Actionist·BackgroundErase

BackgroundErase

· #345 most-used

Remove image backgrounds at scale with one API call

ProductivityEcommerceDeveloperAIDesignAutomation

BackgroundErase is an AI-powered background removal API built for developers and production workflows. Send an image file, URL, or base64 payload to the REST endpoint and receive a pixel-accurate transparent cutout — as PNG, WebP, or JPG — in seconds. Output controls include size presets (preview/medium/hd/full), alpha masking, subject cropping, green-channel despilling, and background colour flattening. Connect it to Actionist and your agents can strip backgrounds from product photos, catalogue images, and uploaded assets automatically — feeding clean cutouts directly into creative pipelines, ecommerce listings, CMS workflows, and batch export jobs without manual editor involvement.

Try BackgroundErase with ActionistVisit BackgroundErase
Average time saved
6 hours
per person · per month
≈ 1 workdays back

Eliminates manual work. Agents eliminate the manual cycle of opening each image in an editor, removing the background, exporting, and re-uploading — tasks that add 2–5 minutes per asset across ecommerce, marketing, and creative teams.

Schedule

What your BackgroundErase agent runs on autopilot

A week of scheduled jobs your Actionist agent will execute on your behalf.

28Scheduled jobs
7Agents at work
24/7Always on
Agents
Tue–Thu
Tue
Wed
Thu
7a
8a
9a
10a
11a
12p
1p
2p
3p
4p
5p
6p
Multi-app workflows

BackgroundErase × every other app you use

End-to-end automations that span multiple apps — each one a real business outcome.

6Workflows
5Apps spanned
~16 hrsSaved / week
6Personas served
For ecommerce
Featured3 apps

New product images cleaned and listed automatically

When a new product image lands in the supplier upload folder, the agent fetches the file, calls Remove Background from File for a transparent cutout, produces a white-background JPG for the marketplace listing via Remove Background with JPG Output, and pushes both assets to the product record in the ecommerce platform. The product listing is live with compliant imagery within about a minute of the original upload — no retoucher, no export step, no manual file upload.

~7 hrs

Time saved for your team — every week, on autopilot

The flow
Trigger·When a new product image is added to a Google Drive folder
Trigger
Step 1
Google Drive
Detect new image file in the product upload folder
write
Step 2
BackgroundErase
Remove background from file to produce transparent PNG cutout
write
Step 3
BackgroundErase
Remove background with JPG output on white fill for marketplace listing
write
Step 4
Google Drive
Upload both cutout variants to the product assets folder
write
Step 5
Google Sheets
Log processed image paths and status to the catalogue tracker
Result
Remove background from file to produce transparent PNG cutoutRemove background with JPG output on white fill for marketplace listingUpload both cutout variants to the product assets folderLog processed image paths and status to the catalogue tracker
The win
Saved per run
8 min
Runs / week
~50×
Marketplace listings go live with compliant images within about a minute of upload
Driven byOperations Agent
ROI

Savings

What your team gets back — two angles: what you stop doing manually, and what that's worth.

Without Actionist

What you do manually today

With Actionist

What your agent runs for you

  • Sales
    25 min / week
    Manual background removal for sales decks

    Reps open Photoshop or remove.bg manually for each product image, export the cutout, re-upload to Drive, and paste into their deck — 5–10 minutes per image, repeated every time a new product needs a proposal visual.

    Sales Agent
    0 min
    Agent strips backgrounds as images arrive

    When a new product image lands in the upload folder, the agent removes the background and saves the transparent cutout automatically — sales reps have a ready-to-use image in the asset folder before they even open their deck.

  • Marketing
    60 min / week
    Designer bottleneck on campaign image prep

    Every campaign image requiring background removal sits in a retouching queue — designers spend 10–20 minutes per image on manual cutouts, and campaign assets aren't ready until the queue is cleared.

    Marketing Agent
    0 min
    Agent pre-processes all campaign images at brief approval

    When the campaign brief is marked Ready, the agent strips backgrounds from all listed images immediately — the design team opens their templates with cutouts already done, skipping the retouching queue entirely.

  • Customer Support
    20 min / week
    Manual screenshot cleanup for documentation

    Support writers manually crop and remove backgrounds from UI screenshots before adding them to help articles — an extra step on every documentation update that slows the publishing cadence.

    Customer Support Agent
    0 min
    Agent processes documentation screenshots automatically

    When help articles are updated, the agent runs all attached screenshots through background removal and re-uploads the clean versions — writers publish immediately without touching image editing software.

  • Human Resources
    15 min / week
    Manual headshot standardisation per hire

    HR or a designer processes each new hire's photo individually — opening the image, removing the background, applying the brand colour, and re-uploading — a 10–15 minute task repeated for every new joiner.

    Human Resources Agent
    0 min
    Agent standardises headshots before start date

    When a new employee is added to the onboarding tracker, the agent processes their headshot automatically and uploads both a JPG and WebP variant before their first day — no design request required.

  • Finance
    10 min / week
    No visibility on API credit consumption

    The team discovers the API credit balance is exhausted only when a batch job fails mid-run — requiring emergency top-ups, manual reruns of partially processed batches, and unplanned engineer time.

    Finance Agent
    0 min
    Agent monitors credits and alerts before pipeline stalls

    Before every large batch, the agent checks the credit balance and alerts the finance team if a top-up is needed — the image pipeline never fails partway through a production run.

  • Operations
    90 min / week
    Weekend supplier images wait for Monday manual processing

    Supplier images submitted over the weekend sit in the intake folder until an operations team member processes them manually on Monday morning — products can't go live in the catalogue until the backlog is cleared.

