Remove.bg

Remove.bg is a specialized web service and API that isolates the subject of a photo and strips out the background in a single step. It is owned by Canva Austria GmbH and is aimed at people who need clean cutouts for product shots, portraits, and marketing graphics without opening an image editor.

According to remove.bg's own FAQ, the standalone service is being retired: from December 1, 2026 at 9:00am CET, the remove.bg website, accounts, self-service API, Photoshop plugin, desktop app, and other integrations and plugins will stop working. Background removal moves into Canva, which the FAQ says uses the same background-removal technology, while API access moves to Leonardo.ai, also owned by Canva. Enterprise API contracts with remove.bg are unaffected by the shutdown.

Until the shutdown, you can still upload an image or paste a URL and get an automatic cutout in a few seconds. It handles hair, fur, and semi-transparent edges reasonably well, supports transparent PNG output, and offers a browser tool, desktop and mobile apps, an API, and integrations such as Photoshop and Figma, all of which are scheduled to end on December 1, 2026.

Pricing is built around credits. A free account currently gives low-resolution web previews capped at 0.25 MP, plus the first 50 API or app calls each month at no charge, both of which disappear when the service closes. Pay-as-you-go credits remain valid only until the December 1, 2026 shutdown, when any unused credits expire; per-image cost ranges from about $1.00 on the smallest 3-credit pack down to roughly $0.21 on the largest 8,000-credit pack. Subscription plans can be billed monthly or at a lower per-month rate if paid annually, and subscription credits are valid only within their billing month with no rollover: the Personal tier is $9 per month billed monthly, or $8.10 per month billed yearly, for 40 credits; Professional plans range from 200 credits at $39 per month billed monthly (or $35.10 per month billed yearly) up to 5,000 credits at $589 per month billed monthly (or $530.10 per month billed yearly); and Business plans scale further, up to 75,000 credits at $5,450 per month billed monthly (or $4,905 per month billed yearly). Annual subscribers will get an automatic pro-rata refund when the service shuts down, and monthly subscriptions end automatically, with any final renewal on or after November 1, 2026 provided free.

The main limitation now is the looming shutdown itself: every standalone feature, including the free preview tier, stops working on December 1, 2026, and account data and invoices will only be accessible until that cutoff. Even before then, downloads require paid credits above the 0.25 MP preview cap, and complex edges, busy backgrounds, or low-contrast subjects can still need manual touch-ups.

Remove.bg currently suits e-commerce sellers, marketers, and designers who need fast, consistent cutouts at scale right now, but anyone planning longer-term workflows should plan to move to Canva's built-in Background Remover (available on Canva Pro, Business, Education, and Nonprofits plans) or to Leonardo.ai's API before the December 1, 2026 shutdown.