My honest and minimal review of Leonardo.AI

I just canceled my subscription to LeonardoAI. It wasn’t much since I was on the cheaper plan. I subscribed with the intention of using it to generate assets for the websites I build.

To be honest, I found very few of the images actually useful. No matter the model, most looked too artificial to me. Some were beautiful, artistic, and interesting—but none had real business value beyond maybe blog illustrations. Definitely not for landing pages, or at least not for most of my clients.

For example, one day I tried using LeonardoAI to create images of people in everyday office interactions. Some were nice, even usable—except the meetings looked more like a UNESCO conference than a regular office day. The photos felt unnecessarily inclusive, to put it bluntly.

On the other hand, when I tried to nudge LeonardoAI into generating more Latin-looking people, they all came out looking the same, with a sad mojado expression. Maybe the AI read the inner Mexican in me—I really don’t know. The best I got from this experiment was a batch of bearded guys in an office. I assure you, this time the AI wasn’t reading my mind.

So I started using it for memes, beautiful faces, and creative images to share on social media. It’s an okay tool for that, if you see my point.

But nowadays, there’s lots of competition.

Today, I tried using LeonardoAI for something the competition is starting to make very easy: creating consistent characters.

I took one of my images from LeonardoAI and asked it to generate a new one using it as a reference. It was a woman sitting at her desk—I just wanted her laughing and stretching her back.

And what did I get? One of those ugly, multi-limbed monstrosities with extra hands. In 2025, seriously? That’s when I decided to close that little $10 monthly leak.

Then, as a final insult, they told me I’d lose all my unused credits! I had no idea, and I found that pretty abusive. But if I wasn’t going to use it anyway, and on top of that, they’re pushy and greedy… well, I’d rather lose my credits and move on to greener pastures.