAQ calls background removal a premium feature, while the same page’s comparison table and the Firefly page list it as free (Adobe).
• Canva is where remove.bg points its users and, according to remove.bg, uses the same technology. Canva’s pages differ on the free plan: its Help Center and pricing table list background removal for paid plans, while its AI tools help page says free-plan users may need to upgrade after reaching their AI credit limit. Photos must be under 9 MB, and photos above 10 megapixels are downscaled to 10 megapixels after the background is removed (Canva Help).

• Apple: Apple’s machine-learning team describes subject lifting as an on-device neural network that predicts the mask at 512×512 and upsamples it to the photo’s resolution (Apple Machine Learning Research).
• Windows Photos: Microsoft says background separation is done locally and the data never leaves the device. Its Paint pages do not say where background removal runs.
• Photoshop: its Image Processing preferences have a Select Subject and Remove Background setting with Device and Cloud options; Adobe says Photoshop uses Device processing by default to refine selections (Adobe Help).
• rembg runs locally with downloadable models — except its optional withoutbg backend, which sends images to withoutBG’s servers. Model weights carry their own licences: the default, BRIA’s RMBG-2.0, needs a paid agreement for commercial use.
• In-browser tools such as cutoutpic download a model to your browser and run it there. You can check any of them yourself: open your browser’s developer tools, watch the Network tab and process an image.
• Uploaded: Canva, Adobe’s remove-background page and Leonardo.Ai process images you send them. Canva’s privacy policy says it may analyse uploads to provide the service and to train its algorithms and AI products, and that you can manage the use of your data for AI training in your privacy settings.

• Leonardo.Ai is the official path. remove.bg keys do not carry over: Leonardo’s announcement says you need a new Leonardo account and API key. The migration guide maps the old endpoint to a synchronous one that uses a Bearer token and JSON only — no multipart uploads and no zip or auto output formats.
• Limits and cost differ. The same announcement gives up to 100 images per minute as standard, with higher limits on request, against remove.bg’s 500. PNG output is capped at 10 megapixels. The migration guide quotes US$0.1047 per image, drawn from a pay-as-you-go balance that does not expire (pricing FAQ).
• Storage defaults differ. The migration guide describes remove.bg as storing nothing, while Leonardo by default keeps inputs and outputs in your library and CDN. Setting ephemeral to true avoids that, and only the synchronous API supports it; usage is metered either way.
• Self-hosting: rembg includes an HTTP server (the rembg s command) that you run yourself. For in-browser processing, @imgly/background-removal is free under the AGPL, with other licences on request; by default it fetches its model and WASM files from IMG.LY’s servers unless you host them.
• Enterprise API contracts are not affected and continue as normal. Leonardo’s announcement asks enterprise-agreement customers to contact Leonardo for setup.

• Good fit: occasional cutouts, images you would rather not upload, and anyone who does not want another account.
• Limits: the free preview is capped at 1280 px on the longer side; images are processed one at a time; there is no API; input is JPEG, PNG or WebP up to 12 MB, so HEIC photos need converting first.
• Quality: the models are from the U²-Net family. Loose hair tends to merge into a solid edge; with WebGPU a refined pass gives a tighter outline. A paid full-resolution export is planned but not open yet.

If you need batch processing, an API or output larger than 1280 px today, one of the other options will fit better.

• Use up the credits you have paid for — they are not refundable.
• Export your credit usage report and invoices from the Account page — remove.bg says they cannot be downloaded afterwards.
• If you use the self-serve API, create a Leonardo account and test the new endpoint, or plan a self-hosted replacement.
• Try two or three candidates on your hardest images — hair, glass, low contrast — before you commit.

• remove.bg FAQ · General Terms and Conditions · API page
• Leonardo.Ai: remove-bg model · migration guide · pricing FAQ · announcement (archived 9 September 2026)
• Canva Help: Background Remover · Canva Help: AI tools pages · Canva pricing (US) · Canva privacy policy
• Adobe remove background · Adobe Express pricing · Photoshop Remove Background · Photoshop processing preferences
• Apple Support: lift a subject · Preview User Guide · Apple Machine Learning Research
• Windows Photos · Paint
• rembg · GIMP Foreground Select · Photopea Remove BG · @imgly/background-removal