FLUX 1.1 Pro (BudgetPixel)

If BudgetPixel's image nodes are a menu, FLUX 1.1 Pro is the reliable entree you order when you can't decide. It's Black Forest Labs' flagship API model from the pre-FLUX-2 era, and its two selling points are still the ones that matter for most jobs: speed and prompt adherence. It handles plain text-to-image and single-image editing, and at 40 credits a pop it sits in the middle of the pack's price ladder - pricier than FLUX 2 Dev and Klein, cheaper than the 4K-heavy tier.

This is an API node, which is the whole story in one sentence: the model runs on BFL's servers, not your GPU. If you have a card that can run FLUX 2 locally, you probably don't need this node. If you don't, or you want the exact model that powers BFL's hosted products without managing 20 GB of weights, this is the honest shortcut. Your prompt and images do leave the machine - that's the trade you're making.

How it works

Standard BudgetPixel flow: the node packages your prompt (and optional image) into a POST /images/flux-1.1-pro call, polls /images/{id} until the job succeeds, then downloads the result and hands you a normal IMAGE batch. Server-side async, progress bar in ComfyUI, and the result behaves exactly like a local generator's output - wire it into whatever your graph normally does next.

The inputs that matter

• prompt - the only required input. Multiline, so you can write full paragraphs.
• aspect_ratio - a 9-way enum (1:1, 16:9, 9:16, 4:3, 3:4, 3:2, 2:3, 5:4, 4:5). Pick the crop you want and stop thinking about it.
• image - optional. Feed an IMAGE here and the node becomes image-to-image: describe the edit in the prompt instead of describing a new scene.
• num_images - 1 to 4, default 1. More images, more credits per call.
• seed - default -1 (random). Set it to reproduce a result.

The output is images (an IMAGE batch - one entry per num_images). Every node also has force_rerun for when you want to override the cache and actually spend credits again.

Install

ComfyUI Manager (search "BudgetPixel"), or the manual route:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/budgetpixel-ai/comfyui-budgetpixel.git
pip install -r comfyui-budgetpixel/requirements.txt

Restart ComfyUI. The one real prerequisite is a paid BudgetPixel plan and a key - set BUDGETPIXEL_API_KEY or drop a budgetpixel.json ({"api_key": "bpx_live_..."}) in the pack folder. The pack's only dependency is requests; there are no model downloads, so install is genuinely fast.

Where people get burned

The usual API-node surprises apply. First, forgetting the key: a 401 means it's not set, and the error message handily points you at the key page. Second, treating it as free: this is the hosted version of a paid model, and num_images multiplies the bill per call. Third, a subtler one - people expect "FLUX" to behave like the open-weights FLUX they run locally. The API model is a different build with different behavior, and it ships BFL's moderation: prompts the hosted pipeline refuses will refuse here, and no amount of local workflow hacking changes that. If that matters to you, this node isn't the right tool; a local FLUX checkpoint is.