You need a remove.bg alternative because the standalone remove.bg site is being retired: background removal moves into Canva, and the API moves to Leonardo.Ai, on 1 December 2026. This guide covers what changes, what remove.bg costs while it still runs, and how to move a cutout workflow over in an afternoon.
The replacement you pick depends on which remove.bg you were using. A one-off cutout, an API in production, and a Photoshop plugin are three different problems, and no single product covers all three. Aihangsoft's Background Remover is a one-off and small-batch replacement, but it is a Cloud AI tool that uploads your image, and it is metered rather than unlimited, so it is not a like-for-like free swap.
Everything below was checked against remove.bg's own FAQ, API page and pricing page on 1 October 2026, and against our tool's source code. Where a number could not be verified, it is marked as such rather than guessed.
Most lists of remove.bg alternatives were written before the closure notice went up, so they compare features that are about to move. This page starts from the primary source, then covers the decisions that cost money: the credit balance, the API, and which replacement fits which job.
Background Remover
One-click AI cutout with General, People and Products scenes, an optional outline, and transparent PNG or WebP output. A Cloud AI tool, so your image is uploaded for processing.
What remove.bg's own pages say about the closure
Start with the company's own words. remove.bg's FAQ now opens with a notice that it is migrating its background removal into the Canva platform, and its API page is more specific: background removal moves to Leonardo.Ai, also part of Canva, starting 1 December 2026. Both were read on 1 October 2026. The consumer destination and the developer destination are two different products, so a Canva plan does not answer an API question.
Three separate things happen on the same morning, and they are easy to confuse.
| What you used | Where it goes | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| The remove.bg website for one-off cutouts | Background removal moves into Canva | A new home and a new account, not a straight continuation |
| The remove.bg API from code | Leonardo.Ai, with its own auth and pricing | New endpoint, new key, new rate limits, and a test cycle |
| A credit balance or unused subscription | Reported to expire rather than transfer | Spend the backlog before 1 December rather than saving it |
The exact cutoff time is widely quoted as 09:00 CET, attributed to remove.bg's pricing page and terms. Verify it on remove.bg itself before scheduling around it, because that banner text has been revised more than once.
What remove.bg costs while it is still running
remove.bg bills in credits and keeps a free path separate. Free previews on its website are unlimited, and a preview is a cutout capped at roughly 0.25 megapixels, about 625 by 400 pixels. A free account adds one free full-resolution credit and fifty free API previews a month.
The paid ladder is credit based. Subscriptions have started from about $9 a month for 40 credits, roughly $0.23 an image, and pay-as-you-go has run from $1.99 for a single credit down to about $0.21 at volume. One full-resolution cutout costs one credit, and a preview costs a quarter credit through the API or an app. Those figures were read from remove.bg's pricing page on 1 October 2026, and prices are the kind of thing a vendor changes without ceremony, so check the current page before you budget on them.
The API is the part that breaks
For a script that posts to an endpoint every night, this is not a rename, it is a replacement. The endpoint changes, the authentication header changes from a remove.bg key to a bearer token, and existing credentials are reported not to carry over, while rate limits and pricing are Leonardo's. If anything of yours is in production, look for the old host and header, list every service that calls it, and migrate and test before the deadline, because there is no grace period once the old endpoint stops answering.
How the Aihangsoft Background Remover differs
Our replacement is deliberately narrower than remove.bg, and the first thing to know is that it is not one of the private browser tools. It is a Cloud AI tool: your image is uploaded to our server, forwarded to Volcengine AI MediaKit, and the result is deleted after about thirty minutes. That is the same trade remove.bg asks for, without the claim that the file never leaves your machine.
It offers three scenes and a few built-in extras. General finds the main subject and handles most photos. People is tuned for portraits and hair, Products for goods and packaging, and those two also expose an outline, in any colour and from 1 to 100 pixels wide, plus a trim option that crops the empty transparent space. Output is PNG by default, WebP for a smaller transparent file, or JPEG when transparency is not needed.
