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GPT Image 2 vs Seedream 4.0

GPT Image 2 (at the ceiling) scores higher than Seedream 4.0 (57) on the photo-anchored quality scale, where a real photograph is 100.

GPT Image 2
Seedream 4.0

Overview

VendorOpenAI
VendorByteDance
ReleasedApr 2026
ReleasedSep 9, 2025
LicenseProprietary
LicenseProprietary
Input modalities
Input modalities
Output modalities
Output modalities
Pricing $0.058 / img
Pricing $0.03 / img

Score

Overall 104
Overall 57

Same brief, side by side

Fashion and beauty

Prompt used:A Black woman with long locs, bare shoulders and a strapless cream top stands among dense tropical foliage and looks calmly into the lens. She holds an amber glass dropper bottle with a gold cap up in front of her chest with both hands, fingertips lightly touching it. Broad green leaves and tall reed stems fill the background; a blurred leaf crosses the bottom of the frame.

GPT Image 2 — Fashion and beauty: A Black woman with long locs, bare shoulders and a strapless cream top stands am117Seedream 4.0 — Fashion and beauty: A Black woman with long locs, bare shoulders and a strapless cream top stands am80

Food and beverage

Prompt used:A young woman with dark hair in a beige knitted t-shirt holds an open kraft cardboard pizza box in front of her and lifts one slice out of it, smiling and looking down at the pizza. The pizza is a thin-crust with ham, mushrooms, tomato, green pepper and melted cheese, one slice missing and the lifted slice trailing toward the camera. The background is a plain dark teal wall.

GPT Image 2 — Food and beverage: A young woman with dark hair in a beige knitted t-shirt holds an open kraft card91Seedream 4.0 — Food and beverage: A young woman with dark hair in a beige knitted t-shirt holds an open kraft card57

Interior

Prompt used:A spacious modern hotel room. A double bed with a pale wood slatted headboard, crisp white linen and a beige throw at the foot stands against the left wall, with a small wooden bench beside it. Turquoise blackout curtains flank a bright window with white sheers; a cream armchair with a mustard cushion and a round side table sit in the window bay. On the right, past a white structural column, a black flat TV on a bracket, a mirror, a white writing desk with a telephone and a lamp, a white office chair and a chrome bin. The floor is covered wall to wall with a striped carpet in turquoise, sand and grey. On the far left the corner of an orange armchair and a second desk.

GPT Image 2 — Interior: A spacious modern hotel room. A double bed with a pale wood slatted headboard, c114Seedream 4.0 — Interior: A spacious modern hotel room. A double bed with a pale wood slatted headboard, c83

Layout and typography

Prompt used:A teenager's home study corner. A silver all-in-one computer on a wooden desk shows a quiz page headed "Geometry Quiz" with the line "Test your geometry skills!" beneath it, a triangle diagram labelled A and B with a question mark, and a second question "2. Which shape is trapezoid?" above three coloured shapes marked A, B and C in circles. The wall behind is covered with a year calendar grid of twelve months, a pink poster reading "Toys friday", a comic-style poster of a woman in sunglasses captioned "THE MOST POWERFUL WARRIOR!", and pinned photographs. On the desk: a white keyboard and mouse, an open notebook with a pencil, a banana, a glass bowl of sweets, potted cacti, a desk lamp, a small digital clock and a stack of hardback books with "ENGLISH" and "CHEMISTRY" on the spines. A brown moulded chair stands at the left.

GPT Image 2 — Layout and typography: A teenager's home study corner. A silver all-in-one computer on a wooden desk sh85Seedream 4.0 — Layout and typography: A teenager's home study corner. A silver all-in-one computer on a wooden desk sh−14

People and lifestyle

Prompt used:A wide-angle group selfie of five friends at a house party, all laughing and crowded into frame. Left: a curly-haired young man in a denim jacket over a white tee, arm extended toward the camera. Next to him a Black man in a white football jersey with red and navy stripes, giving a thumbs up and holding a beer bottle. Behind them a bearded man in a paisley bandana, round glasses and a rust knitted polo, raising a glass of beer. On the right a red-haired woman in a mesh top laughing with her eyes closed, and in front of her a dark-haired woman in a pink shirt and tinted narrow sunglasses holding a bottle of pink drink. The room behind is a dark loft with shelves, a lit table lamp, a colourful painting and blue LED glow.

