6 best AI headshot generators of 2025

Of all the ways generative AI is reshaping creative work, AI headshot generators might be the least controversial. They don’t mimic a specific artist’s style or push any creative boundaries. Instead, they  give you a portrait of yourself at your best: a confident smile, a sharp-looking outfit, and a soft-focus background. For most people, that’s plenty. 

Traditional headshots often cost hundreds of dollars — money that not everyone can justify spending for a LinkedIn profile or resume refresh. Although AI can’t  outperform professional headshot photographers, it’s filling a much-needed pricing gap and giving people with smaller budgets a chance at professional-looking portraits.

Of course, not all AI headshot generators are worth your time. The worst tools churn out awkward, uncanny results you wouldn’t want attached to your name or a job application. But the best? They’re surprisingly good — good enough that we feel confident recommending the six standout options we tested.

How AI headshot generators work

These AI tools are trained on massive datasets of human faces to understand facial structure, symmetry, lighting, and posing to convincingly generate or enhance portraits. 

Most of the ones we tested use something called low-rank adaptation (LoRA) models to essentially add uploaded selfies to the training data in existing image generators. With 10-plus reference photos, a LoRA model can generate your face with entirely new expressions and lighting.

Above all else, a top-tier AI headshot generator should be able to create images of your face that look exactly like you. This rubric alone disqualified a handful of tools we tested. But on top of that, these tools can place a convincing version of you in different environments and outfits, ideally ones you chose during the setup process. 

Because the norms for professional headshots are standardized nowadays, many AI headshot generators look similar at first glance. They’ll dress you in business formal or casual attire and depict you standing in front of a modern office, park, or rooftop. Look a little closer, though, and there are a few crucial aspects that set them apart.

Benefits of choosing the best AI headshot generator

The primary reason to use an AI headshot generator is the time and cost savings. What used to require scheduling a shoot, traveling to a studio, and waiting days for edited photos can now be accomplished anywhere from three hours after payment to 15 minutes. Speaking of payment, the tools we tested charged anywhere from $10 to $60, making them three to four times less expensive than an in-person shoot. 

And unlike DIY solutions, these platforms are optimized for consistency, so you end up with at least 25 unique headshots. If you’re buying headshots for an entire team, you’ll get photos with consistent attire and environments across an entire group of people.

Finally, AI headshot generators ensure you  put your best face forward, quite literally. They give you a great smile, great hair, and a great outfit in every shot without taking a dozen photos per pose or location to get something usable. The best AI models can replicate your face well enough to make every portrait look polished and professional, whether you’re planning to use it for LinkedIn, your resume, press kits, or personal branding.

Best AI image generators in 2025: A quick comparison

Aragon.ai: The best AI headshot generator for quick turnaround portraits

Developer: Aragon AI, Inc.

The onboarding process Aragon uses mostly aligns with the other apps on this list. It will ask for your age, hair length, ethnicity, body type, and other information that usually gets added to the system prompt. Next, it asks about which clothing styles and environments you want in your headshots. Finally, it asks you to provide a few reference photos. 

It’s during the reference upload step that Aragon scores a few extra points. You need to provide only six to 10 photos to receive professional-grade images, which is fewer than other headshort generators. What’s more is Aragon tells you which reference images aren’t good enough to make the cut, something that few AI headshot generators do. It also has a fantastic mobile upload flow for desktop users. All you have to do is scan a QR code on your phone and upload references from there.

The main reason to go with Aragon, however, is for its ridiculously fast turnaround times. The cheapest package delivers results in less than 45 minutes, which is faster than what some generators offer in their highest tiers. We tested Aragon’s Executive plan and the headshots came back in less than 15 minutes. When you zoom in far enough, the photos look a little too airbrushed and we had a couple photos come back with what looked like diamond engagement rings on two of our male subject’s hands. But as long as you’re not putting these headshots on a big screen or printed surface, they’re an excellent option.

Pros:

• Super fast, on every tier
• Manageable reference requirements
• Convenient upload from mobile feature

Cons:

• Beauty filter/airbrushing is a tad strong
• A few photos had strange artifacts

Plans/Pricing: 

All the packages are one-time purchases, with Basic as the most affordable plan at $12 for 40 headshots, which will depict you with one outfit against one background in 896×1088 resolution, all with a 45-minute turnaround. Standard is $15 and gives you the same resolution, 60 headshots, two outfits, and two backgrounds within 30 minutes. At the higher end, Executive comes with 100 headshots, as many outfits and backgrounds as you’d like, and 1792×2304 resolution delivered in under 15 minutes.

