Comparisons

Aftershoot Pricing in 2026, Compared With Imagen AI and Narrative Select, Plus a Free Culler in the Browser

By Ayush Patnaik, founder of AccioPix

Published October 24, 2026 · 12 min read

Three things set what AI culling software costs you. The first is the billing period. Every vendor on this list charges much less each month if you pay for a full year. The second is whether you want editing as well. Culling on its own is the cheap part of each price list. The third is currency. Aftershoot sets its rates by country, and the others quote in dollars.

Aftershoot pricing, plan by plan

Aftershoot pricing is modular. You buy Select for culling, Edit for AI editing, Retouch for portrait retouching, or a bundle of them, and every plan has the same promise on images. Aftershoot's pricing page says it "charges a flat fee for unlimited images", so a 6,000-frame wedding costs the same as a 300-frame portrait session.

Your location sets the currency on the page. Opened from India on 24 October 2026, it showed rupees beneath a banner for an India wedding season sale. Dollar figures come from Aftershoot's own pricing guide, updated 21 October 2026. It notes that its table was checked against the pricing page that month. The pricing page's own savings calculator agrees on the bundle: $540 a year for Complete.

The pricing page lists what Select includes. You get an AI-automated cull and an AI-assisted one. It handles JPEG and RAW files. Survey mode compares lookalikes, and Spray Can mode marks frames in one click. The software includes key face detection with scores, duplicate grouping, and export to Lightroom Classic, Lightroom, Capture One, Bridge and Camera Raw. Every plan begins with a free 30-day trial. On annual billing you can pause once a year for up to 3 months.

The people who pay for it tend to speak of time, not money. In an Aftershoot announcement covered by Digital Camera World in December 2024, the owners of a two-person studio put it simply:

"We're never going back to manually culling or applying our base edits." Kasey and Tyler Rajotte, owners of Studio Twelve 52

Imagen AI pricing: culling as an add-on

Imagen AI pricing starts with editing. Culling comes on top. Imagen's pricing page blocked our automated fetch. We checked it in a standard browser on 24 October 2026, with the US region chosen and prices in dollars. It lists two plans for individuals.

• Pay-as-you-go: AI editing starts at $0.05 a photo, plus a $7 monthly base fee. Any unused balance rolls over to the next month as editing credit. Extra tools like crop, straighten, denoise and subject masks cost $0.01 a photo each.
• Limitless: This plan costs $129 a month billed annually, or $165 month to month. It comes with all editing, retouching and AI tools, plus AI culling.

Culling on its own is a separate subscription. Imagen's culling page prices it at $12 a month billed yearly, or $18 billed monthly, for unlimited culling. It is sold "as an add-on to any editing plan", and the page adds that culling covers the pay-as-you-go monthly minimum. As we read it, a photographer who only culls in Imagen pays the culling fee, not the fee plus $7. You can cull 2 projects free before paying anything, and the pricing table allows 2 computers per account.

Narrative Select pricing: four plans, culling in all

Most photographers still look for Narrative Select, but the app is now called Narrative. Its pricing page explains that Narrative Select was the old name for the same software. Narrative Publish, its blogging tool, is sold separately. Prices are shown with a dollar sign, but the page does not name the currency.

You get unlimited images and projects on every plan. There is no permanently free tier. A new account gets a free trial of Ultra with no card, though the page does not say how long it lasts. Narrative is clear about who makes the choices. Its FAQ says "The AI does the sorting, assessing, and ranking. You make every final selection." If you want a tool that picks for you, that is a reason to look elsewhere. If you want to stay in charge, it is the reason to look here.

The culling bill, side by side

The culling bill for a year is nearly the same across the three paid tools, if you only cull. The prices pull apart once you add editing. The table shows the cheapest culling tier from each brand, alongside Aftershoot's bundle for comparison.

Spread across a season, the culling-only plans cost very little. A photographer who shoots 25 weddings a year on Aftershoot Select or Narrative Lite, billed annually, pays $4.80 a wedding. With Imagen's culling add-on, the figure is $5.76. Paying month to month costs half as much again on Aftershoot and Narrative. That is the price of being able to stop in the off-season.

Editing is the bigger choice. Aftershoot Complete at $540 a year and Imagen Limitless at $1,548 a year are not culling purchases. They are a bet that AI editing in your style will save you more evenings than culling can. If you already edit by hand in Lightroom and like the results, you pay for something you don't use.

A free culler in the browser, and its limits

A free culler can do the first pass that the paid tools do, with no account and no upload. The AccioPix photo culling tool works right in the browser. You drop in a shoot, RAW or JPEG. Each frame gets a verdict and a reason. Nothing goes to a server.

This is how it works, checked against the code instead of the marketing:

• Reads the files you shoot: it takes JPG, PNG and WebP, alongside RAW files from CR2, CR3, NEF, NRW, ARW, DNG, RAF, ORF, RW2, PEF, SRW and X3F. It judges RAW files using the JPEG preview your camera saves inside each one. This is the same preview Lightroom's Embedded and Sidecar import uses.
• Judges the people first: it spots every face. It measures sharpness on each face at full resolution. It checks for closed eyes. It rates skin exposure. Capture time groups frames into bursts.
• Rejects with a reason: The subject is softer than the rest of the burst. Eyes are shut when a better frame of the moment exists. Skin is blown out. Frames are black. Near-identical shots stack behind the pick instead of being discarded.
• Hands off to Lightroom: It produces XMP sidecars that share the name of each RAW file. Picks get 5 stars. Other keepers get 3, stacked duplicates get 2, and rejects get 1. Under Chrome and Edge, it can put them straight into the folder. A keepers list and a CSV explain the reason for every frame.
• You pay nothing: no sign-up, no watermark, and no photo limit beyond what your computer holds.

