Stable Diffusion XL

Image generationAvailable
by Stability AIModel ID: stable-diffusion-xl

Stability AI's SDXL model via Replicate. High-quality image generation with extensive customization.

Price
โ‰ˆ $0.0015/run
Input โ†’ output
Text โ†’ Image
Developer
Stability AI
Updated
September 23, 2026
01

Playground

Try Stable Diffusion XL

Input & output

โ‰ˆ $0.0015/run
Try Stable Diffusion XL
Advanced settings (3)
Output
Your image appears here.

This run

about $0.0015 ยท 0.15 credits

$0.0044 (0.44 credits) are reserved at the start; the actual GPU time is billed.

New here?

10 free credits ($0.10) when you sign up with Google

Usable 24 hours after sign-up, up to 5 runs per day and at most 2 credits per run. Other sign-in methods start without credits. Enough for 22 runs of this model.

02

Examples

Real outputs from the public examples of this model on Replicate, with the prompt and settings that produced them. They were not generated live on this page.
  • Example output 1 from Stable Diffusion XL: An astronaut riding a rainbow unicorn, cinematic, dramaticOpen full size

    Prompt

    An astronaut riding a rainbow unicorn, cinematic, dramatic

    Settings

    width
    768
    height
    768
  • Example output 2 from Stable Diffusion XL: A rainbow coloured bearOpen full size
    InputInput

    Prompt

    A rainbow coloured bear

    Settings

    width
    1024
    height
    1024
  • Example output 3 from Stable Diffusion XL: An astronaut riding a rainbow unicorn, cinematic, dramaticOpen full size

    Prompt

    An astronaut riding a rainbow unicorn, cinematic, dramatic

    Settings

    width
    1024
    height
    1024

Example prompts

Examples from the Railwail catalog. They were not generated live on this page.

  • Anime Character

    A fierce warrior princess with flowing silver hair and golden armor, standing atop a cliff overlooking a vast battlefield, anime art style, dramatic wind effects, detailed cel shading
  • Cozy Interior

    A hygge-inspired reading nook with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a plush velvet armchair, warm fairy lights, a sleeping cat, and rain visible through a large arched window, digital painting style
  • Abstract Art

    Geometric crystalline formations emerging from a pool of liquid gold, refracting rainbow light prisms throughout the composition, ultra-detailed 3D render with volumetric lighting and caustics
03

About Stable Diffusion XL

TL;DRAs of September 23, 2026

Stable Diffusion XL is a model by Stability AI in the Image generation category. On Railwail, Stable Diffusion XL costs โ‰ˆ $0.0015 per run.

Background

About Stability AI

Founded 2019 ยท London, UK

Stability AI was founded in 2019 by Emad Mostaque (CEO until March 2024) and is headquartered in London. The company sponsored and released the original Stable Diffusion 1.4/1.5/2.x (2022) in partnership with CompVis (LMU Munich, Robin Rombach and Patrick Esser), Runway and LAION. Stable Diffusion XL (SDXL) was released in July 2023 by Stability AI as a successor to SD 1.5/2.1 and was widely adopted by the open-source community as the de-facto open base model for fine-tuning and downstream pipelines until FLUX.1 and SD 3.5 arrived in 2024.

Visit Stability AI

Architecture

Latent diffusion U-Net with two text encoders and optional refiner

Stable Diffusion XL (SDXL) is a 2023 latent diffusion model from Stability AI, described in 'SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesis' (Podell et al. 2023). The architecture is a refined latent-diffusion U-Net operating in the latent space of a learned 8x VAE. Key changes over SD 1.5 include: (1) a larger U-Net backbone (~3.5B parameters, ~3x larger than SD 1.5), (2) two parallel text encoders concatenating CLIP ViT-L and OpenCLIP ViT-bigG features for stronger prompt adherence, (3) conditioning on the original image resolution and crop coordinates to fix the resolution and cropping artefacts of SD 1.5, (4) training natively at 1024x1024 instead of 512x512, and (5) an optional 6.6B-parameter refiner model that performs a final 5-step denoising pass to add high-frequency detail. SDXL became the dominant open base model for fine-tuning between mid-2023 and late 2024, spawning huge ecosystems including IP-Adapter, AnimateDiff, ControlNet-XL, T2I-Adapter and tens of thousands of community LoRAs.

Parameters
~3.5B base U-Net + 6.6B refiner = ~10.1B total
Context
75 tokens

Capabilities

  • Native 1024x1024 generation
  • Two text encoders (CLIP-L + OpenCLIP-G) for strong prompts
  • Optional refiner for high-frequency detail
  • Open weights under CreativeML Open RAIL++-M license
  • Massive ecosystem: ControlNet-XL, IP-Adapter, AnimateDiff, LoRAs
  • Strong fine-tuning base for art styles and brand models
  • Runs on consumer GPUs (8-12GB VRAM with quantisation)
  • Best for: fine-tuning base, ControlNet pipelines, community LoRAs, on-prem deployments, education.

