by ByteDance
Seedream 5.5 review, pricing and limits
ByteDance Seed's image model for repeated edits and transparent-background assets, ranked on Artificial Analysis above its predecessor and below three rivals.
- Best for
- Transparent-background assets such as stickers, character sets and logos
- Not for
- Highest overall text-to-image quality
Should you use Seedream 5.5?
Seedream 5.5 is ByteDance Seed's image model with native RGBA output and edit sessions that Seed demonstrates over 100 rounds. Artificial Analysis gives it 1135 Elo for text-to-image and 1159 for editing, up from Seedream 5.0 Pro's 1102 but below GPT Image 2.6, so it suits asset work rather than top overall quality.
Best for
- Transparent-background assets such as stickers, character sets and logos Seed says it outputs RGBA images directly, with full and partial transparency, from text or reference images.
- Iterating on one image over many edits Seed's demo applies many successive edits with unedited regions preserved, a vendor result no outside lab has repeated.
- Dense small text in English and Chinese Seed reports severe text corruption of 0.4% and minor corruption of 1.7% in its own evaluation.
Not for
- Highest overall text-to-image quality On Artificial Analysis, GPT Image 2.6 Sunburst (max), Nano Banana 2.1 and MAI-Image-2.6 all score higher.
- Production APIs that need a stable model ID and published price BytePlus's price list and try-it links did not carry a Seedream 5.5 entry when read on 11 November 2026.
- Self-hosted or audited deployments Seed publishes no weights, architecture or training data.
Can you use Seedream 5.5?
- Dola chat: yes. Linked from Seed's English Seedream 5.5 page as a place to try it; plans not stated.
- Doubao: yes. Named on Seed's Chinese page as the place to try Doubao; plans not stated.
- Volcano Engine AI experience centre: yes. Offered as an AI experience centre alongside it; plans not stated.
- Free plan: not published.
Checked 11 Nov against ByteDance's own pages.
Seedream 5.5 pricing
- Pricing model
- per-image
- Free tier
- No
Hokai shows no official rate: ByteDance's pages give no per-image API price for Seedream 5.5. The BytePlus list opened on 11 November 2026 names earlier models only; Seedream 5.0 Pro there costs $0.045 per image up to 2.61 million pixels. Artificial Analysis measures $19.50 per 1,000 images for text-to-image and $27.00 for editing.
What Seedream 5.5 can do
Seedream 5.5 is ByteDance Seed's image generation and editing model, released on 9 November 2026, with native transparent-background (RGBA) output. Seed reports a +55.62% preference score over Seedream 5.0 Pro for image-to-image realism in its own test. Access runs through Doubao, Dola and BytePlus.
What goes in and what comes out
Reads
- text
- image
Writes
- image
Capabilities
- Image editingSupported
- Transparent background outputSupported
- VisionSupported
- Audio inputNot supported
- Audio outputNot supported
- Code executionNot supported
- Function callingNot supported
- Structured outputNot supported
- Tool useNot supported
- Video inputNot supported
Key features
Native RGBA output
Outputs transparent and semi-transparent backgrounds directly, from text prompts or reference images.
Stable multi-turn editing
Preserves unedited regions at the pixel level across successive edits; Seed says the model holds up for 100 rounds.
Dense small text
Seed reports 0.4% severe and 1.7% minor text corruption across Chinese and English tests, its own measurement.
Realistic lighting and skin
Seed's launch post of 9 November 2026 describes lighting, materials and skin textures as more natural with less gloss and overexposure; it gives no figure for this, and no outside lab has measured it.
Reference-image input
Accepts reference images for editing and for applying a reference's texture and style to rendered text.
Known limitations
- No published API price or model ID for 5.5 on BytePlus's pages when read on 11 November 2026.
- No weights, architecture or training data published, so it cannot be self-hosted or audited.
Who it is for
- Designers and marketers who need transparent PNG-style assets
- Teams iterating on one product or character image across many revisions
- Chinese and English content teams that need dense small text rendered
Supported languages
- English
- Chinese
Seedream 5.5 benchmarks
Standout result
Artificial Analysis text-to-image Elo, from 5,128 votes
Source: Artificial Analysis image leaderboard, read 11 November 2026Strengths and limits
Strengths
- Directly outputs transparent-background assets, which saves a background-removal step for stickers and layered design work (Seed, vendor-reported).
- Reference images can steer both edits and the look of rendered lettering, per Seed's launch post.
- Scores 1159 Elo on Artificial Analysis image editing, level with Nano Banana 2.1 at 1152 within overlapping ranges.