    Operations Agent
    0 min
    Agent processes supplier batches before market open

    The Monday 7 AM scheduled agent task processes all weekend supplier submissions overnight — every product is image-ready in the catalogue before the first team member starts work.

  • Legal
    30 min / week
    Design agency round-trip for investor material images

    Every investor pack image requiring background removal is sent to a design agency or freelancer — adding days to the review cycle and introducing an external dependency on legally sensitive materials.

    Legal Agent
    0 min
    Agent produces print-quality cutouts at HD resolution

    When an investor materials request is approved, the agent processes all listed images at HD resolution immediately — print-quality cutouts are available within about a minute, keeping sensitive materials internal.

+ 100s of other BackgroundErase automations
Average time saved
25 hrs / person / month
Calculator

Calculate what your team saves

Team size
5 people
Hourly rate
$75 / hr
Hours saved / week
8
Hours saved / year
375
Annual ROI
$28,125

Based on BackgroundErase's typical team usage — the visible tasks plus a few other automations the agent runs: ~1.5 hrs / person / week of admin work automated.

Connect

How to plug BackgroundErase into Actionist

Pick the connection method that suits your environment.

Generate an API key from your BackgroundErase account dashboard and paste it into Actionist. The key is sent with every request via the x-api-key header — no OAuth flow required.

1
Sign in to BackgroundErase

Go to backgrounderase.com, sign in or start a Business trial, and open your account dashboard.

2
Generate an API key

Navigate to Account → API Keys and click Generate. Copy the key — you will not be able to view it again.

3
Paste into Actionist

Open the BackgroundErase connection in Actionist's Apps tab, paste the key, and click Test connection. Actionist sends a lightweight account check to confirm the handshake.

Credentials you'll need
API Key*
BackgroundErase dashboard → Account → API Keys → Generate new key
Actions

13 actions your agent can call

Read and write operations available to your Actionist agent.

Triggers

0 events your agent can react to

Events your agent watches for, and the actions it kicks off in response.

This app has no triggers yet.
FAQs

Questions about BackgroundErase + Actionist

How does Actionist connect to BackgroundErase?
Go to the Apps tab in Actionist, find BackgroundErase, and click Connect. You will be prompted to paste an API key from your BackgroundErase account dashboard. Navigate to your BackgroundErase account → API Keys → Generate, copy the key, and paste it into the Actionist connection field. Actionist sends a lightweight test call to confirm the handshake before any images are processed. API key connection is available on the Business and Enterprise plans at BackgroundErase.
What image formats and sizes can BackgroundErase process?
BackgroundErase accepts JPG, PNG, and WebP image inputs via multipart file upload, public URL, or base64-encoded payload. Output can be returned as transparent PNG, WebP (lossless transparency), or flat JPG with a solid background colour. Size options include preview (fast, low-cost), medium, HD (up to 25 megapixels), and full. The auto size option lets the API choose the best quality level for the input image automatically.
Can Actionist process large batches of images automatically?
Yes. Your Actionist agent can read a list of image files or URLs from a Google Sheet, Airtable, Notion database, or cloud storage folder, call the background removal API for each image in sequence, and write the results back to the output location. Batch jobs can be scheduled as a recurring agent task — for example, every Monday at 7 AM to process weekend supplier uploads — and run unattended overnight. There is no built-in batch endpoint in BackgroundErase; the agent loops over the list and calls the API once per image.
What is the despill option and when should I use it?
Despill removes residual colour contamination from a green or blue screen that bleeds onto the subject's edges during studio photography. Without it, hair and product edges may show a faint green or blue tint after background removal. Enable despill when processing images shot against a coloured studio backdrop — product photography, headshots, or any studio batch where the background colour is a solid chroma key. For images without a studio backdrop (office photos, outdoor shots, user-uploaded images), despill is typically unnecessary.
How do API credits work and how much does each image cost?
BackgroundErase uses a credit-based billing model. On the Business plan ($20/month), each API call costs $0.01 per image. Enterprise plans with custom contracts can negotiate rates as low as $0.0025 per image for high-volume usage. Preview-resolution calls consume fewer credits than full or HD calls — useful for quality checks before committing to high-resolution processing. Your Actionist agent can call Get Account Credit Balance before large batch jobs to confirm sufficient credits are available, preventing mid-batch pipeline stalls.
Can I receive a greyscale alpha mask instead of a composited cutout?
Yes. Set the output channels to alpha when calling the API and BackgroundErase returns a greyscale mask image instead of a composited transparent PNG. The mask represents the foreground subject in white and the background in black — your own compositor can apply this as a transparency layer over the original image. This is the preferred output when your pipeline handles compositing itself, when you want to apply the mask to multiple background variants, or when you need to refine the mask in a post-processing step before final output.
What is the difference between PNG and WebP output for background-removed images?
Both PNG and WebP support lossless transparency (alpha channel). WebP files are typically 25–35% smaller than equivalent PNGs at the same quality level, making them the better choice for web delivery and CDN storage where file size affects page load time. PNG remains the standard for design tool compatibility (Photoshop, Figma, Sketch) and print pipelines. Use WebP for website images, PWA assets, and web-delivered catalogues; use PNG for design library assets, print files, and any pipeline that may not support WebP.
Can I connect BackgroundErase to other apps in the same Actionist workflow?
Yes — BackgroundErase is most useful as part of a multi-app workflow. Common combinations include: reading image files from Google Drive or Dropbox, processing them through BackgroundErase, and uploading the results back to cloud storage; monitoring a Shopify or CMS product feed for new images and processing each automatically; fetching images from Airtable or Google Sheets and writing cutout URLs back to the same record; or sending processed images directly to a Slack channel for team review. Any of Actionist's connected apps can supply input images or receive the processed results as part of the same agent task.