Key takeaways
- OpenAI is shutting Sora 2 down on 24 September 2026. The Videos API,
sora-2,sora-2-proand every Sora 2 snapshot go with it. - No replacement is named. Every other 2026 deprecation on OpenAI’s list points
at a successor model. This one’s replacement column is empty. - The cheapest like-for-like move is Veo 3.1 Lite at $0.05 per second — half
what Sora 2 charges on its standard tier, and the same price as Sora 2’s batch tier. - If you are on Sora 2 Pro at 1080p ($0.70/s), almost anything is cheaper.
Veo 3.1 Standard at 4K costs $0.60/s and Kling 2.5 Turbo Pro costs $0.07/s.
OpenAI has set a shutdown date for its video generation API. According to the company’s own
deprecations
page, the Videos API and the models behind it — sora-2, sora-2-pro,
and the dated snapshots sora-2-2025-10-06, sora-2-2025-12-08 and
sora-2-pro-2025-10-06 — were announced for removal on 24 March 2026 and stop working
on 24 September 2026.
What makes this deprecation different
OpenAI deprecates models constantly, and the listings normally read as upgrades. The GPT-5 and
o3 snapshots retiring on 11 December 2026 point at gpt-5.6-sol,
gpt-5.6-terra and gpt-5.6-luna. The image models retiring on 1 December
2026 point at gpt-image-2. The legacy audio and realtime models retiring in January
2027 point at gpt-realtime-2.1 and gpt-audio-1.5.
The Sora 2 row is the exception. Its recommended-replacement column is empty. On the evidence
of that page, OpenAI is not replacing its video API — it is leaving the category.
Who this actually affects
The shutdown covers the API. If you generate videos inside ChatGPT rather than through
code, nothing in the deprecation table speaks to your subscription, and OpenAI has not said the
consumer feature is going the same way. What stops on 24 September is programmatic access: any
service, script or product that calls the Videos API for a customer.
That is a short runway. If you shipped a feature on Sora 2, you have weeks rather than quarters,
and the migration is not a model-name swap — the alternatives price differently, cap resolution
differently, and expose different controls.
What Sora 2 costs today, and what the alternatives cost
Sora 2 is priced per second of finished output. So is everything you would move to, which makes
the comparison unusually clean. These are the current published rates:
| Model | Resolution | Price per second | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sora 2 (batch) | 720p | $0.05 | Ends 24 Sep 2026 |
| Sora 2 (standard) | 720p | $0.10 | Ends 24 Sep 2026 |
| Sora 2 Pro (batch) | 720p | $0.15 | Ends 24 Sep 2026 |
| Sora 2 Pro (standard) | 1080p | $0.70 | Ends 24 Sep 2026 |
| Veo 3.1 Lite | 720p | $0.05 | Available |
| Wan 2.5 (via fal) | — | $0.05 | Available |
| Kling 2.5 Turbo Pro (via fal) | — | $0.07 | Available |
| Veo 3.1 Lite | 1080p | $0.08 | Available |
| Veo 3.1 Fast | 720p | $0.10 | Available |
| Veo 3.1 Fast | 1080p | $0.12 | Available |
| Veo 3.1 Fast | 4K | $0.30 | Available |
| Veo 3.1 Standard | 720p / 1080p | $0.40 | Available |
| Veo 3.1 Standard | 4K | $0.60 | Available |
Which model should you move to?
Match the tier you are on rather than the brand you are leaving.
- On Sora 2 batch at $0.05/s: Veo 3.1 Lite at 720p and Wan 2.5 both cost the
same $0.05 per second. Your bill does not change. - On Sora 2 standard at $0.10/s: Veo 3.1 Fast at 720p matches it exactly, and
Veo 3.1 Lite halves it if 720p Lite output is good enough for your use. - On Sora 2 Pro at $0.30–$0.70/s: this is where the move saves real money. Veo
3.1 Standard at 4K is $0.60/s, below Sora 2 Pro’s 1080p rate, and Veo 3.1 Fast at 4K is $0.30/s. - If cost dominates and the vendor does not: Kling 2.5 Turbo Pro at $0.07/s and
Wan 2.5 at $0.05/s are both reachable through fal, which is a different integration but a much
shorter one than rebuilding around a new provider SDK.
All five of these accept an image as well as text, so an image-to-video workflow built on Sora 2
has a direct equivalent on each of them.
What the per-second rate hides
Every figure above is the price of one successful generation. A shot that needs regenerating
five times before it is usable costs five times the number in the table, and that retry count —
not the headline rate — is what decides a real bill. Budget from your own hit rate rather than
from the tariff, and note that a cheaper model you retry twice as often is not cheaper.
The second trap is comparing an API rate against a subscription. Consumer plans meter video in
credits, and credits do not convert cleanly into seconds; a plan that looks generous can work out
dearer per finished second than the API it sits on. If you are migrating a product, compare API to
API.
What to do before 24 September
- Find every call site. Anything hitting the Videos API stops returning on the
shutdown date, so the failure will be a hard error rather than a degraded response. - Re-price at the tier you actually use, not at the headline rate. The table
above is per second of output at a stated resolution. - Re-test your prompts. Prompt behaviour does not transfer between video models
the way it broadly does between text models; the same prompt on Veo or Kling will not give you the
same shot. - Keep an archive. Anything you generated and did not download is worth
retrieving while the service still answers.
Frequently asked questions
When exactly does Sora 2 stop working?
24 September 2026, per OpenAI’s deprecations page. The removal was announced on 24 March 2026
and covers the Videos API, sora-2, sora-2-pro and all Sora 2 snapshots.
Is OpenAI releasing a replacement video model?
None is listed. The recommended-replacement column for this entry is empty, which is unusual —
every other 2026 deprecation on the same page names a successor.
Does this affect video generation inside ChatGPT?
The deprecation covers the API. OpenAI’s listing does not address the consumer feature, so
treat the two separately.
What is the cheapest alternative to Sora 2?
Veo 3.1 Lite at 720p and Wan 2.5 both cost $0.05 per second, matching Sora 2’s cheapest batch
tier. Kling 2.5 Turbo Pro is $0.07 per second.
Will prices rise once Sora 2 is gone?
Nothing published says so, and Google, Alibaba and Kuaishou all still list the rates above.
Predicting otherwise would be speculation.
