What the watermark is
Free exports carry a small Thumblore badge — the icon and wordmark in a rounded pill, drawn into the bottom of the image at download time. It scales with the image, so it is proportionally the same size on every export.
It is applied when the file is created, not baked into the stored thumbnail. That is why turning it off is instant and applies to everything you download afterwards, including images you generated while on the free plan.
Removing it
Any paid plan removes the watermark. Starter is the cheapest route. Once you are on a plan, exports are clean by default — there is nothing further to switch on.
- Go to Billing & Credits and choose a plan.
- Download anything. The dialog now reads "Watermark-free export".
- Older thumbnails generated on Free export clean too — the badge was never part of the stored image.
Why it cannot be switched off on Free
The watermark on a free export is a rule rather than a default setting. There is no stored preference a free account can change — in Settings, in the browser, or anywhere else — that produces a clean export. The download dialog on Free links to Billing rather than to Settings for exactly that reason.
Keeping it on deliberately
On a paid plan the Settings switch works in the other direction: it lets you turn the badge back on. Two reasons people do:
- Consistency. A channel that started on the free plan has a back catalogue with the badge. Some creators keep it until they refresh the whole catalogue in one go — see the channel makeover guide.
- Attribution. Some creators simply like crediting the tool.
The preference is stored per browser, so setting it on your desktop does not carry to your laptop. See account and settings.
What the guarantee covers
Worth being precise about: the badge is drawn in your browser at download time, from the image the page already holds. That makes it impossible to get a watermarked-free export through the product's UI on a free account. It is not a cryptographic protection on the stored file, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.
Is removing the watermark worth upgrading for?
On its own, probably not — it is a small badge and viewers do not care much. What makes Starter worth it is the bundle it sits in: the 9:16 vertical format, the whole preset editor (mood, scene, expression, lighting, text), ten saved avatars, and a monthly credit grant. The clean export is the visible part of a much larger unlock. Details in plans and limits.