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Chapter 11 · Platform & pricing
Photopea is a single web application that runs in every modern browser, installs as a progressive web app on desktop and mobile, and is monetised through a subscription that unlocks server-side processing, extra storage and commercial licensing. The platform story is straightforward. The pricing story has one genuinely confusing corner — self-hosting — which this chapter addresses directly rather than glossing over.
Browser support
The application targets the modern evergreen browsers. There is no plugin, no ActiveX control, no Java applet. It is JavaScript, WebAssembly and WebGL, which means the capability floor is set by the browser rather than by the operating system.
| Browser | Support level | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Google Chrome | Full | Reference platform; File System Access API gives real folder browsing and save-in-place |
| Microsoft Edge | Full | Chromium engine, so identical capability to Chrome including the File System Access API |
| Opera | Full | Chromium engine |
| Brave | Full | Chromium engine; aggressive shield settings can block cloud storage OAuth pop-ups |
| Firefox | Full, with caveats | No File System Access API, so folder browsing and save-in-place are unavailable; downloads go through the normal download flow |
| Safari (macOS) | Full, with caveats | No File System Access API; WebAssembly and WebGL performance is lower than Chromium; memory ceiling is stricter |
| Safari (iOS/iPadOS) | Works | Touch-first; the interface adapts but dense panel work is slow; large PSDs may hit memory limits |
| Chrome (Android) | Works | Touch interface; usable for crops, colour and light retouching, not for layered compositing |
The practical consequence of the browser split is that the File System Access API — the feature that makes Photopea feel like a desktop application, with a real Open dialog and a save that writes back to the same file — exists only in Chromium browsers. On Firefox and Safari every save is a download, and every open is a file picker. That is a materially different workflow, not a cosmetic difference.
A browser tab has a memory budget that a desktop application does not. Chrome on a 16 GB machine will typically allow a tab to grow to roughly 4 GB before it is killed; Safari is stricter. A 300 MB layered PSD can easily expand to several gigabytes once decoded, so the largest files that open comfortably in Photoshop may fail in Photopea on the same machine. The fix is to flatten, merge or downsample before opening, or to use a Chromium browser on a machine with more RAM.
Progressive web app behaviour
Photopea can be installed as a progressive web app from Chrome, Edge and Safari. Installing changes three things and not one more. It opens in its own window without browser chrome, it gets an entry in the operating system's application launcher or dock, and it can be given a file association on some platforms. It does not change the network requirement, it does not add offline launching, and it does not grant extra file system permissions beyond what the browser already allows.
The distinction matters because "install Photopea" sounds like "install Photoshop". It is closer to "pin a website in a dedicated window". The application shell is still fetched from photopea.com. Independent analysis of the service worker found no active cache, which means a cold start without a network will fail even for an installed PWA. Within a session, with the tab already loaded, editing continues to work offline because the processing is local.
Version history
Photopea ships continuously rather than in annual releases, so version numbers are milestones rather than product generations. The ones that changed capability in a way users noticed are these.
| Version | Approximate date | What it added |
|---|---|---|
| 4.0 | 2021 | Artboards, the modernised interface, improved PSD text rendering |
| 4.1 | 2021 | Figma file import; expanded smart object support |
| 4.6 | 2022 | Animation timeline with the _a_ layer naming convention; improved RAW handling |
| 4.9 | 2023 | EXR export; 32-bit HDR pipeline improvements; Camera Raw filter additions |
| 5.6 | 2024–2025 | AI features matured (Remove BG, Magic Replace, text-to-image); plugin API via iframe and postMessage |
Because there is no installer and no update prompt, users are always on the current version. That is a genuine advantage over desktop software: no version skew, no "this file was made in a newer version" dialogs, no upgrade project. It also means behaviour can change under you between sessions, which is the trade-off.
Plans and what they actually buy
| Plan | Price | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| Free | €0 | All editing features, all local processing, all export formats, no watermark, 0.5 GB PeaDrive, no AI credits |
| Premium — 30 days | €5 | AI credits, 5 GB PeaDrive, priority processing, commercial use licence |
| Premium — 90 days | €10 | Same as 30 days, longer term |
| Premium — 365 days | €20 | Same as 30 days, best value per day |
| Team — 20 seats | Quoted | Shared storage, single sign-on through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, centralised billing |
| Team — 50 seats | Quoted | Same as 20 seats at higher volume |
The important structural point is that Premium is a pass, not a feature gate. Nothing in the editing engine is withheld from free users. The free tier gets the full PSD engine, the full filter set, the full vector and text toolset, every export format and no watermark. What Premium buys is the server-side AI processing, more cloud storage, and a commercial-use licence.
That is an unusual and defensible model. Most freemium image editors gate resolution, watermark exports or the good filters. Photopea gates only the things that cost the developer money to run: GPU time for AI inference and disk for cloud storage. If you never use the AI features and save to your own disk, the free tier is not a trial — it is the product.
AI features consume credits rather than being switched on by subscription. Remove Background costs one credit, Magic Replace costs three, text-to-image costs a variable amount by resolution. Credits come with a Premium pass and are consumed per operation. The local Spot Healing Brush and the local object-removal model in the companion studio do not consume credits because they run on your device. Chapter 9 covers the credit economy in detail.
Pricing mechanics worth knowing
Prices are quoted in euros and are not regionally adjusted in the way that large software vendors adjust them, which means the effective cost in Indian rupees tracks the exchange rate rather than a local price list. Payment is by card through a standard processor; there is no invoice-by-email option for individuals, though team plans are quoted and invoiced.
There is no auto-renewal trap in the individual plans. A 30-day pass expires after 30 days and does not silently renew, which is refreshing and also means you have to remember to buy the next one. Team plans are annual and do renew, because they are procured through a sales conversation rather than a checkout button.
The commercial-use licence is the reason many freelancers buy a pass even if they do not need credits. The free tier's terms are aimed at personal and evaluation use; if you are delivering paid client work, the Premium licence removes the ambiguity. That is a legal consideration rather than a technical one, and it is the single most common reason to pay.
The self-hosting contradiction
This is the part of the Photopea story that is genuinely muddled, and it is worth untangling because it affects procurement decisions.
Photopea's own materials and third-party reviews frequently state that Photopea cannot be self-hosted. The application is delivered as a hosted service from photopea.com, and there is no downloadable server package, no Docker image, no on-premises installer. For a normal user that statement is simply true.
At the same time, the Wikipedia entry and some distributor materials reference self-hosting arrangements with costs in the range of five hundred to two thousand US dollars per month. Those two claims cannot both be literally true, and the most plausible reconciliation is that the expensive option is a white-label or distributor arrangement: a licensed deployment, typically delivered through an API account, that lets an organisation embed Photopea's engine in its own product or serve it from its own domain under an agreement with the developer.
What that means in practice is that self-hosting exists as a commercial contract, not as a product you can download. If your organisation needs Photopea behind its own firewall, the path is to contact the developer and negotiate a distributor arrangement. If you are an individual, the answer is no, and the hosted service is the only option. Anyone claiming there is a free self-hosted build is mistaken.
Platform verdict
Browser coverage is complete for practical purposes, with Chromium giving the best file workflow and Safari giving the weakest performance. The PWA install is a convenience, not an offline mode. The pricing is honest: a genuinely capable free tier, a cheap pass for AI and storage, and a commercial licence that freelancers should probably buy. The self-hosting question has a real answer, and the answer is a contract rather than a download.
Chapter 12 maps the keyboard shortcuts, which is the fastest way to close the gap between Photopea and a desktop editor you already know.