HeadshotKiwi: The best AI headshot generator for photorealistic portraits

Developer: HeadshotKiwi

There isn’t much to say about HeadshotKiwi’s features. It asks similar demographics questions to what every AI headshot generator requests, albeit with a few more input options than most of its competitors. It requires at least 13 reference images, which is more than many others, and it gives you a list of outfits and environments to choose from. The results, however, are noticeably better than other AI headshot generators we tested. 

The cheapest HeadshotKiwi plan is $29, more expensive than some apps’ Executive packages. But you get your money’s worth in terms of photorealism. Gone is the overly glowing, smooth skin that you see with other generators — for example, wrinkles, rather than being unwanted imperfections, actually make the headshots look more human and genuine. There’s no built-in image editor, which might be considered a negative, but of the 120 shots in our test package, less than a dozen felt like they needed it. 

Pros:

• The most realistic images we saw
• Pick specific outfits and locations

Cons:

• High reference photo minimums
• No AI photo editor for retouching

Plans/Pricing: 

The Starter package includes 40 headshots with five backgrounds and outfits for $29. The Professional package, at $39, bumps you up to 120 headshots across 12 backgrounds and outfits. Executive is the most expensive package at $59 for 250 headshots, including 25 outfits and backgrounds.

Dreamwave: The best AI headshot generator for teams and events

Developer: Dreamwave AI, Inc. 

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first: Dreamwave AI headshots don’t have the highest win rate based on our tests. To be clear, plenty of the 75 photos in our package were good enough for a resume or social media profile. But there were also a number of them that were immediately recognizable as AI, with shadows and lighting that felt like the early days of Midjourney.

What Dreamwave lacks in consistency, it makes up for with variety. We seemed to get almost double the amount of outfits and backdrops on the Starter plan than the pricing page indicated. After testing so many AI headshot generators that offered seemingly the same wardrobe — blue button-up shirt, black t-shirt, white sweater — it was really nice to see a hoodie-jacket combo and a striped shirt. And when you like a pose or a smile but not the outfit Dreamwave paired with it, the built-in editor provides a textbox for you to describe a new outfit in plain language and a button to regenerate the image.

The true standout feature, however, is Dreamwave’s company and event AI headshots. On team plans, you not only get volume discounts for buying in bulk,  but also enjoy features for managing employee uploads, automatic reminders, and style consistency across all generations. Plans for event-related AI headshots include the ability to add your branding to headshots, email authentication before showing a generation, QR-based app-free reference uploads, and a microsite for attendees to download headshots later. 

Pros:

• Easy-to-use photo editor
• Above average variety of outfits
• Built-in tools for team and event management

Cons:

• Inconsistent quality

Plans/Pricing: 

Starter is the most affordable package at $35 for 75 photos that have eight backdrops and eight outfits. Above that is Standard at $59, which comes with 150 photos, 10 backdrops and outfits, and one free redo (start from scratch with new reference images). Best Value includes 300 photos, 15 outfits, 10 backdrops, two free redos, and unlimited requests for touchups by one of Dreamwave’s human specialists.

Magic Hour: The best AI headshot generator for text-to-headshot prompts

Developer: Magic Hour AI, Inc.

It makes sense that the vast majority of the AI headshot generators we tested were one-time purchases with pre-selected background and apparel options, and no open-ended prompting. Most people don’t need or want to endlessly try prompts and inputs to see what works best. But there are people who prefer that kind of freedom and flexibility over speed and optimization, and in that case, Magic Hour is the AI headshot generator for them.

We’re not sure exactly what Magic Hour is doing in the background with its headshot generator. LoRA is the most common way to generate AI headshots, but you’d expect that to take at least 10 minutes to run. We trained a model, and Magic Hour surprisingly started generating headshots in a couple of minutes. And although clicking any of the headshot prompt templates will spit out pretty decent images, you can also write whatever you’d like in the prompt textbox to modify the subject’s expression, lighting, environment, clothing, or whatever else you dream up.

Magic Hour’s headshots definitely have a  glow-y appearance, but they’re demonstrably better than a number of supposedly purpose-built headshot generators we tested. Training the model costs 2,000 credits, around 20 percent of one month’s allotment on the lowest tier, and post-training generation is 50 credits per prompt. That means you could generate 160-plus headshots in the first month and 200-plus during a month with no training. Most people probably won’t get anywhere near those numbers though, leaving them with piles of credits to play with Magic Hour’s other AI image and video generation tools.