- Improves on its predecessor in Artificial Analysis's text-to-image ranking, where the older model scores lower.
Show 3 more
- Native RGBA output with full and partial transparency, so generated assets need no separate background removal (Seed, vendor-reported).
- Seed demonstrates 100 successive edits on one image with unedited regions preserved at the pixel level (vendor demo).
- Artificial Analysis scores it above Seedream 5.0 Pro on text-to-image, 1135 against 1102, read 11 November 2026.
Limits
- Ranks below three Hokai-listed rivals on Artificial Analysis text-to-image, which matters to buyers choosing on overall quality.
- Seed's claimed lead on text structure comes from its own paired tests, with no outside check.
- No Seedream 5.5 price or model ID on BytePlus's price list when Hokai read it, which blocks API budgeting.
- The multi-round editing result is a single vendor demo; Artificial Analysis's editing board does not test repeated rounds.
Seedream 5.5 alternatives
| Model | Lab | Context | In / out per 1M | Reads and writes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seedream 5.5 This page | ByteDance | -- | -- | text, image → image |
 GPT Image 2.6Pick GPT Image 2.6 for the highest Artificial Analysis scores; pick Seedream 5.5 when native transparent-background output and a lower measured cost matter more. | OpenAI | -- | $8 / $30 | text, image → image |
 Nano Banana 2.1Pick Nano Banana 2.1 for higher text-to-image Elo; pick Seedream 5.5 for RGBA output, where Seed's pages document it. | -- | $1.50 / $7.50 | text, image, video → image, text | |
 MAI-Image-2.6Pick MAI-Image-2.6 if you build on Azure and want Microsoft Foundry access; pick Seedream 5.5 for repeated edits and transparent assets. | Microsoft | 32K | -- | text, image → image |
Seedream 5.5 specs
- Architecture
- Not disclosed
- Mixture of experts
- No
- Parameters
- Not disclosed
Training data
ByteDance Seed's pages do not describe the training data. Seed says Seedream 5.5 uses targeted training to preserve unedited regions in multi-turn edits.
API endpoints
| Name | Endpoint | Auth |
|---|---|---|
| BytePlus Seedream product page (5.5 image packs; API model ID not listed) | https://www.byteplus.com/en/product/Seedream | BytePlus account |
Seedream 5.5 facts
- Licence
- Proprietary
- Released
- 09 Nov 2026
- Current version
- Seedream 5.5
- Family
- Seedream
- Variant
- Multimodal
Version history
Seedream 5.5 · 09 Nov 2026
Multi-turn editing with pixel-level preservation, native RGBA output, better realism and small text.
Seedream 5.0 Pro
Predecessor; Artificial Analysis lists it as released in July 2026, and BytePlus model ID is dola-seedream-5-0-pro-260628.
What changed
Questions about Seedream 5.5
How much does Seedream 5.5 cost per image?
No official per-image price has been published for Seedream 5.5 as far as ByteDance's own pages show. BytePlus lists its predecessor at $0.045 per image up to 2.61 million pixels and $0.09 above that. Artificial Analysis's own tests work out at $19.50 per thousand text-to-image outputs and $27.00 per thousand edits. BytePlus also sells 5.5 image packs of 700, 1,800 and 3,500 images valid for 30 days, whose prices did not load.
Is Seedream 5.5 open source or free to try?
No weights are published, so it is a proprietary model. You can reach it through Dola, the BytePlus Playground, Doubao or the Volcano Engine experience centre, all named on Seed's pages. Hokai could not confirm from those pages whether any of them has a free tier.
Can Seedream 5.5 make images with a transparent background?
Yes, according to Seed. It generates native RGBA images with an alpha channel, including full and partial transparency, from text prompts or reference images, so stickers, characters and lettering can be used as separate layers without background removal. Seed's examples show this, and no outside lab has tested it.
How does Seedream 5.5 compare with GPT Image 2.6 and Nano Banana 2.1?
On Artificial Analysis, read on 11 November 2026, its text-to-image Elo is 1135, against 1261 for GPT Image 2.6 Sunburst (max) and 1176 for Nano Banana 2.1. On editing it scores 1159, against 1209 and 1152. Seed's own tests claim a lead over Nano Banana 2.1 on text structure, which the independent boards do not confirm.
How many edits in a row can Seedream 5.5 handle?
Seed says it supports continued work on the same image across 100 rounds of editing, and demonstrates 100 successive edits on one portrait. That is a vendor demo built from a single image. Artificial Analysis's editing board scores edits but publishes no repeated-round test that Hokai read.
