An AI-powered photo editor and avatar app that retouches selfies, edits backgrounds, and generates stylized Magic Avatars on iOS and Android.
Lensa is worth it for casual editors and social users who want AI avatars and one-tap retouching in one app. Lensa retouches faces, edits backgrounds, and generates Magic Avatars on a phone for from $29.99 per year, bundling editing tools that separate apps charge for. The 7-day trial lets a user test the editor first.
Lensa is an AI-powered photo editor and avatar app that retouches selfies, edits backgrounds, and generates stylized Magic Avatars on iOS and Android. Prisma Labs, Inc. operates Lensa from a remote-first team founded in 2016. Andrey Usoltsev and Alexey Moiseenkov co-founded Prisma Labs, and the Lensa app launched in 2018. Lensa counts roughly 800,000 active users as of 2026.
Lensa bundles several editing tools into one mobile app. The Magic Correction tool retouches faces and skin. The background tools blur or replace the scene behind a subject. The Magic Avatars feature turns selfies into hundreds of AI portraits. Filters, effects, and borders extend the toolset.
Lensa runs Magic Avatars on the Stable Diffusion model, an open-source image model from Stability AI trained on the LAION-5B dataset. Lensa personalizes a temporary copy of Stable Diffusion for each user rather than one shared model, and deletes the original photos and the temporary model after each avatar batch finishes.
Lensa is safe to use for editing, though its biometric data handling drew a privacy lawsuit and remains lightly audited. Lensa processes selfies on cloud servers and states a 24-hour deletion window. Prisma Labs operates Lensa under a documented privacy policy.
Lensa is a product of Prisma Labs, Inc., founded in 2016, which built the earlier Prisma art-filter app before launching Lensa in 2018. A 2023 BIPA class-action lawsuit accused Prisma Labs of collecting biometric data without consent; a federal court dismissed the suit in August 2024 and compelled arbitration on related claims. Lensa uploads selfies to AWS servers and states that it deletes original photos within 24 hours, though independent auditors have not confirmed the claim.
Download Lensa from the App Store or Google Play.
Open Lensa and start the 7-day free trial.
Import a photo from the camera roll or take a selfie.
Select a tool such as Magic Correction or Background.
Adjust the retouch, filter, or background settings.
Upload 10 to 20 selfies to order a Magic Avatars pack.
Save or share the finished image to social apps.
Retouches skin, eyes, and facial detail.
Generates 50 to 200 AI portraits from selfies.
Blurs or replaces the scene behind a subject.
Applies color grading, light, and borders.
Retouches and adjusts short video clips.
Edits the subject separately from the background.
Adds frames and aspect-ratio crops.
Creates avatars from a single selfie.
Retouch portraits before posting; Magic Correction smooths skin and brightens eyes; background tools clean up cluttered scenes.
Order Magic Avatars for anime, fantasy, and cinematic styles; filters add color grading for a consistent feed; export images sized for social platforms.
Fix everyday phone photos; background blur adds depth to portraits; foreground adjust edits subject and scene separately, all on one screen.
| Tool | Best for | Price | Notes | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FaceApp | Face transforms and aging | $39.99/year | Free tier available | vs → |
| Remini | Photo enhancement and upscaling | $69.99/year | Free tier available | vs → |
| Facetune | Selfie retouching | $35.99/year | Free tier available | vs → |
| Lensa — this review | Magic Avatars and retouching | from $29.99/year | 7-day trial |
FaceApp transforms faces with age, gender, and smile filters, while Lensa generates AI avatars on Stable Diffusion. FaceApp costs $39.99 per year; Lensa costs from $29.99 per year. Users who want AI portraits choose Lensa, while users who want face transforms choose FaceApp.
Lensa offers a 7-day free trial that unlocks the full editing toolset. The trial auto-renews into a paid annual plan unless a user cancels. Magic Avatars always require a separate pack purchase.
Lensa costs from $29.99 per year on the annual subscription. Magic Avatars packs cost from $3.99 per 50 images for subscribers and from $7.99 per 50 images without a subscription. Larger packs raise the price.
Prisma Labs, Inc. owns and operates Lensa. Andrey Usoltsev and Alexey Moiseenkov co-founded Prisma Labs in 2016. Prisma Labs launched the Lensa app in 2018.
Lensa is safe for editing, with a stated 24-hour photo deletion policy and per-user temporary AI models. Independent auditors have not confirmed the deletion claim. A 2023 BIPA lawsuit was dismissed in August 2024.
Lensa runs Magic Avatars on Stable Diffusion, an open-source model from Stability AI. Lensa personalizes a temporary copy of the model for each user. Lensa deletes the model after each avatar batch.
Lensa is worth it for users who retouch selfies and create AI avatars often. The bundled editing tools justify the from $29.99 yearly cost for frequent editors. Users who want only avatars find the per-pack fees harder to justify.
Start free, or take the trial to explore premium features across all your devices.
Visit Lensa →