When frames tie on every technical test, an appeal score from NIMA breaks the tie. That network predicts the spread of ratings a panel of people would give a photo (Talebi and Milanfar, 2018). It is a tie-breaker, not the judge. Sharp eyes beat a pleasing composition every time.

These limits are real. You should learn them before a wedding depends on them:

• It doesn't edit or retouch. It only culls. Setting your colour and your presets is still your job, or the work of one of the paid tools above.
• Judging a RAW image relies on the embedded preview. Most modern camera bodies create a full-size preview. Some older cameras and compacts store a smaller one instead. That gives the sharpness check less to work with.
• It skips HEIC files. You must convert iPhone photos first. When the tool sees them, it links to the HEIC to JPG converter.
• Sidecars do not carry JPEG ratings. Lightroom ignores XMP files beside JPEGs, so JPEG choices arrive in the list and the CSV instead.
• Your computer sets the pace. The face and appeal models download only once, at about 15 MB and 13 MB. After that, they run locally. An older laptop takes more time on a 4,000-frame card.
• You get no catalogue and no help desk. This is just a page, not a subscription with an account manager.

You might not want a verdict on every frame. If you only want the best few dozen, the best photos picker uses the same engine. It spreads your chosen count across the whole day. It hands back JPEGs as a ZIP or RAW picks as Lightroom ratings. How the ratings land in a catalogue, step by step, is in our guide to culling in Lightroom Classic. What to throw out and why is in what photo culling means.

Matching the tool to the workflow

Matching the tool to the workflow matters more than the price. The cheapest paid plans are only a few dollars apart. The question is how much work after the shoot you want software to do.

The free browser culler suits you if:

• You edit by hand in Lightroom. You just want the rejects tossed and the keepers starred.
• You photograph a few events each season, and an annual plan would sit unused most months.
• You'd rather client photos never leave your laptop, or the venue Wi-Fi cannot cope with a full card of RAW files.
• As a second shooter, you hand a starred folder to the lead photographer.

Buy Aftershoot, Imagen or Narrative if:

• You want AI editing in your own style. That means Aftershoot Edit, Imagen, or Narrative Premium and Ultra. None of these is free.
• You want the tool to pick for you and hand you a finished set. Aftershoot's automated cull does that.
• You edit in Capture One and want a direct hand-off instead of sidecars.
• A studio can share one subscription. Narrative Premium includes 2 users and Ultra includes 4.
• You want help from the firm that built the product.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Aftershoot cost?

Select is Aftershoot's culling plan. It costs $10 a month billed annually ($120 a year) or $15 month to month, according to Aftershoot's pricing guide updated 21 October 2026. Edit costs $30 or $35. Retouch costs $20 or $25. The Complete bundle costs $45 or $55. The pricing page sets the currency from your location, so visitors in India see rupee prices instead. Every plan includes unlimited images.

Does Aftershoot have a free trial?

Yes. You can start with a free 30-day trial from Aftershoot's pricing page. Its pricing guide states that you get culling, editing and retouching with no credit card required. There is no permanently free plan. On annual billing, you can pause the subscription once a year for up to 3 months. That suits photographers who have a quiet season.

How much is Imagen AI?

Pay-as-you-go editing with Imagen begins at $0.05 a photo. You pay a $7 monthly base fee, which rolls over as editing credit. The Limitless plan gives you unlimited editing and AI culling for $129 a month billed annually or $165 monthly. If you only want culling, the add-on costs $12 a month billed yearly or $18 monthly. That cost counts towards the pay-as-you-go minimum. Imagen lets you cull 2 projects free.

Is Narrative Select free?

No. Narrative Select was the earlier name for the Narrative app. Narrative says the app is not free forever. New accounts get a free trial of the Ultra plan with no card required. After that, Lite costs $10 a month billed annually or $15 monthly. Standard adds the Close-Ups Panel and AI editing. It costs $20 or $29.

What is the best AI culling software?

It comes down to how much control you want to hand over. Aftershoot will make the picks for you, or help while you choose. Narrative calls itself assisted. The software ranks the frames, and you decide. Imagen sells culling as an add-on to its editing. All three have a free trial. Cull one recent wedding in each and compare the keepers with your own.

Is there free AI culling software?

Yes. The AccioPix photo culling tool is free. There is no sign-up and no watermark. It runs inside the browser on your own computer. It handles RAW and JPEG files. It rejects soft, blinking, and blown-out frames and gives you a reason. It exports star ratings as XMP sidecars that Lightroom reads. It does not edit or retouch. Imagen also lets you cull 2 projects free.

References

• Aftershoot, Pricing. Read 24 October 2026 from India (prices shown in rupees).
• Aftershoot, Aftershoot Pricing Tiers: What's the Right Fit For You?, published 12 September 2023, updated 21 October 2026. Read 24 October 2026.
• Imagen, Pricing. Read 24 October 2026 in a browser, US region.
• Imagen, AI Photo Culling Software: Culling Pricing. Read 24 October 2026.
• Narrative, Pricing. Read 24 October 2026.
• Talebi, H. and Milanfar, P., 2018. NIMA: Neural Image Assessment. IEEE Transactions on Image Processing. arXiv:1709.05424.
• Waring, A., 2024. AI saved photographers 13 MILLION hours and 117 MILLION dollars in 2024. Digital Camera World, 20 December 2024.