What is Palette?
Reviewed Palette's site, partners page, and pricing on 2026-10-26; research-only, nothing hands-on. Palette colorizes black-and-white photos without regenerating them — upload, pick from 21+ filters, adjust colors with text prompts, and pay per credit ($0.65 one-time, $0.15 on the $72/year plan). The Porto, Portugal company claims 54 million photos colorized since 2017 for 6.6M families and production clients including BBC and History Channel; founder Emil Wallner's colorization research got him hired by Google before he built Palette. Independent review profiles (Trustpilot, G2) were absent as of the review date, so the 4.9-star claim has no third-party cross-check.
Key Features
Filter-based colorization
Upload or drag-and-drop photos, pick from 21+ filters across categories like History, Interior, and Clothes, and preview before/after with unlimited free previews before spending a credit.
Text-prompt color control
After the first render, adjust the result "by adjusting the key words" — steering skin tones, light, or mood with text; power users describe template phrasing as a learned skill.
Credit plans, one-time or annual
1 photo = 1 credit. Free tier: 1 trial credit (watermarked, lower resolution). Subscribe: $72/year for 480 credits (billed annually, ~10× faster, watermark-free). Pay once: $49 for 75 credits, valid 2 years.
Partner/API licensing
partners.palette.fm sells Project, Annual, or Platform licenses — hosted or self-hosted, custom signature looks, era-consistent colorization from archive dates/places, a 30-day pilot on agreed pass criteria; used by BBC, History Channel, and SPIEGEL TV.
Pros & Cons
What works
- Preservation-first output: the partners page states general image models "regenerate the picture" so "details can change and identities drift," while Palette returns the original scan plus color in 1–5 seconds per photo (vendor claim).
- Real one-time-payment option: $49 buys 75 credits ($0.65 each) valid for 2 years — no subscription required, unlike most AI photo tools in this price class.
- Cheap at volume: the $72/year plan works out to $0.15 per credit for 480 full-resolution, watermark-free, ad-free downloads a year — a 77% per-photo discount versus the one-time rate.
- Verifiable track record: colorizing since 2017, 54 million photos claimed, BBC / History Channel / SPIEGEL TV logos on the partners page, and founder Emil Wallner's Klimt Project reconstruction work for the Belvedere Museum after being hired off his colorization research by Google.
Watch out for
- Free tier is demo-sized: 1 trial credit, watermarked previews, lower-resolution downloads, and ads — enough to judge color style, not to get a usable file.
- Subscription math punishes low volume: $72 upfront for 480 credits means colorizing about 9 photos every week to break even; below roughly 111 photos a year, the $0.65 one-time rate is cheaper.
- Pay-once credits expire after 2 years ("Available for 2 years"), and the site doesn't say whether unused subscription credits roll over.
- No independent review footprint found as of 2026-10-26: no Trustpilot profile, no G2 listing (G2's 'palette' slug belongs to an unrelated product), no AlternativeTo page — the 4.9★ and 6.6M-user figures are self-reported and the linked testimonial wall is vendor-curated.
Who is it for?
Genealogists and family-archive digitizers
A 480-credit year matches an album-digitization pace (~9 photos/week), and catalog-context rendering uses dates and places to keep era colors consistent — the exact persona filling the vendor-curated testimonial wall.
Photo-restoration professionals
Preserves the original scan instead of regenerating it, so Photoshop finishing stays predictable; reviewers report cutting manual finishing time, but treat prompt phrasing as a skill to learn.
One-off users colorizing a handful of photos
The free tier gives 1 watermarked credit and the smallest captured paid pack is $49; the subscription never pays back at this volume — use the one-time credits or a cheaper per-credit alternative.
Photo platforms, archives, and productions (B2B)
Fixed, metered, or unlimited licensing with self-hosting, pinned versions, a DPA, and a 30-day pilot against agreed pass criteria — onboarding runs a couple of weeks with the founder directly.
Reviewed Palette's site, partners page, and pricing on 2026-10-26 — research only, no hands-on runs; every number below was captured from live pages that day.
Palette colorizes black-and-white photos without regenerating them. Upload, pick from 21+ filters, adjust the colors with text prompts, download. That order is the pitch: the partners page contrasts Palette with general image models, which "regenerate the picture" so "details can change and identities drift." Palette's claim is the inverse — your scan comes back "plus the color," in 1 to 5 seconds. General image models are regeneration-first. Palette is preservation-first. The credentials hold up on paper: colorizing since 2017, a claimed 54 million photographs, BBC / History Channel / SPIEGEL TV logos on the partners page, and founder Emil Wallner — whose colorization hobby project got him hired by Google before he left to build Palette. It's also one of the few AI tools here with a real one-time payment option; the subscription is optional.
The Catch
The people who waste money here are low-volume subscribers. The $0.15-per-credit rate requires $72 upfront for 480 credits a year — about 9 photos every week for 12 months. Below roughly 111 colorizations a year, the $0.65 pay-once rate is cheaper; above it, subscribe. Either way, pay-once credits expire after 2 years, so an unused pack is sunk money. The free tier is a demo: 1 trial credit, watermarked previews, lower-resolution downloads, ads.
Accuracy is the second catch, and it's structural. Palette's own copy says that "where the record ends, it fills the gaps with the colors of the era." For a family album that's the point. For a history claim, plausible era colors can still be wrong colors. The 4.9-star and 6.6M-user figures are self-reported; as of 2026-10-26 there was no Trustpilot profile or G2 listing to cross-check, and the linked testimonial wall is vendor-curated.
What it actually costs per photo
| Your volume | Palette | Alternative |
|---|---|---|
| A few photos, once | $0.65/credit via the $49 pack (75 credits) | Hotpot lists credits at $12 per 1,000 ($0.012/credit) — its per-colorization credit burn isn't published, so the real per-photo floor is unverifiable |
| ~110+ photos/year | $72/year = $0.15/credit | MyHeritage colorization sits behind a genealogy subscription — not price-verified here |
If colorized scans still need scratch or object cleanup, that's Remove.tech territory; if you'd rather generate new images than restore old ones, see PhotoAI.
The decision isn't aesthetic, it's arithmetic. Around 110+ colorizations a year: subscribe. A shoebox of 20: pay once, use the credits within their 2 years, and skip the subscription.
Palette FAQ
How much does Palette charge per photo?
Do Palette credits expire?
What do independent reviews say about Palette?
Alternatives to Palette
Brand-first AI design suite for presentations, infographics and business docs — priced per seat, metered in AI credits.
Credit-based AI photoshoots from one selfie — cheap per render, expensive per keeper.
