Seedream V5.5
ByteDance's flagship image model — pixel-stable editing across up to 100 rounds, native RGBA transparency, and dense, legible text.
curl https://api.venice.ai/api/v1/image/generate \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $VENICE_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "seedream-v5-5",
"prompt": "A serene mountain lake at dawn, photorealistic"
}' --output image.pngOverview
What is Seedream V5.5
Seedream V5.5 is ByteDance Seed's multimodal image generation and editing model, released on November 9, 2026. Its headline upgrades are multi-turn editing that preserves unedited regions at the pixel level across up to 100 rounds, native RGBA output with transparent backgrounds, and more realistic lighting, skin, and small-text rendering.
Using it anonymously on Venice
On Venice, Seedream V5.5 runs under the anonymized privacy tier — your prompts are not stored, profiled, or used for training, and generations are tied to no personal history. It is a closed-weight model, so Venice is one of the few ways to use it without feeding a Big-Tech account profile. You pay per image in credits rather than subscribing, starting at $0.03.
Specifications
Datasheet
- Maker
- ByteDance (Seed team)
- Modality
- Text-to-image, image-to-image (multi-turn editing)
- Open weights
- No — proprietary
- License
- Proprietary
- Resolutions
- 1K, 1.5K, 2K
- Prompt limit
- 10,000 chars
- Input images
- Accepted for editing and character/product reference; PNG output required for transparent results
- Released
- November 9, 2026
- Aspect ratios
- 1:1, 3:2, 16:9, 21:9, 9:16, 2:3, 3:4, 4:3
- Privacy on Venice
- Anonymized — prompts not stored
- Available on Venice since
- Nov 2026
Assessment
Strengths and limitations
- Pixel-stable multi-turn editing: unedited regions keep their exact pixels and color across successive edits, so you can keep working one image instead of re-rolling.
- Native RGBA output with full and partial transparency — generated elements drop straight into design workflows with no background-removal pass.
- More realistic rendering of lighting, materials, and skin texture, with reduced over-gloss and overexposure compared to earlier Seedream versions.
- Strong dense-text rendering: small type, complex glyphs, and tightly packed strings come out legible.
- Very long prompt budget (10,000 characters) and the lowest entry price on Venice among flagship-tier image models, from $0.03 per image.
- Closed and proprietary: no open weights, so self-hosting or fine-tuning is off the table.
- Caps at 2K resolution on Venice, while rivals like Flux 3 and GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst reach 4K.
- The headline claims (100-round edit stability, realism gains) come from ByteDance's own launch materials and had not been independently verified at release.
- Reported to generate one image at a time per request, which slows large batch work.
Use cases
What it is good for
- 01Iterative design work — furniture, lighting, outfit, or layout changes applied round after round to the same frame.
- 02Stickers, cutouts, and compositing assets generated directly with transparent backgrounds.
- 03E-commerce and ad creative where a character or product must stay consistent across a scene series.
- 04Posters, UI mockups, and packaging with dense, legible small text.
- 05Photoreal product and interior shots without the plastic over-gloss of earlier models.
Prompting
Getting better results
Ask explicitly for a transparent background and PNG output when you need an RGBA asset — transparency is a background option, not automatic.
Edit incrementally: describe one change per turn ("move the box left, keep everything else identical") and lean on the model's pixel-stability instead of re-rolling the whole scene.
Put any on-image text in quotes and specify font style and density — small, tightly packed strings are a documented strength.
Upload a reference image to carry a character, product, or art style across a batch of generations.
Iterate at 1K ($0.03 per image), then re-render the winning prompt at 2K ($0.05) for the final asset.
Set the aspect ratio explicitly (1:1, 16:9, 21:9, 9:16, 3:2, 2:3, 3:4, 4:3) rather than describing the shape in words.
Samples
Sample outputs
Generated on Venice with our standard prompt suite — the same prompts we run through every model of this type, so you can judge it like-for-like.
A retro travel poster with the bold headline "VENICE" in large condensed serif type, sunset color palette, clean layout
Photorealistic close-up portrait of a weathered fisherman at golden hour, 85mm lens, shallow depth of field, natural skin texture
A small red cube balanced on top of a large glossy blue sphere, with a green cone to the right, plain light-grey studio background
Cozy watercolor illustration of a hillside village in autumn, warm tones, soft paper texture
Alternatives
How it compares
| Model | Best for | Max resolution | Open weights | Price (Venice) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seedream V5.5 | Multi-turn editing & transparent assets | 2K | No | from $0.03 / image |
| Flux 3 | Highest-fidelity stills | 4K | No | from $0.12 / image |
| GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst | Instruction-following & text | 4K | No | from $0.07 / image |
| Chroma | Budget generation | 2K | Yes | $0.01 / image |
Seedream V5.5 is the right pick when the job is iterative — long edit chains on a single image, transparent RGBA assets for design pipelines, or text-dense layouts — and you want flagship quality at the lowest per-image price on Venice.
API
Call it from your code
Venice exposes this model through the REST API. Queue a generation with the model id.
curl https://api.venice.ai/api/v1/image/generate \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $VENICE_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "seedream-v5-5",
"prompt": "A serene mountain lake at dawn, photorealistic"
}' --output image.pngPricing
What it costs on Venice
Pay per image on Venice — price scales with resolution, from $0.03.
New Venice accounts include a free daily allowance and 500 welcome credits — no credit card required.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Seedream V5.5 (also written Seedream 5.5) is ByteDance Seed's multimodal image generation and editing model, released November 9, 2026. It specializes in pixel-stable multi-turn editing, native RGBA transparent backgrounds, realistic lighting and skin, and accurate dense text rendering.
Venice bills per image with no subscription: $0.03 at 1K, $0.03 at 1.5K, and $0.05 at 2K resolution. Price scales only with resolution, so iterating at lower resolutions stays cheap.
It is neither free-software nor open-source: Seedream V5.5 is proprietary to ByteDance with no published weights, so it cannot be self-hosted or fine-tuned. You can, however, try it on Venice with the free daily prompts new accounts receive before paying per image.
ByteDance says Seedream V5.5 supports continued work on the same image across up to 100 rounds of editing, preserving unedited regions at the pixel level and eliminating color shifts in those areas. This figure comes from ByteDance's own launch testing and has not yet been independently verified.
Yes. It generates images with a native alpha channel, including full and partial transparency, so elements can be used as standalone assets without separate background removal. Transparent output requires PNG format.
Seedream V5.5 wins for iterative editing, transparent RGBA assets, and text-dense layouts at a lower price. Flux 3 is the better choice when you need native 4K output for maximum-detail single-shot renders.
On Venice it outputs 1K, 1.5K, and 2K, across eight aspect ratios: 1:1, 3:2, 16:9, 21:9, 9:16, 2:3, 3:4, and 4:3. It does not offer 4K output.
Venice runs Seedream V5.5 under its anonymized privacy tier: prompts are not stored, profiled, or used for training, and generations carry no personal account history. Note that inference is not end-to-end encrypted or TEE-isolated — privacy comes from zero retention of your prompts.
Yes. You can supply reference images for editing and for carrying a character, product, or art style across a batch, keeping defining features and textures consistent between generations.
Use Seedream V5.5 anonymously
Venice does not store your prompts. Chat history stays in your browser.