OpenAI is shutting down Sora. Here is what comes next.

Yesterday, OpenAI switched off the Sora app. There was no press conference and no blog post. The official communication was a Help Centre notice and a short goodbye from the @soraofficialapp account on X: “What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing.” Sixteen months after its consumer launch, one of the most-discussed AI video tools of 2024 is gone from every browser and phone.

Sora launched publicly in December 2024 as a standalone app at sora.com, bundled into ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscriptions. The original pitch was direct: type a description, receive a polished video clip up to 20 seconds long. The Sora Turbo model handled early traffic. By October 2025, OpenAI released Sora 2 in two variants. Sora 2 covered everyday use at up to 720p with fast turnaround, while Sora 2 Pro targeted production-quality work at 1080p, according to OpenAI’s API documentation for video generation.

Access came through ChatGPT subscription credits. Multiple secondary sources, which OpenAI’s JavaScript-rendered pricing pages could not be directly confirmed against, reported that Plus subscribers received around 1,000 credits per month and Pro subscribers around 10,000, with each second of video consuming credits at rates that varied by resolution. Developers could also reach Sora through the Videos API at reported rates of approximately $0.10 per second for the standard model and $0.70 per second for Sora 2 Pro.

Image generation inside Sora was removed in March 2026, when Sora 1 was retired for US users and Sora 2 became the default. That step trimmed the product’s scope quietly, well before the full shutdown was announced.

OpenAI announced the full closure on 24 March 2026, filing a deprecations notice on its developer documentation and posting to X. The timeline ran in two stages. The consumer app and web experience closed on 26 April 2026. The Videos API and all Sora 2 model aliases, which are sora-2, sora-2-pro, sora-2-2025-10-06, sora-2-2025-12-08, and sora-2-pro-2025-10-06, will be shut down on 24 September 2026, per the OpenAI API deprecations page.

OpenAI published no formal written reason for the closure. Reports from multiple press outlets cited a strategic shift: resources redirected toward coding tools, in particular Codex, and enterprise products ahead of an anticipated IPO. One technology journalist reported compute costs running at roughly $1 million per day. That figure was attributed to OpenAI context rather than a published statement, so it is background reporting rather than confirmed company data. Press coverage also noted that active users had declined from a peak of around one million to under 500,000 by the time of the shutdown, though those figures also come from press sources rather than any OpenAI filing or official statement.

Nothing on the market does exactly what Sora did as a bundled consumer video experience, but Runway Gen-4.5 handles professional-tier video generation via API and subscription, Kling 2.0 offers lower-cost access for individual creators, and Google Veo 3.1 is now accessible to personal Google account holders through Google Vids and Flow.

The misconception worth naming

Most people reading “Sora is shutting down” will assume it is already over. It is only half right. The consumer app closed on 26 April 2026, but the Videos API and every sora-2 model alias remains live until 24 September 2026. If you integrated Sora into a product, you have roughly five months to migrate or replace it. That window is shorter than it sounds, particularly if your pipeline depends on async video generation jobs that require testing and approval cycles before a replacement ships.

What this means for you

If you were a consumer using Sora through a ChatGPT subscription, the product has gone. If you were a developer using the Videos API, your deadline is September. The broader AI video market is not short of alternatives, but none replicate the bundled subscription model Sora offered alongside the rest of the ChatGPT toolset. Whether you move to a specialist video API or anchor your workflow to another integrated platform will depend on how much video generation matters to your pipeline versus how much convenience was doing the work.

• Export your Sora creations now at sora.chatgpt.com/exports/me. Any unused ChatGPT or Sora credits purchased before the shutdown can be redeemed for Codex after closing, according to OpenAI’s Help Centre article on the discontinuation.
• If you have an active Videos API integration, the sora-2 and sora-2-pro endpoints continue until 24 September 2026. Build your migration plan before August to avoid a deadline scramble.
• Runway Gen-4.5, Kling 2.0, and Veo 3.1 each sit in a different part of the market. Runway is oriented toward professional creative workflows, Kling toward affordability and individual creators, and Veo 3.1 toward users already inside the Google ecosystem.