Pros:

• Generate outfits and backgrounds with text prompts
• Access to non-headshot AI image tools
• Training and generation are very fast

Cons:

• Not the highest fidelity images

Plans/Pricing: 

To let you try its features, Magic Hour has a free plan that offers 400 credits, 512-pixel resolution images, and watermarked images. The Creator plan includes 10,000 credits per month, 1024-pixel resolution images, and no watermarks for $12 per month. At $59 per month, Pro increases the monthly allowance to 50,000 credits and the resolution to 1472-pixel images. On the Business tier, you get 250,000 credits and 4K resolution for $300 per month.

Secta Labs: The best AI headshot generator for a variety of locations and outfits

Developer: Secta Labs

Your experience with an AI headshot generator will often depend on how many reference-ready photos they have on hand. Our tester did not have many, and Secta Labs is surprisingly picky about what it allows and doesn’t allow in the training data. You will need at least 15 high-resolution, relatively close-up photos of your face in different outfits, lighting, and backgrounds. This won’t be an issue for some. But for others, the fact that these are hard minimums and requirements (you cannot override them) will require some added time while you run around taking selfies and changing clothes.

What Secta Labs gives you in return for all that leg work is an almost overwhelming number of headshot options. We counted at least 120 styles to choose from, ranging from film noir and facepaint to Valentine’s Day and casino. Most of them look pretty good, especially the outdoor styles, which have sunlight that looks convincing and adds shadows, which tone down issues with overly smooth skin.

We recommend trying to avoid reference photos that have you wearing a watch, since Secta Labs apparently tries to recreate that for many of the outputs. While it did better than more AI image generators would, these watches were noticeably muddy and fake.

Other issues included an autumn lakeside image that covered the subject’s face in leaves, and a coffeeshop filled with copies of the same person. But with over 100 portraits included in the base package, and the Mirror feature that lets you select from a list of dozens of headshots and regenerate them with your face, you will have way more usable photos than places to post them.

Pros:

• Unnecessary number of headshot styles
• Standout nature shots
• Mirror feature for picking specific poses

Cons:

• Onerous reference image requirements
• Weird artifacts in some images

Plans/Pricing: 

There is only one plan with explicit pricing: Professional is a one-time $49 outlay for 100 headshots. The Company plan requires a sales call for branded colors, custom backgrounds, and mass exports for multi-subject accounts.

Open Art: The best AI headshot generator for free portraits

Developer: OpenArt

Free generative AI often feels like the norm. That is not the case with AI headshots. There is a long list of websites and apps that claim to give you free AI-generated portraits of yourself, but they aren’t even close to being in the same league as paid options. Most of them look absolutely nothing like the reference image you provide. Open Art’s 40 trial credits, combined with its open-source models, might just work in a pinch though.

You’ll get only around 10 images on the free plan, so you need to get the setup right. Start by choosing image generation and picking one of the Flux models. Kontext worked the best in our tests. Describe your headshot in the prompt field, enable the prompt Auto Enhance, then upload a photo of yourself under the Subject/Face Reference field.   

With a detailed prompt and a clear, straight-on reference image of your face, you should get a handful of headshots that actually beat some of the paid apps we tested. And that’s the tough thing with AI images: We tried this same workflow on other apps that offered access to Flux models, but didn’t get results anywhere near passable. If you need an AI portrait of yourself for free, Open Art is your best option.

Pros:

• Passable headshot for free
• Prompt enhancer actually works

Cons:

• Not as true to reference images as paid apps
• Small number of free outputs

Plans/Pricing: 

With the trial plan you receive a one-time batch of 40 credits. The Essential tier will run you $14 per month for 4,000 credits, four consistent characters, two personalized models. Advanced raises the subscription to $29 per month for 12,000 credits, 12 consistent characters, and six personalized models. Infinite costs $56 per month for 24,000 credits, 24 consistent characters, and 12 personalized models.

Use AI to build your resume

If you’re crunched for time or budget and need to look professional on LinkedIn, your resume, or your website, AI headshot generators are your best option. They are fast, affordable, customizable, and specifically trained to make you look  your best. 

Learning which AI tools are best in their category and how to use them efficiently can be a huge differentiator for anyone new to the workforce and still building up their profile. AI agents that can act or carry out multi-step tasks on your behalf — scheduling meetings, sending follow-ups, or even applying to jobs — are an excellent way to stay on top of everything. If you’ve never used one before, we recommend starting with our primer on AI agents before creating one of your very own, for free, today.