Why we built Cleanr as a Facetune alternative
Last year, a woman in Manchester sent me a message saying she'd spent £47 on Facetune credits she didn't understand, only to find half her edits were watermarked anyway. That email landed the same week we were finalising Cleanr's pricing model. It made the decision simple.
The credit system problem nobody talks about
Photo editing apps live in a strange place. They're tools, but they're also businesses. Most have chosen the credit system route: you buy coins, you spend coins, you run out, you buy more. It's psychologically brilliant from a business standpoint. It's terrible for users.
Facetune pioneered this. You get some free edits, then hit a wall. The pricing isn't transparent. You don't know if your next action will cost five credits or fifty. Watermarks appear on free exports, which defeats the entire purpose of editing a photo in the first place. Users feel punished for not paying.
When we started building Cleanr, we asked ourselves a harder question: what if we just made a really good photo editor and didn't play games with the pricing? The free tier includes meaningful limits (three enhancements per day, three background removals, two sky replacements), but those limits are clear and honest. No hidden costs. No mystery deductions. And free exports come without watermarks, because an edited photo should actually be yours to use.
What creators actually told us they needed
We spent the first six months of Cleanr's development talking to people who use photo editors every day: small business owners running Shopify stores, social media creators building Instagram feeds, pastors and church leaders managing community content. Not all of them were Christians, but quite a few were. And they all said the same things.
They wanted one app instead of five. Nobody wants to hop between Background Eraser, then Facetune, then a sky replacement app, then a text overlay tool. They wanted to clean old photos without learning Photoshop. They wanted to remove objects that shouldn't be in the shot. They wanted their blemishes handled automatically, not manually brushed over. And they didn't want to feel stupid because they couldn't find the feature they needed.
Facetune does some of these things well. Its retouch tools are solid. But it's built around face editing primarily. It's not a complete studio. So we built one. Twenty-two tools in a single app: object removal, background handling, sky replacement, old photo restoration, batch processing, text overlays, selective adjustments, generative fill on the Pro tier. Everything in one place, with controls that make sense.
The object removal moment
Here's a specific thing we got right early on. Object removal in photo apps is usually either manual (you have to brush over the thing and hope it guesses right) or nonexistent. We use PatchMatch, a content-aware algorithm that actually works. You tell it what to remove, it figures out how to fill the space based on the surrounding pixels. Not perfect every time, but it's the same technology professionals use.
A user sent us a photo of her daughter at a birthday party. There was someone in the background she didn't want in the shot. She used Cleanr's object removal and sent us a before-and-after. The edit was clean. Natural looking. She wrote, 'I didn't have to learn anything. I just tapped what I wanted gone.' That's the standard we chase.
Facetune doesn't have this. Their strength is facial retouching and beauty filters. They're not trying to be a complete editor. That's fine; they're honest about what they do. But for people who need more, Cleanr fills the gap.
Why we built Faith Mode, and why it matters
This will sound niche until you realise how many creators actually exist in faith communities. Churches, Christian influencers, retreat organisers, worship leaders, Bible teachers on social media. They use photo apps constantly. And until recently, they had no tool built for them.
Faith Mode includes warm, natural presets designed for photos with human subjects in spiritual settings. It includes scripture overlays (customisable text, different positions). Simple touches, but deliberately chosen. A pastor in London told us she'd been adding verse quotes to photos using a separate design app, which took extra time. Now it's one tap and a selection.
This isn't a feature of Facetune. And it wouldn't be, because Facetune is built for a different audience. We're not trying to be Facetune. We're trying to be what Cleanr is: a studio designed for real people who edit photos and want professional results without spending hours learning software.
The transparency thing
Here's where the biggest difference lives. We publish our feature list clearly. Free tier gets you a specific daily allowance, no mystery. Plus subscription costs £3.99 a month or £29.99 a year, and you get unlimited everything. Pro adds a commercial licence and priority processing for £7.99 a month. AI Pro adds the advanced tools (HSL colour, tone curves, selective adjustments, generative fill) for £12.99 a month. You know what you're paying for. The limits are explicit.
Facetune's pricing is harder to parse. You can buy subscriptions, or you can buy bundles of credits. The psychology is intentional; ambiguity drives spending. We decided early that we'd rather have fewer subscribers who trust us than more revenue built on confusion.
It also means free users don't feel resentful. You get real value: unlimited frames, faith presets, no watermarks, three backgrounds removals a day. That's not a trial; that's a usable product. You run into a limit because you've used the feature repeatedly, not because you sneezed and lost your credit balance.
What we're not trying to do
This matters. Cleanr is not a beauty filter app. If you want to look ten pounds lighter and six years younger in your selfie, Facetune will do that better. Their algorithms for face manipulation are sharper than ours. That's their expertise.
We're focused on photo restoration, cleanup, and composition. Remove the photobomber. Replace an ugly sky. Brighten up a dark shot from inside. Fix a blurry photo. Restore your grandmother's wedding picture. Handle blemishes automatically using face detection (you don't even have to brush). Add text overlays for social posts. Batch process fifty photos for your shop.
For small business owners and everyday creators, this is the toolkit that matters more. Facetune is the right choice if facial retouching is your priority. Cleanr is the right choice if you need a complete studio that doesn't make you feel bamboozled.
The question we asked ourselves when building Cleanr was simple: what if an app just did what it claimed, charged fairly, and didn't play games? If that sounds like what you've been looking for, the free tier is there. Try it. See if a transparent, honest photo editor changes how you work.