About Seedream 5.5
ByteDance's Seed team introduced Seedream 5.5 on 9 November 2026 as its newest image creation model, built for professional visual production. It sits in a Seed lineup that already includes the video model Seedance 2.5 and the language model Seed 2.1 Turbo; the rest of the company's models are in the ByteDance model directory, and rival image generators sit in the image model directory. Seed says a Pro version of the Seedream 5.5 series will follow later. The previous generation, Seedream 5.0 Pro, has no Hokai record yet.
Read the full background
Seed's launch post names three upgrades. First, more stable multi-turn editing: targeted training keeps unedited regions unchanged at the pixel level, and Seed shows a demo of 100 successive edits on one image of the same person, each built on the previous output. Second, native RGBA output, meaning images with an alpha channel that can hold full and partial transparency, so a generated sticker or character can go into a design file without separate background removal. Third, more natural lighting, materials and skin, and clearer dense small text in English and Chinese.
The numbers in that post come from Seed's own tests. On the MagicArena platform, experienced evaluators judged six production use cases (e-commerce, marketing, film and television, gaming, office productivity and fashion design), and Seed says Seedream 5.5 beat Seedream 5.0 Pro on quality score and usability rate in all six, with usability more than twice as high in film and television and in office productivity. In paired comparisons it reports a +55.62% preference score for image-to-image realism over the previous version, and a lead over GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst and Nano Banana 2.1 on text structure. Its severe text corruption rate is 0.4% and its minor rate 1.7%. None of these figures has been repeated by an outside lab.
The independent picture is less one-sided. On Artificial Analysis's text-to-image board, read on 11 November 2026, Seedream 5.5 scores 1135 Elo from 5,128 votes, below Nano Banana 2.1 at 1176, MAI-Image-2.6 at 1170 and GPT Image 2.6 Sunburst (max) at 1261, and above Seedream 5.0 Pro at 1102. On the editing board it scores 1159 from 4,901 votes against 1152 for Nano Banana 2.1 and 1209 for GPT Image 2.6 Sunburst (max); the Seedream and Nano Banana confidence ranges overlap, so that is a tie rather than a win. Artificial Analysis publishes no 100-round editing test.
Access is spread across ByteDance's products. Seed's Chinese page links Doubao and Volcano Engine's AI experience centre, and its English page links the Dola chat app and the BytePlus Playground. BytePlus also has a product page titled Seedream 5.5 that sells image packs, but its price list and the model ID on its try-it links still point to Seedream 5.0 Pro when read on 11 November 2026, so Hokai stores no list price or API model ID for 5.5.
Who should look elsewhere: teams that need a documented API with a published price and a stable model ID cannot yet get both from BytePlus's pages, and anyone ranking on overall text-to-image quality will find three Hokai-listed rivals above it on Artificial Analysis. Seed's pages publish no architecture, parameter count, training data or weights, so there is nothing to self-host or audit.
Against Seedream 5.0 Pro the changes Seed claims are steadier repeated edits, transparent-background output and better text and realism, and Seed has promised a Pro tier of 5.5 later.
Sources and guides
Official sources
- Seedream 5.5 model page Vendor
Specifications on this page (context window, token prices, benchmark scores, licence) are read from ByteDance's own model card and documentation. The verdict is Hokai's reading of them, not the provider's claim.
Lists that include Seedream 5.5
The provider
More AI Models on Hokai
Recraft V3Recraft's former flagship image model, a previous generation since V4, still the API line for inpainting and exact text placement at 1K output.- Seedream 4.5ByteDance's Seedream 4.5, announced by BytePlus on 3 December 2025, takes up to 10 reference images; Artificial Analysis scores it 1030 Elo for text-to-image.
- Seedream 5.0 LiteByteDance Seed's February 2026 Lite model reasons over prompts and can search the web; Artificial Analysis scores it 1020 Elo for text-to-image.
- Seedream 5.0 ProByteDance Seed's July 2026 image model adds point and lasso editing and layer separation; Artificial Analysis scores it 1102 Elo for text-to-image.
- Recraft V4.1Recraft V4.1 is Recraft's May 2026 image model family: nine variants priced per image from a Flash tier to Pro vectors, raster or native SVG, all testable on the free plan.
FLUX.2FLUX.2 by Black Forest Labs (Nov 2025) is a 32B rectified flow transformer family producing up to 4MP images. Five variants span open-weight klein to grounded [max], with multi-reference editing and hex color control.