Training & license

Pretrained on a large subset of LAION-5B and additional Stability AI-curated data. Conditioned on resolution and crop coordinates to mitigate aspect-ratio artefacts.

License: CreativeML Open RAIL++-M license โ€” open weights with usage restrictions (no NCII, CSAM, etc.). Commercial use permitted with these restrictions.

Safety testing: Stability AI applied baseline content filters and training data filtering. The model ships without an integrated safety classifier and operators must add their own moderation.

Known limitations

  • Older architecture โ€” outperformed by FLUX.1 and SD 3.5 Large
  • Hands, text and complex anatomy imperfect
  • Default text encoder limited to 75 tokens
  • Open weights have no built-in safety filter
04

Pricing

Prices in US dollars. Usage is charged from prepaid credits.
Typical run (โ‰ˆ 1 s on L40S)$0.0015 per run
GPU time (L40S)$0.00117 per GPU second
  • Billed by the GPU time the run actually takes. When the run starts, 3ร— the typical price is reserved from your balance and settled afterwards.
  • 1 credit = $0.01

Cost calculator

Price calculator

s

Typical according to the provider: about 1.2 s

Total

$0.15

15 credits

Per run

$0.0015 ยท 0.15 credits

Billed by the actual GPU time; this is an estimate.

05

API

Call Stable Diffusion XL with your Railwail API key. Use this model ID in the request:
curl https://railwail.com/api/v1/images/generations \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $RAILWAIL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "stable-diffusion-xl",
    "prompt": "A lighthouse on a rocky coast at sunset, photorealistic"
  }'
Set your key as RAILWAIL_API_KEYCreate API key
06

Specifications

Model ID
stable-diffusion-xl
Developer
Stability AI
Input
Text
Output
Image
Output formats
WEBP, JPG, PNG
Billing
By usage (tokens or GPU time)
Model size
~3.5B base U-Net + 6.6B refiner = ~10.1B total
License
CreativeML Open RAIL++-M license โ€” open weights with usage restrictions (no NCII, CSAM, etc.). Commercial use permitted with these restrictions.
Catalog entry updated
September 23, 2026

Input parameters

Inputs and settings from the model's input schema. The example in the API section shows which of them the API accepts.

  • promptrequired
    Type: Text
    Default: โ€“
    Allowed values: โ€“
  • width
    Type: Choice
    Default: 1024
    Allowed values: 512, 768, or 1024
  • height
    Type: Choice
    Default: 1024
    Allowed values: 512, 768, or 1024
  • negative_prompt
    Type: Text
    Default: โ€“
    Allowed values: โ€“

Tags

  • open-source
  • customizable
07

Use cases

What it is used for

  • Open-source creative pipelines (legacy)
  • Fine-tuning base for art-style models
  • ControlNet and IP-Adapter workflows
  • Community LoRA training
  • On-prem and air-gapped deployments
  • Educational and research use
08

Frequently asked questions

What is Stable Diffusion XL?

Stable Diffusion XL is a model by Stability AI in the Image generation category. On Railwail you can call it with an API key through the Railwail API.

How much does Stable Diffusion XL cost on Railwail?

On Railwail, Stable Diffusion XL costs โ‰ˆ $0.0015 per run. You are charged for what each request actually uses. Usage is paid from prepaid credits; 1 credit equals $0.01.

Which settings does Stable Diffusion XL support?

According to its input schema, Stable Diffusion XL knows these parameters: prompt, width (512, 768, or 1024), height (512, 768, or 1024), and negative_prompt.

How fast is Stable Diffusion XL?

There are not enough measured runs of Stable Diffusion XL on Railwail yet to state a run time. It depends on the input, the settings and the load at the provider.

Is Stable Diffusion XL better than FLUX 1.1 Pro?

That depends on the task. Stable Diffusion XL (Stability AI) and FLUX 1.1 Pro (Black Forest Labs) are both models in the Image generation category. The comparison page shows their prices and specifications side by side.

Compare Stable Diffusion XL and FLUX 1.1 Pro

How do I use Stable Diffusion XL through the API?

Create a Railwail API key and send your request with the model ID stable-diffusion-xl. Code examples for curl, Python and JavaScript are in the API section of this page.

09

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    527 % more expensive per unit

    Compare Stable Diffusion XL vs. Icons (SDXL Flat Pop)
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    Compare Stable Diffusion XL vs. InstantID
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    โ‰ˆ $0.0055/run

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    Compare Stable Diffusion XL vs. Sticker Maker

Use Stable Diffusion XL via the API

One API key for every model on Railwail. Usage is charged from prepaid credits, 1 credit = $0.01.