Transform product images at scale with one image editing API

The Photoroom API consists of two API endpoints, which are available in two different plans:

• Use our Remove Background API if you only need to remove the background. (Basic plan)

• Use our Image Editing API to resize, replace backgrounds, adjust lighting, or add shadows (Plus plan)

In order to use the Photoroom API, you'll first need to activate the API for your account and obtain your unique API key. Here's how to do it:

• Activate the API for your account: This can be done by visiting your account settings on the Photoroom website. Make sure that you're logged into your account.

• Copy your API key: Once you've activated the API for your account, you'll be provided with a unique API key. This key is essentially your password to make API calls, so it's important to keep it safe and secure. You can retrieve your API key by following the same link used for the activation.

• Use your API key: The key must be passed in the x-api-key HTTP header on every request.

• You can find more information in our API documentation.

Yes. Photoroom’s Remove Background API accepts the same argument names as remove.bg and returns the same response format. To switch, change the endpoint URL to https://sdk.photoroom.com/v1/segment and use a Photoroom API key. The rest of your code stays the same.

remove.bg’s standalone service closes on 1 December 2026, and its background removal moves to Leonardo.ai. See how to migrate from the remove.bg API.

For the input and result images, the Image Editing API (Plus plan) supports four formats: PNG, JPEG, WEBP and AVIF. We recommend limiting images to 25 megapixels for optimal performance. Maximum File Size: 30MB. Maximum Resolution: 5,000 pixels on the widest side. Images with a larger resolution are supported (if they stay below 30MB), but will be resized down to 5,000 pixels on the widest side.

The Remove Background API (Basic plan) supports four formats for the input image: PNG, JPEG, WEBP and HEIC. For the result image, it supports three formats: PNG, JPEG and WEBP. Maximum File Size: 50MB. Maximum Resolution: 6,000 pixels on the widest side.

Photoroom works with the tools you already use. When a new product photo comes in, it cleans the background, applies your brand look, and puts the finished image back where your team needs it, ready for your site, ads, or marketplaces. Result: less manual editing, faster launches, and a more consistent catalog.

The Photoroom API uses standard HTTP calls, so it works with any programming language or framework. Get your API key from the dashboard, then send your image to the edit endpoint. This example call gives a clean white background, a soft AI shadow, 9% padding and corrected lighting, and returns a WebP image:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://image-api.photoroom.com/v2/edit \
  --header 'x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY' \
  --header 'pr-ai-shadows-model-version: 2026-04-15' \
  --form imageFile=@/path/to/product.jpg \
  --form background.color=white \
  --form shadow.mode=ai.preset-soft \
  --form padding=0.09 \
  --form lighting.mode=ai.preserve-hue-and-saturation \
  --form export.format=webp \
  --output result.webp

See the quickstart guide for every setting.

API usage is billed by the amount of images processed. Images are bought through a monthly subscription and consumed on each successful API call. Pricing details are available here. We also offer Enterprise pricing for large volumes (from 200K images/year). Note that 1 call to the Image Editing API is worth 5 calls to the Remove Background API. This means that:

• if you are on the Basic plan, a call to the Image Editing API will consume 5 images

• if you are on the Plus plan, a call to the Remove Background API will consume 0.2 image

For testing and prototyping, you can use Sandbox mode on both the Image Editing API and the Remove Background API, which allows you to make free API calls (but will produce a result with a watermark).

Having trouble with the API? Join our API community to get help from our engineers, or check the troubleshooting page for common issues.

For anything billing-related or with sensitive information, please DM Photoroom directly in the community. We're always happy to help.

Yes, our Background Remover API lets you automatically remove or replace image backgrounds at scale — perfect for integrating clean, ready-to-publish product photos into your workflow. You can upload images, process them in bulk, and get studio-quality results in seconds.

Photoroom's Flat Lay API processes every image through the same AI pipeline, ensuring uniform composition, spacing, and styling across your entire catalogue, no matter the volume. Teams can define their layout parameters once and apply them at scale via API, eliminating the manual variation that comes with traditional studio shoots. The result is a consistent, on-brand look across thousands of SKUs, delivered in a fraction of the time.

An image editing API, also called an image manipulation API, lets software edit images automatically: removing backgrounds, resizing, cropping, adding shadows or generating new scenes. Businesses integrate it into their product, PIM, DAM, or e‑commerce platform to process thousands or millions of images via API calls instead of editing them manually. Modern APIs like Photoroom's combine traditional processing with AI for advanced use cases: virtual models, ghost mannequin, flat lay generation, and automated QA.

No. Small sellers are one of the two audiences Photoroom is built for. The other is enterprise: marketplaces, retailers, and brands processing hundreds of thousands of product images a year. Photoroom's API handles over 3 million images a day for companies including Decathlon, Depop, Wolt, and Mercari. It is SOC 2 Type 2 certified, GDPR compliant, and carries a 99.9% uptime target on Enterprise accounts.