The limits are simple. Each file can be up to 30 MB, and the accepted formats are PNG, JPG, WebP, TIFF and BMP. The General scene allows a 10240 pixel long edge, a 6000 pixel short edge and under 40 megapixels overall, while People and Products are stricter at 7680 by 4320. There is no automatic downscaling, so an oversized file is refused rather than quietly shrunk. Batch size follows the plan: one image per run as a guest, three on a free account, ten on Pro.
| remove.bg (while it still runs) | Aihangsoft Background Remover | |
|---|---|---|
| Where your image goes | Uploaded to remove.bg's cloud | Uploaded to our server, forwarded to Volcengine AI MediaKit |
| Free path | Unlimited previews up to 0.25 MP, plus one free full-resolution credit | One run a day as a guest, five credits a day signed in |
| Paid entry point | From about $9 a month for 40 credits | Free account, then $6 a month for 1,500 credits |
| Cost per full-res cutout | One credit, about $0.23 at the entry subscription | One credit, covered by the five free daily credits |
| Output formats | PNG, JPG, WebP, ZIP | PNG, WebP, JPEG |
| Input and ceiling | JPG or PNG up to 22 MB, resized above 50 MP | PNG, JPG, WebP, TIFF, BMP up to 30 MB, under 40 MP |
| Automation | Public API, Photoshop and Figma plugins, desktop bulk app | None. Browser only, up to ten images per run on Pro |
How to move a cutout workflow over
If your use is occasional rather than automated, the switch is short. Do it in this order so you do not spend a credit learning the interface.
- Sign in before you upload anything. A guest gets one run a day and one image per run, while a free account gets five credits a day and three images per run. Signing in is the one action that raises the limit, and it costs nothing.
- Pick the scene on the first attempt. Scene choice decides the edge quality and which extras you may touch, because outline and trim only appear in People and Products. A General cutout that then needs a border has to be run again, which is a second credit for the same image.
- Download before you leave the page. The result is held on the server for a short window and then deleted, so pull the PNG or WebP straight away and check it on a checkerboard background, where a transparent edge is easier to spot.
If you keep a remove.bg balance, treat the deadline as a reason to clear a backlog rather than to wait and see. Batch the images you already owe clients, then move the routine work across. Our companion guide to the free allowance covers the credit maths, and the pricing page lists what each Cloud AI run costs.
When remove.bg, or another service, is still the better choice
This page does not pretend remove.bg has nothing left to offer. If any of these describes your work, switching to a browser tool would be a downgrade.
- You automate cutouts from code. remove.bg has a public API and Aihangsoft has none, and a website cannot be called from a nightly job. A pipeline needs an API, whether that is Leonardo, an e-commerce specialist, or a self-hosted open model.
- You work inside a design tool. The Photoshop and Figma plugins remove a background without leaving the canvas. A round trip through a browser tab is fine for one image and annoying for fifty.
- You process large volumes in one sitting. remove.bg offers a desktop bulk app and an API rate of up to 500 images a minute, while our ceiling is ten images per run on Pro.
- Your files are very high resolution. remove.bg accepts up to 50 megapixels, our General scene tops out at 40, and People and Products lower still, so a large format scan may be refused.
- You already pay for Canva. If the cutout lands inside a subscription you already hold, that may be the cheapest path for casual use, and there is no reason to add a second tool.
What the Aihangsoft Background Remover cannot do
Read these before you invest a batch.
- It uploads your image. Of the 49 tools on Aihangsoft, 45 run entirely in your browser and never transmit a file. This is one of the four that does. Do not send identity documents, medical images or confidential client work.
- There is no manual retouch. No brush for a missed strand of hair, and no way to choose between two subjects in one frame. An automated cutout either works on your photo or it does not.
- It removes a background, it does not replace one. The output is a transparent subject. Placing it on a new colour or scene is a separate step, and remove.bg's background replacement has no equivalent here.
- JPEG output has no transparency. It fills everything the AI removed with solid black, so use PNG or WebP whenever the cutout has to sit on its own background.
- The free allowance is small. One run a day as a guest and five credits a day signed in. It is built for occasional use, not a product catalog.
- Results are temporary. The server keeps a result for a short window and then deletes it, so a missed download means spending another credit.
- Outline and trim are gated by scene. A General cutout cannot be given a border or cropped to the subject without being re-run in People or Products.
If you would rather not upload anything
Where a cutout is only part of the job, our browser tools can help without an upload. The Image Cropper runs entirely in the browser and can frame a finished cutout after you download it, and the Image Compressor shrinks a transparent PNG or WebP locally so a listing loads faster. Neither one removes a background, so if that is the step you need and the image is sensitive, keep it on your own device.