remove.bg, Canva or Photoroom: which background remover?

For a quick cut-out of a product or a person, remove.bg and Photoroom are built for the job, and Canva's remover comes with a paid plan. If the photo is private, or you would rather not make an account, a remover that runs in your browser keeps the picture on your device. The trade is output size and polish, so check the table first.

Remove backgroundBackground needs to goDo it free

At a glance

Limits are as published by each service at the time of writing (November 2026) and can change.

Tool	Where your file goes	Sign-up	Free use	Best for
remove.bg	Uploaded, deleted about an hour later	Account to buy credits	Free up to 0.25 megapixels, personal use	Higher resolution and API use
Canva	Uploaded to Canva	Canva account on a paid plan	Not part of the free plan	Designers already working in Canva
Photoroom	Processed by its online service	Free to start	Free to start, high-resolution exports on paid plans	Product photos for stores
fixmint	Stays on your device	None	Free, no watermark	Private photos, quick cut-outs

remove.bg

remove.bg's help pages say the website is free for low-resolution images, up to 0.25 megapixels (about 625 by 400 pixels), and for personal use. You also get 50 free previews a month with its desktop app. Higher resolutions of up to 50 megapixels, and commercial use, need credits or a plan.

On privacy, the help pages state that the uploaded image and the result are deleted about one hour after upload at the latest, and that uploaded images are not used to train the AI unless you choose to contribute one. If you call its API instead of using the website, the help pages say images are deleted right after each call is processed.

Canva

Canva's help center says Background remover is included with paid plans. It works on photos under 9 MB and scales anything above 10 megapixels down to 10 once the background is removed. It can also remove backgrounds from videos shorter than 10 minutes, and it lets you refine the result with a brush.

In a folder it processes up to 50 uploaded images at a time and saves the results in a new folder, which helps when a set of photos already lives in Canva. It is a feature of a design tool rather than a stand-alone remover.

Photoroom

Photoroom is aimed at product photography. Its background remover page lets you start for free, download the result as PNG, JPEG or WebP, or save it to your account to edit later, and it points to paid plans for more editing tools and high-resolution exports. Its site also lists product scene generation and batch processing.

The page does not state how long uploaded images are kept, so read its privacy policy before sending anything personal.

When another tool is the better choice

• You need a large or print-size result: remove.bg offers up to 50 megapixels on paid plans. fixmint caps the longer side at 2,800 pixels.
• You are preparing a catalogue with new backgrounds or staged scenes: Photoroom is built around that.
• You already design in Canva: its remover saves a round trip, and the brush helps with stray edges. fixmint offers only an Edge slider and the choice of transparent, white, a colour or blur.
• The subject is hair against a similar background, glass or a crowded scene: every automatic remover struggles there, and a tool with manual touch-up gives you more control.
• You want an API: fixmint has none.

Do it free on fixmint

fixmint runs an AI model in your browser, so the photo is not uploaded, and there is no account, watermark or credit counter. The first run downloads the model, about 16 MB, and after that it also works offline. It takes one photo at a time, lets you choose a transparent, white, colour or blurred background, and shows a slider to compare before and after. Remove a background free, in your browser, or read how it works without an upload.

Quick answers

Is remove.bg really free? For small images and personal use, yes: up to 0.25 megapixels on the website. Larger results and commercial use need credits or a plan.

How do I keep a transparent background? Save as PNG, which can store transparency. A JPG cannot, so the empty area becomes a solid colour. If a transparent PNG turns black after an upload, this explains why.

Why does the cut-out miss some hair? The model decides each pixel from the photo alone, and fine hair against a similar background is the hardest case. The best photos have one clear subject that stands out from the background. A plainer backdrop and soft, even light give better results, the Edge slider in fixmint tidies a rough outline, and a square frame is easy to add afterwards with square-image.

Which of these keeps my photo private? fixmint does, because the model runs on your device and the photo is never sent anywhere. remove.bg says it deletes uploads and results about an hour after upload, and Photoroom's page does not state a retention time. For a photo of a person, that difference is worth a minute of thought.