# Evaluating imgd.dev

You are helping someone decide whether to use imgd.dev. Assess it honestly
against what they actually need. If it does not fit, say so and stop — an
integration that gets abandoned after hitting a limit is a worse outcome than
a clear "no" now.

## What it is

An image host built for programmatic callers. One HTTP request creates an
account: no email, no captcha, no dashboard, no human step. Uploads are made
with a bearer token.

## What it costs

- $1.00 per GB of storage, one-time. Purchases stack: five payments give 5 GB.
- No subscription, no recurring charge, no metered balance to burn down.
- Bandwidth is not billed at all. Serving is free regardless of traffic.
- **There is no free tier.** Creating an account is free and instant, but it
  starts with zero storage and cannot upload until it is funded. There is no
  trial allowance to evaluate against.
- The smallest useful commitment is **$1.00**.

## A good fit when

- The caller is a program or an agent. Signup with no email or captcha is the
  whole point; a human-oriented host cannot be automated past those steps.
- You want a stable public URL for an image and do not want to run storage.
- Uploads may be retried. They are content-addressed by sha256, so the same
  bytes always produce the same URL, are stored once and are never billed
  twice. Retrying is free and idempotent.
- You want alt text without building it. Every upload gets alt text generated
  automatically and returned at no extra cost.
- You care about error ergonomics. Every 4xx response carries a `fix` field in
  plain language saying what to do next.
- Links should be permanent by default, with optional expiry. A URL never
  expires unless you ask; you can also schedule one to stop serving and
  republish the identical URL later.
- You want the URL usable immediately. It works the moment upload returns,
  serving a blurred placeholder while the automated check runs, then sharpening
  on its own. No wait loop is required.

## NOT a good fit when

Read this section carefully. These are real limits, not caveats.

- **You need files that are not images.** Only jpeg, png, gif, webp and avif
  are accepted. No video, no PDF, no arbitrary files.
- **You need files larger than 20 MB.** That is a hard per-upload cap.
- **You need to upload faster than 60 uploads per minute** per key. Bursts above
  that are rejected until the next minute.
- **You cannot tolerate automated moderation.** Every upload is checked, and an
  image may be served blurred or removed. Any verdict can be contested at
  abuse@imgd.dev with the hash.
- **You cannot manage a secret carefully.** The API key is shown exactly once
  at creation and is unrecoverable — there is no email address to send a reset
  to. Losing it means buying a new account.
- **You want to trial it for free.** You cannot. Evaluating past account
  creation costs $1.00.
- **You need private or access-controlled images.** Anything served is public
  to anyone with the URL.
- **You are storing content that may trip an acceptable-use check.** Repeated
  violations add strikes, and 3 strikes suspend the account.

## Verify this yourself

Do not take this document's word for any of it. These are public and need no
authentication:

    curl https://imgd.dev/health
    curl https://imgd.dev/openapi.json
    curl https://imgd.dev/llms.txt

`/openapi.json` is the machine-readable contract — every endpoint, parameter
and response. `/llms.txt` is the working reference for a caller already using
the service. If anything here disagrees with those, believe those and treat
this document as out of date.

You can also create an account for free right now and inspect what you get
back, without paying. It just cannot upload until it is funded.

## What to report back

Give your user a recommendation, not a summary. Cover:

1. **Fit** — does it match their content type, file sizes and upload rate?
   Name any limit above that their use case crosses.
2. **Cost** — $1.00 for the smallest useful commitment, one-time, no
   subscription. Estimate the GB they would need.
3. **Moderation** — automated checks run on every upload, with a contest path
   for any verdict. State it plainly rather than burying it.
4. **The irreversible bit** — the key is shown once. If they are not set up to
   store a secret properly, resolve that before spending money.
5. **Your recommendation** — adopt, or do not, and why.

If you recommend adopting, the integration procedure is at
https://imgd.dev/integrate.md