Sora was arguably the most talked-about AI video tool through late 2025. It's gone now. Here's the full shutdown timeline, why OpenAI pulled the plug, and which tools people moved to instead.
The reporting points to a straightforward math problem: Sora was reportedly burning close to $1 million a day in compute costs against roughly $2.1 million in lifetime revenue — a gap no amount of user growth was closing, especially once that user growth reversed. Downloads fell from 3.3 million to 1.1 million in about three months. On top of the financials, Sora carried ongoing copyright disputes over training data and generated output, and OpenAI was reportedly prioritizing more profitable products ahead of a planned IPO. None of that is unique to Sora — it's the same cost structure every AI video model runs on — but Sora apparently never found a path to make the economics work before the company decided to stop trying.
OpenAI ran a pro-rated refund window for paying subscribers starting in June 2026, and gave users a window to export their generated content from sora.chatgpt.com/sunset before the web app closed. Anything not exported is gone. If you still have API-level access to Sora for an integration, that access ends September 24, 2026 — about three weeks from now, as of this update. There's no extension being offered, so anything built on it needs a migration plan now, not later.
There wasn't a single successor — the audience split based on what they actually needed:
For exact current pricing across all of them, see our full pricing comparison, or the cheapest way to try one if you just want to test the waters.
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No. OpenAI announced Sora's discontinuation on March 24, 2026. The consumer web app and mobile app closed on April 26, 2026. The developer API is scheduled to shut down September 24, 2026 — after that date, no part of Sora will be reachable in any form.
Reported reasons include steep compute costs (Sora was reportedly burning roughly $1 million per day) against very little revenue (around $2.1 million lifetime, per reporting), a sharp decline in active users after an initial download spike, and ongoing copyright disputes over training data and generated content. OpenAI reportedly redirected focus toward more profitable products ahead of a planned IPO.
OpenAI offered a pro-rated refund window for affected subscribers starting in June 2026. Users could export their generated content at sora.chatgpt.com/sunset before the service closed; anything not exported by the shutdown was permanently deleted. If you still have API access, export anything you need before September 24, 2026.
Runway, Pika, Kling, Seedance, and Google's Veo are the current major AI video generators. Which one fits depends on what you need: Veo has the strongest native audio (dialogue, sound effects, music generated with the video), Kling has the cheapest full-featured subscription, Seedance is pay-per-clip with no subscription required, and Runway bundles the most editing tools alongside generation. See our full pricing comparison for exact numbers.