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One-time purchase

An AI image generator with no subscription

Yes. Onhand has no subscription and no credits; Pro is one purchase. The download is free and includes a free fast model. Onhand is coming soon to iPhone and iPad, so join the launch list rather than looking for a download button today.

By Onhand · Updated September 30, 2026

The short answer

Onhand by ArkalEdge is an AI image generator for iPhone and iPad that runs fully on the device and keeps working offline once a model pack is downloaded. It has no subscription and no credits: the download and a fast model are free, and Pro is a single one-time purchase that unlocks more model packs. Onhand is pre-launch and coming soon to iPhone and iPad, so join the launch list below to hear first.

One email at launch. No newsletter.

What you get

  • Free download with a free fast model, so you can generate images without paying anything.
  • No credits, no token balance and no cap on how many images you make with a model you have.
  • Every editing tool works with the free model: image-to-image with a strength control, the Refine loop, masked inpainting, resize, background removal and style presets.
  • Pro is a one-time purchase that unlocks more model packs, including more looks for portraits and scenes and a higher-quality model with better prompt following.
  • Purchases go through Apple in-app purchase, so a refund request or a restore uses the same Apple account you already have.
  • No Onhand account, no sign-in and no password to manage.
  • Once a model pack is downloaded, generation and editing keep working offline, including in airplane mode.

What is free, and what does Pro unlock?

The app is a free download and the recommended fast model is free to use, with no trial clock and no image count. That free pack is a fast Stable Diffusion-class model of about 2 GB. With it you can write a prompt and generate an image, restyle a photo you already have, paint over part of a picture and regenerate just that area, remove a background, resize, and keep everything in an on-device gallery.

The editing tools are not the paid part. Image-to-image with a strength control, the Refine loop that keeps iterating on a result and keeps the earlier versions, style presets, resize and background removal all work with the free model. Masked inpainting is the one feature that works with the free fast model only, which is an unusual shape for a paid app: the tool people most expect to be gated is the one that is free.

Pro is a one-time purchase that unlocks more model packs from the catalog. Those packs add more looks for portraits and scenes and a higher-quality model with better prompt following, FLUX.2 Klein 4B. Packs run from roughly 1 to 4.5 GB each. What you are buying is access to more of the catalog, not a larger allowance of anything.

Why are there no credits?

Credits exist because someone has to pay for a server. In a cloud image generator, every image you make runs on a rented GPU in a data centre, and that GPU costs money by the second whether you make one image or a hundred. A subscription or a credit pack is how that per-image cost gets passed to you, and it is a reasonable way to run that kind of product.

Onhand does the computing on your phone. The model pack is downloaded once and then generation and editing run on the device GPU, so there is no server bill that grows with your usage. Your tenth image and your thousandth image cost the developer exactly the same, which is nothing. With no per-image cost there is nothing for a credit to meter, so the app does not meter anything.

This is also why prompts, source photos and generated images are never sent to a generation server. The privacy result and the pricing result come from the same decision about where the work happens. Limited anonymous analytics and Apple and RevenueCat purchase services are still involved, and the privacy page describes exactly what those cover.

What do you pay instead?

You pay in storage, battery and hardware rather than in monthly fees. None of these are hidden, and they are worth weighing before you decide this is the better deal for you.

  • Storage. Model packs live on your phone and run from roughly 1 to 4.5 GB each. The free pack is about 2 GB. If you install several Pro packs, the space adds up quickly, and you can remove a pack and re-download it later.
  • Battery and heat. Generating an image works the GPU hard. A long session drains the battery faster than normal use and the phone gets warm, which is the same trade any on-device workload makes.
  • Memory, which decides what runs. Which packs your device can handle depends on available memory, not on how fast the chip is. The developer's test device and floor is an iPhone 14 Pro with 6 GB, where the free pack runs. Larger packs need more memory.
  • Your own time waiting. On that iPhone 14 Pro the developer measured about 7 seconds for a 512px image with the free fast model and about 12 seconds with the XL pack, using the method described on the about page.

