Using AI image generators for commercial work is generally possible, but safety depends on three things you control: the tool's own terms, how much human editing you add, and whether your final image accidentally resembles someone else's protected work.
The tool itself won't usually get you in trouble; the way you use its output can. So the honest answer is "it depends, and the dependency is on your process, not on the generator's brand."
Start with the terms of service, because that's the only place the rules actually live. Every platform writes its own policy on who owns the output and what you're allowed to do with it, and those policies change. According to our AI tool database, Midjourney's plans run from a Basic tier at $10 per month up to a Pro tier at $60 per month, with a Mega tier at $120 per month on the V7 listing, and the database rates the tool 4.8 out of 5 for output quality.
None of that tells you what you may sell. You have to open the vendor's licensing page yourself and read the section on commercial use, because a high quality score says nothing about rights. The same is true for Adobe Photoshop, which the database lists at $20.99 per month standalone, with a Photography Plan at $9.99 per month and an All Apps plan at $54.99 per month, and which includes Firefly AI Generative Fill and related editing tools.
Adobe publishes its own terms for Firefly output; read those directly rather than trusting a summary, including this one.
Here's a concrete example of how the process matters more than the tool. Suppose you generate a product mockup with Midjourney, then bring it into Photoshop and use Generative Fill to swap the background, adjust the lighting, and composite your real product photo into the scene. You now have a file with substantial human direction: your composition, your edits, your product.
That's a very different situation from downloading a raw generation and selling it as a poster. The first is a design you made with AI assistance. The second is closer to reselling the model's output.
Which one a client or a platform will accept often turns on that distinction, so keep your layered files and your edit history. If a dispute ever arises, the ability to show your working process is the most useful thing you own.
The limits are real, and you should not paper over them. First, terms of service change without much warning, so a license that allowed commercial use last year may not allow it now; re-check before every major project, not once. Second, AI output can resemble existing work in ways neither you nor the model intended, especially if you prompt with an artist's name or a franchise.
Avoid naming living artists or trademarked characters in prompts, and run a reverse image search on anything you plan to sell. Third, and this is the part most guides skip: copyright protection for purely AI-generated images is unsettled and varies by country. Some jurisdictions require meaningful human authorship before they'll register a work.
That doesn't stop you from selling an image, but it may stop you from stopping someone else from copying it. If exclusivity matters to your business, treat AI generation as a starting point and add enough of your own creative work that the result is genuinely yours. When the stakes are high, a lawyer who knows your country's rules is worth more than any blog post.
A practical tip that saves people real grief: keep a simple project log. For each commercial image, note the tool, the date, the prompt, and the edits you made. It takes two minutes and it turns a vague "I think I'm allowed to use this" into a documented chain you can show a client.
If you want to go deeper on protecting yourself while using these tools, see How to Use AI With Your Privacy Intact and Is prompt engineering for AI writing safe, or can it accidentally create biased or harmful content?.