--- title: "Dynamic Placeholder Image API: Branded, Not Generic" description: "A dynamic placeholder image api gives you branded mockups from one URL. It will not replace placehold.co, and here are the two measured reasons why." url: "https://www.imejis.io/blogs/tutorials/dynamic-placeholder-image-api" image: "https://www.imejis.io/images/tools/placeholder-image.png" published: "2026-11-03" --- # Dynamic Placeholder Image API: Branded, Not Generic Search for a dynamic placeholder image api and you'll find services that hand back a grey box from a URL like `/600x400`. Our [placeholder image generator](/tools/placeholder-image) does the same job in your browser: pick a size, a colour and some text, download a PNG. Ten presets cover the usual suspects, from 150x150 up to 1920x1080, plus OG image and Instagram post sizes. That's the right tool for a grey box, and it doesn't touch your quota. This post is about the other case, where the placeholder has to look like your actual product, and what happens when you try to serve those from a render API. ## Two things a render URL will not do Worth getting these out of the way, because most "placeholder API" advice ignores both. ### Size is not a URL parameter Generic placeholder services encode dimensions in the path. You ask for `/600x400` and you get 600x400. A render URL doesn't work that way, because an imejis design has its dimensions fixed when you create it. Appending `?width=600&height=400` to a render URL doesn't resize anything. The response is byte for byte the same image you get without them, because those parameters address no field and are ignored. If you need several sizes, that is what variations are for: add the sizes to the design, then pick one per request with `?variation=`. It's a short, fixed list you defined, not arbitrary numbers from a URL. ### Every load costs a render This one bites. A render URL renders fresh on every request. Drop it into an [`` tag](ref:developer.mozilla.org) on a page you refresh fifty times while styling it, and that is fifty renders against your quota, for an image that never changed. Generic placeholder services are free and unmetered. A render API isn't, and it isn't trying to be. ## Where a render URL is the better answer The case it wins is the one where "placeholder" is the wrong word, because the image isn't a stand-in. It's real, branded output with provisional data. - **Demo and staging environments** that should look like the product, not like a wireframe. Seed twenty product cards that match your real template. - **Design review and screenshots.** Stakeholders respond to something that looks shipped. A grey box invites comments about the grey box. - **Empty states and first-run screens**, where the sample content is part of the design and ships to real users. In all three, the image is generated once and reused. That changes the cost picture completely. ## Doing it without burning quota Render once, store the result, serve the stored URL: ```text https://render.imejis.io/v1/?delivery=hosted ``` That returns JSON with a permanent public `url` rather than raw bytes. Put that URL in your markup. Every later page load fetches a stored file and costs nothing. Vary the content per image with dot-path parameters, which do work: ```text ?title.text=Quarterly%20report&category.text=FINANCE ``` Each distinct combination is a render. The same combination served from a stored URL afterwards is not. ## The cost, concretely Twenty seeded screens for a staging environment, each rendered once and stored, is twenty renders. The free tier is 100 renders a month, so that fits with room to spare, and paid plans start at $14.99 for 1,000 (as of November 2026). Check the [pricing page](/pricing) for current allowances. The same twenty images served from live render URLs on a page a developer refreshes all afternoon is a different number entirely, and it's why the store-once pattern above isn't optional advice. ## Getting started Build the design at the size you need, mark the text layers dynamic, then render each variant once with `?delivery=hosted` and keep the URLs. For a genuine grey box, the [placeholder image generator](/tools/placeholder-image) is free, instant and does not touch your quota. Use the right one for the job. The [component reference](/components) lists every property you can override per render, and the [API docs](/apis) cover authentication and output formats.