The honest summary is that a one-time purchase moves the running cost from your card to your device. If your phone is close to full, or if you generate in long sessions away from a charger, those costs are real.

How does buying and restoring work?

Pro is an Apple in-app purchase, handled by the App Store the same way any other one-time purchase in an iPhone app is. You confirm it with Face ID or your Apple account password, the charge appears on your Apple receipt, and refund requests go through Apple rather than through an email to the developer.

Because the purchase is tied to your Apple account, a new iPhone or a reinstall restores it. You sign in to the same Apple account and use the restore option in the app, and the unlocked packs become available to download again. There is no Onhand account, no sign-up form and no password to lose, which also means there is no login to transfer a purchase between two different Apple accounts.

Nothing renews, so there is nothing to cancel later. Model packs themselves are downloads rather than purchases; removing a pack to free up space does not remove your entitlement to it. The terms page covers what the purchase grants, and the privacy page covers the purchase services involved.

When is a subscription the better choice?

A cloud subscription is the better choice more often than a page like this usually admits. The large hosted models currently produce higher-quality images than anything that fits on a phone, they follow complicated prompts more closely, and they are far better at readable text and lettering inside an image. They also run on hardware you do not have to own, so a four-year-old phone is not a limit, and they add new models constantly.

If you make a handful of images a month and want the best possible result each time, paying a monthly fee for a hosted service is likely the better value and the better output. Nothing about a one-time purchase changes the quality ceiling of a model small enough to run on an iPhone.

A one-time purchase makes sense for three kinds of people. First, people who generate often, where a fixed monthly fee and a credit balance both get in the way of experimenting. Second, people who want prompts and photos to stay on the device, for work reasons or personal ones. Third, people who simply dislike another recurring charge and would rather pay once for something that keeps working, including on a flight with no signal.

What it does not do

  • There is no cloud fallback. If a model pack is too large for your device's available memory, no amount of paying moves the work to a server.
  • There is no custom model import, no LoRA and no ControlNet, so a purchase unlocks catalog packs rather than the ability to bring your own weights.
  • There is no video generation and no AI upscaling; resize is a plain resize.
  • Text and lettering inside a generated image are model-dependent and are not something Onhand promises at any price.
  • There is no Mac app and no Android or web version, so a purchase covers iPhone and iPad only.

Frequently asked questions

Is Onhand free?

The download is free and the recommended fast model is free to use, with no image limit and no trial period. Pro is a separate one-time purchase that unlocks more model packs. The Pro price depends on your App Store storefront, and the app shows the price for your store. Onhand is coming soon to iPhone and iPad; join the launch list to hear first.

Are there credits or a monthly image limit?

No. There are no credits, no tokens and no cap on how many images you generate with a model pack you have installed. Generation runs on your own device, so there is no per-image server cost for the app to meter.

Do I need to pay to edit photos?

No. Image-to-image with a strength control, the Refine loop, resize, background removal and style presets all work with the free model. Masked inpainting, where you paint an area and regenerate it, works with the free fast model only, so it is available without a purchase.

What happens to my images and packs if I stop paying?

There is nothing to stop paying. Pro is a one-time purchase rather than a subscription, so it does not lapse and there is no renewal to cancel. Your images stay in the on-device gallery regardless.

Can I restore my purchase on a new iPhone?

Yes. The purchase is an Apple in-app purchase tied to your Apple account, so signing in to the same account on a new device and using the restore option makes the unlocked packs available again. Onhand has no account of its own, so a purchase cannot be moved to a different Apple account.

Is a one-time purchase app as good as a cloud subscription?

Not on raw image quality. Large hosted models currently produce better-looking images, follow complex prompts more closely and handle text inside images far better than a model that fits on a phone. A one-time purchase wins on cost if you generate often, on privacy because prompts and photos stay on the device, and on working offline.

Is Onhand on the App Store today?

Not yet. Onhand is coming soon to iPhone and iPad. Join the launch list on this site to hear first.

Sources

Facts about other products come from their own listings and documentation, last checked on the date shown. Corrections are welcome at the address on the About page.