So, you just arrived on Civitai and made your account. You’re excited to start generating, but then—bam!—you realize you only get 25 Blue Buzz per day. That’s barely enough for a single generation, and the generator is asking for at least 20 per image. Not fair, right?
Well, don’t worry! It is possible to thrive on just your daily free Blue Buzz. Let me show you how.
Step 1: Grab Your Free 25 Blue Buzz
First things first—claim your daily 25 Blue Buzz. This is our starting budget. Now, let’s maximize it.
Step 2: Enter the Daily Challenge
At the top of the generator, you’ll see a trophy icon. If it's lit up and wiggling, tap it! This brings up the Daily Challenge, a competition that runs every day. Don’t worry about winning; our goal is just to participate.
Click the “here” link in the popup to read the full rules. The key takeaway? Submitting 10 approved images earns you 200 Blue Buzz. That’s our target!
But we only have 25 Buzz to start with…
Step 3: Optimize Your First Generation
Click Accept Challenge in the trophy popup. This loads the challenge’s required LoRA.
Check if your selected checkpoint model is compatible. If it auto-switches to the base model, you can manually select a different one.
Avoid adding extra LoRAs unless you're sure they won’t increase costs. Look for a yellow warning icon next to the asset name.
Click the circled (i) next to the Generate button. This breakdown shows the exact Buzz cost.
Set Creator Tip and Civitai Tip to 0%—we’ll tip later when we’re rich!
Reducing Costs Further
Lower the Steps: Set steps as low as possible (usually 10). The images will be ugly, but that’s fine for now.
Use a Discounted Sampler: Euler A, for example, gives a 20% discount. Either select it manually or hit the Fast button.
Generate in Bulk: Set quantity to 4—we want four cheap images and we don't care about quality for now.
Stick to PG Content: The challenge only accepts PG and PG-13 images, so keep it clean!
Now, hit Generate.
Step 4: Earn More Buzz
Your first four images will probably look… interesting. Select them all and hit Publish. We have been reminded we should not post garbage, even if it is quicker to earn buzz that way. Shame on me for even suggesting that in the first place! (and thank you Adeptus08 for the feedback)
Now to game the system a little.
Hit the thumbs up or thumbs down on those four images. This gives a total of 12 Blue Buzz.
Increase the steps to around 28. this should cost 12 Buzz.
Generate a new set of 4 images. These should look a lot better.
Publish the 4 new images for 25 extra buzz.
You may delete the original 4 images now.
Adding a title and tags can help increase visibility, leading to reactions that earn you more Buzz.
Bonus: You get 25 extra Blue Buzz for your first post of the day!
Step 5: Optimize Your Remaining Budget
By now, you should have about 35 Blue Buzz left, and we need six more images for the challenge.
Finding the Sweet Spot
Set Quantity to 1 to test individual costs.
Increase Steps until just before the price exceeds your budget.
In our example, we found that 46 steps cost 6 Buzz per image.
Now, generate six more images using this optimized setup.
Step 6: Submit Your Challenge Entry
Once you have 10 images:
Publish the last six images to a new post or save all 10 to your computer.
Go back to the Challenge article and scroll down to find the Image Collection link.
Click Submit an Entry, select your 10 images, and add them.
If you don’t see the Add button, scroll the page—not just the image list—down until the button appears in the lower right.
After submission, wait for CivBot to approve them. Once approved, your 200 Blue Buzz reward will appear!
Step 7: Maximize Bonus Buzz
With our 200 Blue Buzz secured, let’s grab even more:
React to 50 images in the Challenge gallery (2 Buzz each, up to 100 per day).
Follow 3 creators (30 Buzz).
Give feedback (👍or 👎) on our 10 generated images in the generator (4 Buzz each, up to 40 total).
This adds another 170 Buzz, bringing our total earnings to 420 Blue Buzz—all while only spending ~60!
And we might earn even more from reactions to our own posts.
What’s Next?
Now you have a few options:
Spend your Buzz on more generations—with our cost-cutting methods, that’s up to 75 extra images.
Save up for a LoRA training—500 Blue Buzz lets you train your own model (more on this in a future article).
Build a following—posting consistently can earn you up to 200 extra Blue Buzz daily from reactions.
Get tipped in Yellow Buzz—if someone really likes your work, they might tip you premium Buzz!
And that’s how you can live for free on Civitai. Happy generating!