Ideogram Character
Ideogram Character: one reference portrait in, the same character in new scenes, poses and styles.
First request
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
base_url="https://api.altrouter.ai/v1",
api_key="ar-...",
)
img = client.images.generate(
model="ideogram-character",
prompt="a red fox in the snow",
)
print(img.data[0].url)import OpenAI from "openai";
const client = new OpenAI({
baseURL: "https://api.altrouter.ai/v1",
apiKey: process.env.ALTROUTER_API_KEY, // ar-...
});
const img = await client.images.generate({
model: "ideogram-character",
prompt: "a red fox in the snow",
});
console.log(img.data[0].url);curl https://api.altrouter.ai/v1/images/generations \
-H "Authorization: Bearer ar-..." \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "ideogram-character",
"prompt": "a red fox in the snow"
}'The interface is OpenAI-compatible: in existing code only the base_url, the key and the model id change — nothing else.
Ideogram Character against its price neighbours
| Model | Price | Unit | Discount | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midjourney V8Midjourney | $0.074 | image | — | Open |
| FLUX.1 Kontext MaxBlack Forest | $0.082 | image | — | Open |
| FLUX.2 FlexBlack Forest | $0.089 | image | — | Open |
| Nano Banana ProGoogle | $0.12 | image | −10% | Open |
| Ideogram Characterthis pageIdeogram | $0.13 | image | −15% |
Prices and parameters come from the same catalog as the price above; this is not a benchmark, it is comparable billing terms.
Limits
Pricing is flat — $0.13 per image, regardless of prompt length. Allowed image_size values: square_hd, square, portrait_4_3, portrait_16_9, landscape_4_3, landscape_16_9.
There is no subscription: every successful request is billed at the price above, and a failed one is not billed at all. That price is already 15% below the vendor's official one — the official price is shown struck through next to it so it can be checked. No Ideogram account of your own is needed, and no VPN: requests go to api.altrouter.ai and we make the upstream call.
Rate limiting is shared across models and counted per key: 600 requests per minute by default, and a 429 with retry-after: 60 above it. An individual key can get its own limit and a spending cap per day, week, month or lifetime in the dashboard.
When to pick Ideogram Character, and when a neighbour
The cheaper neighbour is Nano Banana Pro: $0.12 per image against $0.13 for Ideogram Character. On the same volume the bill comes out 1.1× smaller. It is the sensible pick where the task is repetitive and high-volume — labelling, classification, short templated answers — the kind of work where quality is bounded by the prompt rather than the model.
Guessing is more expensive than checking: the table above is prices and parameters, not a benchmark, and it cannot tell you which model does better on your own prompt. Switching costs one line — the model id in the request changes, the base_url and the key stay — so running both on your own data takes minutes.
OpenAI-compatible image generation endpoint. The result is re-hosted on our CDN and returned as a URL.
/v1/images/generations