Best Free Color Palette Generators 2026: 6 Options Compared

A palette generator saves you from staring at a color wheel, but the tools disagree about how to start. Coolors lets you press a key to spin up five-color palettes and lock the ones you like, and its free plan stores up to 10 palettes with ads on the site. Adobe Color, now reached through Adobe Express's color tools, extracts a palette or gradient from an image, offers a color wheel and includes a contrast checker. Canva-based tools sit inside a design editor, which helps if you will apply the colors straight away. Colormind uses a deep-learning model and lets you lock colors and generate the rest. Huemint uses machine learning to generate schemes for brands and websites. Paletton builds one-to-four-hue schemes on an RYB wheel with five shades each and exports to HTML, CSS, XML, PNG and Photoshop ACO. The trade-off is inspiration versus rules: random generators are quick for ideas, while wheel-based tools like Paletton and Adobe Color keep harmony relationships you can explain to a client. Whichever you pick, test the final text and background pairs with a contrast checker before shipping, since a pretty palette can still fail accessibility.

Coolors

Free plan saves up to 10 palettes, 1 project, 1 collection and 5 colors, with ads shown; a $3 per month figure appeared in a popup. Fast random generation with locking.

Price: Free (Free plan: save up to 10 palettes, 1 project, 1 collection, 5 saved colors, 5 colors per palette, ads shown); paid from $3 per month (shown in a subscribe popup; full Pro price list not visible) (Coolors pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Web, iOS. Proprietary.

Best for: Quick ideas and saved palettes.

Adobe Color

Reached through Adobe Express color tools: extract a palette or gradient from an image, color wheel, explore palettes, contrast checker. Applying palettes to designs automatically needs a paid plan.

Price: Free (Page offers Get Started for Free; applying palettes automatically to designs needs a paid plan; saving palettes uses a Creative Cloud library) (Adobe Color pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Web. Proprietary.

Best for: Image-based palettes and contrast checks.

Colormind

Deep-learning scheme generator; lock colors and it fills in the rest. The page states no price or paid tier but links an API access page.

Price: Free (Colormind pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Web. Proprietary.

Best for: Starting from a color you already have.

Huemint

Machine-learning palette generator for brands, websites and graphics. The page shows no pricing, plans or limits.

Price: Free (Huemint pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Web. Proprietary.

Best for: Brand and website schemes.

Paletton

Builds palettes of one to four hues with five shades each on an RYB wheel; exports HTML, CSS, XML, PNG and Photoshop ACO. Funded by ads and donations.

Price: Free (Paletton pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Web. Proprietary.

Best for: Rule-based harmony.

Canva

Free plan exists; check its pricing page for current limits and features. A palette generator among a wider set of design tools.

Price: Free (Free plan available; see the pricing page for its current limits) (Canva pricing, checked 2026-10-22).

Platforms and license: Web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android. Proprietary.

Best for: Palettes inside a design editor.

Compare: Canva alternatives

Which one to pick

• You want quick palette ideas: Coolors
• You have a photo to pull colors from: Adobe Color
• You already have one brand color: Colormind
• You want a harmony you can explain: Paletton
• You are generating a brand scheme: Huemint