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AI background removal at scale

Background removal API

One API call removes the background in under a second, for $0.02 per image. Send PNG, JPEG, WEBP or HEIC and get a clean cutout back, ready for catalogs of thousands of images.
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Trusted by leading companies

Background remover API results by industry

Remove the background once, then reuse the clean cutout for delivery menus, product pages, ads and social posts.
Cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, and cheese on a bun, placed on a napkin on a wooden table in a kitchen setting.
A cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, and a beef patty topped with melted cheese, served on a toasted bun.
Cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato on a wooden table, set against a scenic beach backdrop with blue skies and ocean.
Cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato on a bun displayed against a red background. Text above reads: "$7.99 Burger Menu Offer."
A cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, and melted cheese on a bun, placed on a marble surface.
A stainless steel electric kettle sits on a wooden countertop in a cozy kitchen with wall shelves holding various appliances.
Stainless steel electric kettle with a black handle and base.
Stainless steel electric kettle with a black handle, placed on a wooden countertop, surrounded by white cloths, in a cozy kitchen setting.
Stainless steel electric kettle with black handle on a blue background. "Sale 20%" text in lower left corner.
A stainless steel electric kettle with a black handle, placed on a wooden surface, with a blurred green background.
A blue pump bottle on a bathroom sink surrounded by various toiletries, with a vase of white tulips and a blurred reflection of a person in the mirror.
A dark blue pump bottle with a black dispenser, against a plain white background.
Dark blue pump bottle with a "20% OFF" sign, set against a blurred, sparkling background.
A dark blue pump bottle surrounded by colorful flowers, with the word "PURE" in bold white letters above.
Blue pump bottle on a bathroom countertop with blurred plants and sink in the background.
Silver Mercedes-Benz SUV parked on gravel in an urban area with historical buildings and bare trees in the background.
White Mercedes-Benz SUV with black wheels, viewed from the front-left angle, isolated on a white background.
Silver Mercedes SUV parked on a scenic road with mountains and a vibrant sunset in the background.
Silver Mercedes-Benz SUV with special deal price of $23,000 displayed in bold lettering against a dark blue background.
White SUV displayed on a smartphone screen with "New Offer" text above and "Get In Now" below, against a road and forest backdrop.
A young woman with curly hair and a white tee smiles on a city street, with a blurred background of buildings and parked cars.
A young woman with wavy dark hair smiles, wearing a white and green t-shirt and jeans, isolated on a white background.
A smiling person with long hair, wearing a white and green shirt, is surrounded by a pink starburst with "Barbie" text overlaid.
Poster of a smiling young woman with curly hair wearing a white shirt. Text reads "Anna is Awful" and "Coming Soon | Streamberry" under Netflix logo.
Smiling woman standing on a cobblestone street with cherry blossoms and the Eiffel Tower in the background.

Need more than a cutout? 20+ edits in one API

Upgrade to the Image Editing API and add AI backgrounds, shadows, relighting, virtual models and more to the same call. One key, one integration, every product visual.

Photoroom MCP

Connect the Photoroom MCP to the LLM where you work an automate your product listing visuals.

Background Removal

The AI background removal API detects complex edges, handles transparency, and delivers clean cutouts at scale - ideal for product catalogs and marketplace listings.

Virtual Model

Place apparel and accessories on AI-generated models that match your brand aesthetic. On-model imagery via the Virtual Model API: no casting, no studio, no production timelines.

Flat Lay

Generate consistent, editorial-quality flat lay product photography at enterprise scale. Maintain visual identity across thousands of SKUs through the Flat Lay API.

Ghost Mannequin

Produce ghost mannequin apparel shots with perfect shape retention through an AI-powered Ghost Mannequin API endpoint. Scale invisible mannequin photography without a studio.

Product Staging

Place your product into realistic lifestyle scenes - held, worn, or displayed - with the natural lighting and composition of a high-end photoshoot.

Edit With AI

Describe any change in plain language and our AI makes it - swap colors, remove or add objects, restage the scene, or shift the camera angle.

Product Beautifier

Enhance low-quality product and food images automatically with the Beautifier API. No retouchers, no studios. Our AI restores detail, corrects color, and improves overall quality at scale.

Add Shadows

Add realistic shadows to the main subject of your image, with complete control over the softness, intensity and position of the shadow.

Generate Backgrounds

Dynamically create new backgrounds with our first-class generative AI, perfectly matching the subject of the original picture.

Relighting

Fix badly lit photos automatically. Our AI rebalances over- and under-exposed images, with modes that keep product colors accurate or optimize for portraits.

Text Removal

Remove watermarks, labels, and real-world signage from your images automatically - choose what goes and what stays.

Expand

Resize any image to any format without cropping. Our AI generates the extra background to match the original, filling every empty pixel seamlessly.

Uncrop

Recover subjects clipped by the frame. Our AI reconstructs the missing parts from the visible portion, automatically.

Ironing

Make every garment look freshly pressed. Our AI smooths creases and wrinkles out of clothing photos automatically - no steamer, no reshoot.

Create Any Image

Generate images from a text description alone - no source photo needed. Describe the scene, pick a format, and get original content back.

Uncertainty Score

Know when a cutout needs a second look. Every response returns a confidence score from 0 to 1, so you can auto-flag ambiguous images for review at scale.

