{"schema":"postcutoff/model@1","as_of":"2026-10-25T23:49:00+01:00","url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/mai-image-2-6-flash/","md":"https://postcutoff.com/m/mai-image-2-6-flash/index.md","disclosure":{"written_by":"AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code)","editor":"human editor","policy":"https://postcutoff.com/about/"},"license":null,"id":"mai-image-2-6-flash","name":"MAI-Image-2.6-Flash","org":"Microsoft","family":"MAI-Image","released":"2026-09-04","status":"preview","type":"image-gen","modality_in":["text","image"],"modality_out":["image"],"open_weights":false,"model_license":"proprietary","context_window":null,"max_output":null,"knowledge_cutoff":null,"pricing":{"text_input":1.75,"image_input":2.5,"image_output":19,"unit":"USD per 1M tokens (OpenRouter listing, provider Azure); Artificial Analysis estimates ~$19.5 per 1,000 images at 1024x1024","source":"https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/images/models/microsoft/mai-image-2.6-flash/endpoints"},"price_line":"$1.75 text in, $19 image out per 1M tokens","access":[{"provider":"Microsoft Foundry (Foundry Models sold by Azure)","model_id":"MAI-Image-2.6-Flash","endpoint":"https://<resource-name>.services.ai.azure.com/mai/v1/images/generations","docs":"https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/how-to/use-foundry-models-mai-image"},{"provider":"Microsoft Foundry (image edits)","model_id":"MAI-Image-2.6-Flash","endpoint":"https://<resource-name>.services.ai.azure.com/mai/v1/images/edits","docs":"https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/how-to/use-foundry-models-mai-image"},{"provider":"OpenRouter","model_id":"microsoft/mai-image-2.6-flash","endpoint":"https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/images"},{"provider":"Web app (MAI Playground)","url":"https://playground.microsoft.ai/"}],"capabilities":[{"name":"Low-cost, fast tier of MAI-Image-2.6","detail":"Same generation and editing capabilities as MAI-Image-2.6 at lower cost; Microsoft claims 2.8x faster than GPT-Image-2-Medium with '72% greater efficiency' (metric not defined).","first":false,"discovered":"launch","source":"https://microsoft.ai/news/pushing-the-quality-cost-frontier-with-mai-image-2-6/"},{"name":"Bing web grounding and auto aspect ratio","detail":"Supports web_grounding (Bing Search context) and auto_aspect_ratio, like MAI-Image-2.6; up to 2,359,296 px output (1536x1536 equivalent).","first":false,"discovered":"launch","source":"https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/how-to/use-foundry-models-mai-image"},{"name":"Up to five reference images for edits","detail":"Edits API accepts up to five JPEG/PNG references for multi-image composition and precise local edits.","first":false,"discovered":"launch","source":"https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/concepts/models-sold-directly-by-azure"}],"entry":"2026-09-04-microsoft-mai-image-2-6","notes":"Artificial Analysis text-to-image leaderboard (read 2026-10-25): #10, Elo 1119, listed release Sep 2026, $19.5 per 1k images (https://artificialanalysis.ai/text-to-image/arena/leaderboard-text). AA image-editing leaderboard: tied 3-7, Elo 1144 (https://artificialanalysis.ai/image/leaderboard/editing). Foundry model version 2026-07-31, Global Standard, public preview; same RPM limits as MAI-Image-2.6. Microsoft's model page calls it 'less than half the price of our flagship model'. No official Azure price page found: token prices are from OpenRouter's Azure-provider listing.","verified":"2026-10-25","body_md":"Faster, cheaper variant of MAI-Image-2.6 for high-throughput image generation and editing.\n\nDeploy `MAI-Image-2.6-Flash` (version 2026-07-31) in Foundry and call `/mai/v1/images/generations` with your deployment name as `model` (same request shape as MAI-Image-2.6).\n\nSources:\n- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/how-to/use-foundry-models-mai-image\n- https://microsoft.ai/news/pushing-the-quality-cost-frontier-with-mai-image-2-6/\n- https://microsoft.ai/models/mai-image-2-6/\n- https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/images/models/microsoft/mai-image-2.6-flash/endpoints","page_url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/mai-image-2-6-flash/","standing":{"kind":"image generation","newer_count":6,"newer":[{"id":"flux-3-image-klein","name":"FLUX 3 Image Klein","org":"Black Forest Labs","released":"2026-10-15","page_url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/flux-3-image-klein/"},{"id":"krea-3","name":"Krea 3 (Fast / High / Ultra modes)","org":"Krea","released":"2026-10-15","page_url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/krea-3/"},{"id":"gemini-nano-banana-2-1","name":"Nano Banana 2.1 (Gemini Nano Banana 2.1)","org":"Google DeepMind","released":"2026-10-06","page_url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/gemini-nano-banana-2-1/"},{"id":"qwen-image-2-1","name":"Qwen-Image-2.1","org":"Alibaba (Qwen)","released":"2026-09-20","page_url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/qwen-image-2-1/"},{"id":"gpt-image-2-5-flare","name":"GPT Image 2.5 Flare","org":"OpenAI","released":"2026-09-08","page_url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/gpt-image-2-5-flare/"}],"before":null,"after":null,"weights":"closed","licence":"proprietary","licence_permissive":false,"summary":"Closed weights; access is hosted only."}}