Why my AI photo effects site has no prompt box

I run a small site that turns one photo into a finished AI effect: a Christmas card, a figurine, a restored family print. The decision that shaped everything else was leaving out the prompt box. This is a build log of that choice and the product decisions that followed from it.

The problem with a blank text field

Most image tools open with an empty text area. For people who generate images every day, that is freedom. For someone who just wants a Christmas card from a family photo, it is homework: guess what to type, wait, rewrite, wait again. On a paid product each retry can cost money.

So I chose presets instead of a free prompt, because a casual user would rather click a style they can see than learn to describe one. Each effect page shows sample results and a short list of styles. The Christmas card page, for example, offers five styles, and the figurine page offers three: boxed classic, anime and clay toy. You upload one photo, click a style, press Generate.

There is a cost, and the pages say it: free-text prompts are not supported, because the styles are fixed. If you want full control, this is the wrong tool. As a nod to people who like prompts, each effect page also lists a copyable prompt per style for pasting into a chat image tool, with a note that I have not tested those elsewhere.

For a developer, presets turn an open-ended problem into a small, enumerable one: five styles are five things to test, five sample images to show, and one price per run.

One photo in

I chose one photo per run because multi-photo input adds more decisions for the user. The pages are honest about the edges: merging several separate photos is not what it does, group photos with many faces give weaker results, and an exact likeness is not guaranteed every time. Saying so up front saves people wasted credits.

Input limits

Accepted files are JPG, PNG and WebP, up to 8 MB. I kept that list short on purpose: it fits in one line under the upload box, and it is shown on every effect page, so nobody discovers the limit after a failed attempt.

For the old-photo restoration page I also added scanning advice: a flatbed scan works best, or lay the print flat in daylight with no flash. Input quality is the biggest lever on output quality, and that advice is cheaper to give than to fix afterwards.

Pricing in credits, not time

Every image costs 10 credits, whatever the effect. One balance works across all effects. I chose a flat credit cost because users can predict their spend before they click. Packs are one-time: $4.99 for 50 credits, $9.99 for 120, $19.99 for 300, so one image costs between $0.67 and $1.00 depending on the pack. Pack credits stay valid for 365 days. Monthly plans start at $9.90 for 500 credits, and the larger plan brings a single image down to about $0.13.

New accounts get 10 free credits while the day's new-account gifts last, enough for one image. You sign in before generating.

Failures should not cost the user

AI image generation fails sometimes. A render can error or time out. I chose to return credits automatically in those cases, because a user who loses credits to a failure has no reason to trust the product again. The refund policy says that if a generation fails, does not finish in time, or is declined by the image model, the credits come back to the balance with no ticket needed.

Treat refund-on-failure as part of the product, not a support gesture. Credits spent on a result that did finish are a different case and are not refundable, though an unused pack can be refunded within 7 days.

Short retention for uploads

Photos of people and pets are personal. I chose to delete uploads 24 hours after the generation finishes, whether it succeeded or failed, because I do not need the original after the result exists. Results are kept for 30 days so people can download again from their creations list, then removed. Files are shown only through signed links that expire.

I also tried to be straight about the limit of that promise. The photo has to be sent to an outside image provider to make the result, and my deletion applies to my own copies, not theirs. The privacy page says so. If you build something similar, write that sentence down early, because users will ask.

Around 37 seconds

Each result takes about 37 seconds. I put the number on every page instead of saying "fast", because a number sets an expectation people can check.

What the site is

Effect Booth is an independent service. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the providers of the AI models it uses. It applies AI photo effects to your own photos: upload one photo of a person or pet, pick a preset style, download the result. Current effects include AI Christmas card, Photo to figurine and Restore old photos; the full list is on the home page. You pay by card through Stripe Checkout, you sign in first, and a result is a digital image only: nothing is printed or shipped.

Takeaways

• For casual users, fixed styles remove the hardest step. Keep the prompt box only if your users want it.
• Say what the tool does badly. It reduces refunds and bad first impressions.
• Keep input limits short and visible next to the upload control.
• Price per image in a single unit so the cost is knowable before the click.
• Refund failed runs automatically, and write down what happens to uploads and how long.

If you have built something similar and chose differently, I would like to hear why.