Perspective Correction

Straighten angled shots of flat, rectangular products - cards, books, games - into clean, straight-on views. No generative AI, so hallucinations are impossible by design.

Positioning

Control exactly where the subject sits in the result - scaling, alignment, padding, and margins - so every image in a catalog comes out consistently framed.

Smart Cropping

Reframe images around the subject automatically - prompt it to focus on a specific element, or crop faces out for marketplace compliance.

Upscale

Turn small, low-res images into sharp ones at 4× the size - with a fast mode for volume and a slow mode for maximum quality.

Photoroom API

How Photoroom compares to Remove.bg, Clipdrop and Azure

We ran the same product photos through each background removal API. See the cutouts side by side: which kept fine edges, and which left the background behind.

See the full benchmark
Gold bee-shaped napkin ring on a folded white napkin, displayed from different angles.

Results from teams editing at catalog scale

4x

faster market rollouts

89%

lower image processing costs

56%

higher conversion on listings

236%

increase in average order value

Exclusive to Enterprise Plans

Beyond the cutout: checked, guaranteed, at scale

Clean cutouts are step one. Enterprise plans add Visual Agents to run the full workflow, Visual QA to score every image, and billing only for images that pass. Plus product video and 99.9% uptime.
Collage of a beige duffel bag with green straps, showing its exterior, spacious interior with pockets, and a hand holding it.
Visual Agents
Visual Agents execute the perfect workflow for your use case. They analyze every input, generate and edit, score the output, retry until it passes. Every visual runs the same loop and only the ones that pass reach your catalog.
Learn more
Three images of a woman in a yellow blazer, each with a completion score: 83%, 92%, and 100% labeled as "Best fidelity."
Visual QA
Even the best AI models get it wrong, so Visual QA scores every output for fidelity, catches the misses, and corrects the details before they reach your customers.
Learn more
Collage of a woman in a white halter dress, a bowl of vibrant poke, and a woman holding a mustard handbag with hoop earrings.
Enterprise Guarantee
Pay only for the outputs that pass. Set your product-fidelity criteria upfront. Every output is checked against your brief by our proprietary fidelity model. Anything that misses is credited back or regenerated for you.
Learn more
Four fashion items with play icons: a brown handbag, sage green mule, person in a gray shirt and cardigan, and white sneakers with orange accents.
Image to Video API
The Image to Video API turns static product photography into short-form video automatically. Submit a product image and receive a polished video with natural camera motion, animation, or configured effects.
Learn more
Photoroom API

Start removing backgrounds today

Get your API key in minutes, no credit card needed. Test for free, then pay $0.02 per image as you scale.

Get free API key
See API pricing
Plate with two sunny-side-up eggs, toast, and bacon, in a diner setting with counter stools in the background.

You might also be interested in

AI Image Editing API for Product Catalogs | PhotoroomAPI to generate backgroundsRemove.bg API Alternative and How to MigrateStartup Pricing API - 100% discount possiblePhotoroom API Partner PlanVirtual Model APIAdd Shadows API

Frequently asked questions

Who is the background removal API for?

Developers and teams who only need a clean cutout: marketplaces, retailers, delivery apps and photo tools processing images at scale. If you also need AI backgrounds, shadows, relighting or other edits in the same call, use the Image Editing API instead.

How much does the background removal API cost?

$0.02 per image on the Basic plan. You only pay for successful calls. For higher volumes, Enterprise plans offer custom pricing. Details are on our pricing page.

Which image formats are supported?

Input: PNG, JPEG, WEBP or HEIC, up to 50 MB and 6,000 px on the widest side. Output: PNG (the default, with a transparent background), JPEG or WEBP.

How do I integrate the background removal API?

Get your API key, send it in the x-api-key header, and post your image to the endpoint:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://sdk.photoroom.com/v1/segment \
  --header 'x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY' \
  --form image_file=@/path/to/your/image.jpg \
  --output photoroom-result.png

Ready-made code is available for JavaScript, Python, Node.js and iOS in the documentation.

Can I use an image URL instead of uploading a file?

Not with this API. It takes an uploaded file or a Base64-encoded image. To process images by URL, use the Image Editing API, which accepts an imageUrl parameter.

What should I do if I need help with the API?

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.

What are the rate limits?

60 images per minute by default. If you go over, the API returns a 429 error, so retry after a short pause. Enterprise plans can raise the limit for high-volume catalogs.

What output options can I set?

  • Output format: PNG, JPEG or WEBP.

  • Background: transparent, or any colour.

  • Size: preview, medium, HD or full resolution.

  • Crop: trim the result to the edges of the subject.

  • Green-screen clean-up: remove green edges left on the subject.

Every response also includes an uncertainty score, which flags images worth a human check.

What's the difference between this API and the Image Editing API?

This API removes backgrounds only, at $0.02 per image. The Image Editing API adds 20+ edits in one call, such as AI backgrounds, shadows, relighting and upscaling. One Image Editing call costs the same as five background removal calls.

I use Remove.bg's API. How do I switch?

Remove.bg's API shuts down on 1 Dec. Our migration guide maps your existing calls to Photoroom, so you can switch without rebuilding your integration.

Can I remove backgrounds from Claude?

Yes. Connect the Photoroom MCP to Claude, then ask in plain English, for example "remove the background from these product photos." Claude picks the right tool, runs it and returns the cutout. It works in Claude (desktop and web), Cowork and Claude Code on paid Claude plans.

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