Put Midjourney on campaign kickoff week — not always-on

Midjourney earns its keep when a campaign needs a visual north star: moodboards, hero frames, “what does this brand feel like” stills before the brief hardens. That is usually week one of a launch, not every Monday forever.

Always-on subscriptions tempt idle prompting. Teams generate hundreds of pretty orphans that never enter Figma, Brand Kit, or the ad account. Finance sees a recurring line; creative sees a folder of almosts.

Run Midjourney as a kickoff burst: activate or re-up for the discovery week, lock 8–12 keepers into the brand system, then pause or step down until the next campaign. For volume iterations, Brand Kit edits, or API pipelines, route to Firefly, Leonardo, Flux, or Canva Magic instead.

Put the keepers in a shared board with filenames that match the brief, not Discord scroll history. If a frame cannot be named for a channel or asset type within 48 hours, it was exploration — fine for kickoff, not for the invoice.

If your team cannot name the last Midjourney frame that shipped to a live channel, you are paying for a mood board hobby. Kickoff-only keeps taste expensive when it matters and cheap when it does not.