GPT Image 2 — People and lifestyle: A wide-angle group selfie of five friends at a house party, all laughing and cro80Seedream 4.0 — People and lifestyle: A wide-angle group selfie of five friends at a house party, all laughing and cro16

Product and e-commerce

Prompt used:Two wireless earbud charging cases displayed on white geometric podiums, both open with the earbuds inside. On the left, a white case tilted on a cube, lit with pink from the left and blue from the right. On the right and slightly lower, a black glossy case on a second block, catching a red highlight along the earbuds. The blocks stand on a mirrored surface reflecting them and a pink light streak. The background is a smooth purple-to-blue gradient.

GPT Image 2 — Product and e-commerce: Two wireless earbud charging cases displayed on white geometric podiums, both op112Seedream 4.0 — Product and e-commerce: Two wireless earbud charging cases displayed on white geometric podiums, both op67

Social marketing

Prompt used:A full-length shot of a young mixed-race woman with shoulder-length curly dark hair standing in a bright minimal showroom, looking calmly into the lens. She wears an oversized purple sweatshirt, light blue wide-leg jeans and white sneakers, and holds two large printed sheets and a fan of colour swatches against her hip. Behind her a fluted light wood sideboard on thin black legs with white narcissi in a pot, a small framed picture, a white vase with bare branches and a blue object; above it a large arched mirror reflecting shelves and a window. Plain white walls and a grey seamless concrete floor.

GPT Image 2 — Social marketing: A full-length shot of a young mixed-race woman with shoulder-length curly dark h112Seedream 4.0 — Social marketing: A full-length shot of a young mixed-race woman with shoulder-length curly dark h79

Street and architecture

Prompt used:A flat frontal telephoto view of part of a glass office tower facade, filling the whole frame with a grid of tall dark-framed windows over four floors. Through the glass, lit office interiors are visible: white columns, desks, monitors, office chairs, printers, potted plants and a satellite dish. Across the upper glass, warped mirror reflections of a neighbouring building and sky ripple over the panes in green-grey tones.

GPT Image 2 — Street and architecture: A flat frontal telephoto view of part of a glass office tower facade, filling th114Seedream 4.0 — Street and architecture: A flat frontal telephoto view of part of a glass office tower facade, filling th53

Judged head to head

GPT Image 2 and Seedream 4.0 were also compared with each other directly. The verdict above still comes from the scale.

GPT Image 2 was preferred over Seedream 4.0 in 69% of blind comparisons.

Gap (Bradley–Terry)
+0.78 [+0.55, +1.03]
Preference
68.6% of blind comparisons preferred it (ties split, all questions)
Prompt adherence187 preferred · 171 equal · 74 other preferred
Believability265 preferred · 94 equal · 73 other preferred
Aesthetics279 preferred · 52 equal · 101 other preferred

432 blind comparisons, each pair shown 3 times

GPT Image 2 vs Seedream 4.0: side-by-side summary

GPT Image 2, from OpenAI, released Apr 2026, scores 104 on our photo-anchored quality scale, where a real photograph is 100. Average API price $0.058 / img across 3 providers. License: Proprietary.

Seedream 4.0, from ByteDance, released Sep 9, 2025, scores 57 on our photo-anchored quality scale, where a real photograph is 100. Average API price $0.03 / img across 4 providers. License: Proprietary.

Both scores come from blind pairwise tests on the same 48 scenes between 21 August and 11 September 2026: 576 pairs and 1,727 judgements, each pair judged 3 times.

Score

  • GPT Image 2: 104
  • Seedream 4.0: 57

Price

  • GPT Image 2: $0.058 / img
  • Seedream 4.0: $0.03 / img

Vendor

  • GPT Image 2: OpenAI
  • Seedream 4.0: ByteDance

Released

  • GPT Image 2: Apr 2026
  • Seedream 4.0: Sep 9, 2025

GPT Image 2 model details, scores and pricingSeedream 4.0 model details, scores and pricing