OpenAI DALL-E vs DeepAI for Small Catalog Apps: Storage and Cost Trade-offs

For a small B2B catalog application, the article recommends OpenAI's image generation API as the safer default when output quality and room to grow matter more than the lowest starting cost. DeepAI is presented as a viable option only for narrow, latency-tolerant workflows that pass a representative acceptance test, and Stability AI as a credible third choice when control over the model matters. The author argues that the image endpoint is only part of the system, since generated files need private storage, safe retries, and metadata linking them to their source descriptions. Budget should be judged by acceptance rate, end-to-end latency including retries, and how often a second prompt is needed, rather than by a price sheet alone. The piece also outlines a storage pattern using deterministic private object keys tied to catalog item and prompt revision, so duplicate queue deliveries do not create duplicate objects.