The Sora API is gone: what OpenAI switched off, and what to use instead

If you built something on Sora, OpenAI's video model, it stopped working on 24 September 2026. That day, OpenAI removed the Sora 2 models and its whole Videos API. The API is the paid connection developers use. OpenAI named nothing to replace them. The Sora app had already closed in April.

We checked OpenAI's own pages. We found that a big gateway, a service that gives access to many models through one account, quietly dropped Sora too. And we looked at what to use instead, based on our own test of seven video models.

What did OpenAI switch off, and when?

OpenAI keeps a list of things it is switching off: its deprecations page. That page records the decision. On 24 March 2026, OpenAI told developers who used the Videos API and the Sora 2 models "of their deprecation and removal from the API on September 24, 2026". So developers had six months to prepare.

The list covers the Videos API itself and five model names: sora-2, sora-2-pro, and the dated versions sora-2-2025-10-06, sora-2-2025-12-08 and sora-2-pro-2025-10-06.

The list has a column for a recommended replacement. For Sora, every row shows a dash. For many other retired models on the same page, that column names a newer model. For Sora it does not.

So in practice, there is no OpenAI video model you can switch to through the API. If you still need to make videos with AI, you have to move to another company.

The app went first

For people who used Sora in the browser or on their phone, the end came earlier. OpenAI's help article says "the Sora web and app experiences were discontinued on April 26, 2026".

The same article explains what happens to your work. You can export (download) what you made at sora.chatgpt.com/sunset. OpenAI says you will get an email when the export is ready. After any final export period, OpenAI will "permanently delete any data associated with your use of Sora".

OpenAI also says that ChatGPT or Sora credits you bought can still be used for Codex, its AI helper for programmers.

Did you ever make something in Sora that you want to keep? Then check the export page. We did not have a Sora account, so we could not test the export ourselves.

Gone from OpenRouter too

Some developers did not use Sora directly. They used a gateway such as OpenRouter, which offers many video models through one API. We used OpenRouter for our video test. Its public model list told us something we did not expect.

On 4 October 2026, ten days after OpenAI's removal date, we saved a copy of that list. It still included openai/sora-2-pro. The price was $0.30 per second at 720p and $0.50 at 1080p (the picture quality), for clips of 4 to 20 seconds.

On 5 October we checked again. We planned to send one short test job, to see if Sora still worked. But Sora was no longer on the list. So there was nothing to send, and we paid nothing.

From the outside, we cannot tell if Sora still worked through OpenRouter in those ten days. But the two checks show one thing. If a gateway lists a model, that does not prove its maker still offers it. If your app uses a model through a gateway, watch the maker's own notes about what it is switching off.

What can you use instead?

There is no model you can simply swap in for Sora. But many video models have an API. On 4 October we gave the same prompt to seven of them through OpenRouter. We paid $8 in total. You can see the full results and all seven clips in our video test. In short:

For comparison: OpenRouter listed Sora 2 Pro at $0.30 per second at 720p. That is $3.00 for ten seconds. Every model in our test was cheaper per clip.

One test with one prompt is not a ranking. The best choice depends on what you made with Sora. Was it one shot without cuts, a quick clip for social media, or a sharp, high-quality scene?

Moving off the Sora API: five things to check

Do you need to replace Sora in an app or an automatic workflow? These are the points that mattered in our own test:

• Find every place you use Sora. Search your code and automations for sora-2, sora-2-pro and the Videos API. Tools such as Make had their own Sora parts, called modules. Those were switched off too.
• Test before you choose. Try your own usual prompt on two or three models. In our test, the price per clip differed by a factor of fifteen.
• Check length and size. Veo 3.1 Fast makes 8 seconds at most. Kling gave us 1080p when we asked for 720p, and charged the matching price.
• Read the rules for what you make. The rules for business use and for labelling AI videos differ per model. Our video test lists what we found on each maker's pages.
• Keep your old videos. If you used the Sora app, use OpenAI's export page while it is still there.

How we checked

On 5 October 2026 we read OpenAI's deprecations page and its help article on the Sora discontinuation. The help pages blocked our automatic browser. So we read them, and took our pictures, in a normal browser window. The screenshots in this article are our own pictures of those pages. We only cropped them.

For OpenRouter, we compared two copies of its public video model list. We saved one on 4 October, during our video test. We fetched the other on 5 October with a small script. If Sora had still been listed, the script would have sent one 4-second test job. It was not listed, so we made nothing and paid nothing.

The other options come from our own test of seven video models on 4 October 2026. The owner of this site paid for it.

We did not have a Sora account, so we could not test the export page. We made the charts and the checklist ourselves. None of the images was made by AI. Which video models are on offer, and what they cost, changes quickly. Check the maker's own pages before you build on one.

Correction, 6 October 2026: an earlier version of this article said OpenAI listed six Sora model names. The list has five, plus the Videos API itself.