When exactly does the Sora API stop working?

OpenAI's public deprecations page lists the Videos API and the sora-2 and sora-2-pro model aliases and snapshots for removal from the API on September 24, 2026. The notice was published on March 24, 2026 and names no replacement model.

Is there a drop-in replacement for the Sora API?

No. OpenAI does not list a successor video model, so migrating means moving to a different vendor's API, such as Google's Veo models on the Gemini API, and rewriting your request and polling code against that vendor's schema.

What is the closest alternative to Sora for quality?

Google's Veo 3.1 and Kling are the two most frequently named alternatives in public model comparisons, and both generate video with native audio. CartSignal has not run hands-on quality tests, so treat any ranking as public positioning rather than a measured result.

Can I still download videos I made in Sora?

The Sora consumer app and website were discontinued on April 26, 2026 and OpenAI directed users to an export flow before shutdown. If you have not exported already, check OpenAI's help center article on the discontinuation for the current status of your data.

Do I need a separate subscription for each video model?

Not necessarily. Runway's pricing page lists several third-party models, including Veo 3.1 and Kling 3.0, alongside its own Gen-4.5, so one credit-based subscription can cover more than one model. Everything is spent from a single credit pool at published per-second rates, so check the burn rate as well as the model list: Veo 3.1 with audio costs 40 credits per second through Runway, which only beats Google's own $0.40/second list price on the Max plan billed annually. Kling also appears in Runway's app lineup but not on its developer API pricing page.

Public-data review · Updated 2026-09-10

Sora alternatives after the API shutdown

If you still generate video through Sora, you have until September 24, 2026 to move. OpenAI's own deprecations page lists the Videos API and every sora-2 model alias for removal on that date and names no replacement model, and the Sora consumer app closed back in April 2026. For most creators and small teams the practical replacements are Google's Veo 3.1, Kling, and Runway — which now sells access to several of these models under one subscription.

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Decision shortcut

Pick by the job you were using Sora for, not by leaderboard position. Standalone clips from a text prompt: Veo 3.1 through Google Flow, or Kling. A single take longer than ten seconds: Seedance 2.5, which generates up to 30 seconds in one pass with native audio — but note ByteDance publishes no rate for it, so you are buying through a reseller. An API you have to ship against: Veo on the Gemini API is the only one of the three with published per-second list pricing. A model-agnostic editing seat: Runway, which bundles multiple third-party models. Talking-head or faceless social video: Sora was never the right tool — see the avatar-video shortlist.

Review basis: public-data review. Prices below are quoted from official vendor pages checked in August 2026, except where explicitly marked as third-party reported. CartSignal has not run hands-on render or quality tests.

What is shutting down, and when

The Sora wind-down happened in two stages, and only the second one is still ahead of you.

What	Date	Status as of 2026-09-10	Source
Sora consumer app and website	April 26, 2026	Already closed	OpenAI help center, reporting
Videos API, `sora-2`, `sora-2-pro` and their dated snapshots	September 24, 2026	Scheduled — two weeks out	OpenAI deprecations page

Two details matter for planning. First, the deprecation notice was published on March 24, 2026, which means the six-month window is nearly spent. Second, OpenAI lists no recommended replacement — unlike a normal model retirement where you swap a model string, this one requires moving to another vendor's API and rewriting the request and job-polling code around it.

The shortlist at a glance

Alternative	Best for	Public API pricing	Pricing basis
Google Veo 3.1	Prompt-to-clip with native audio; the only option here with published per-second API rates	Yes — from $0.05/second (Lite, 720p)	Official Gemini API pricing
Kling	Cinematic motion on a consumer credit plan, plus the widest model back catalogue	Credits from 6/second (720p, silent); API reported from $0.075/second	Credit rates official; plan prices third-party reported
Runway	One seat covering several models plus an editing workflow	Credit-based subscription, $0–$95/month; Gen-4.5 burns 12 credits/second	Official Runway pricing
Seedance	The longest single take here — up to 30 seconds in one pass with native audio, plus reference-driven continuity	No official ByteDance rate published; via Runway, 20/30/68 credits per second at 480p/720p/1080p	Reseller rate card only — see the profile
HeyGen · Synthesia	Avatar-led explainers and training video	Seat and credit based	See profiles
Fliki · Pictory	Script or blog post to faceless social video	Credit based	See profiles

Google Veo 3.1

Veo is the most direct substitute if what you valued about Sora was a single text prompt producing a finished clip with sound. There are two ways in, and they are priced completely differently.

Through the API. Google's official Gemini API pricing page lists Veo 3.1 in three variants, all charged per second of output with audio included by default: Standard at $0.40/second for 720p and 1080p and $0.60/second for 4K; Fast at $0.10/second (720p), $0.12/second (1080p) and $0.30/second (4K); and Lite at $0.05/second (720p) and $0.08/second (1080p), with no 4K option. The page also notes you are only charged when a video is generated successfully. At Fast 1080p rates, an eight-second clip works out to roughly a dollar — useful for sizing a migration budget before you write any code.

Through Flow. If you are a creator rather than a developer, Google's Flow studio runs Veo 3.1 on a credit allowance tied to your Google AI subscription. Google's Flow credits help page lists a free tier with 50 daily credits, then Google AI Plus at 200 monthly credits, Google AI Pro at 1,000 credits, and the two Google AI Ultra tiers — labelled $100 and $200 by Google — at 10,000 and 25,000 credits. Credits do not roll over, and Google notes features vary by tier, platform and region, so confirm what your country actually gets. Full breakdown of both pricing routes: Google Veo public-data review.

One update since this page first ran: Veo is no longer Google's only video model. Gemini Omni Flash, announced at Google I/O on May 19, 2026, is a separate multimodal model that also outputs video at roughly $0.10 per second, and both it and Veo 3.1 remain listed on the Gemini API pricing page. It is worth pricing alongside Veo before you commit a migration — details on the Veo profile.

Kling

Kling is the alternative most often named alongside Veo in public model comparisons, and its recent versions generate with native audio. It sells a consumer credit subscription rather than per-second API pricing.

Update, 2026-08-31: Kling's membership page still blocks direct retrieval, so its plan prices remain third-party reported rather than verified. But the credit mechanics are documented officially, and they matter more than the sticker price. Kling's official Kling 3.0 model guide bills per second of output: 6 credits/second at 720p and 8 at 1080p without audio, rising to 9 and 12 credits/second with native audio. A five-second 1080p clip with sound is therefore 60 credits — and on the entry plan's reported 660 monthly credits, that is about eleven clips a month before you re-roll a single failed prompt.

Two traps carry over from the Sora situation. Plan credits expire at the end of each billing cycle and do not roll over, and pricing trackers consistently describe the advertised rate as a discounted first month that renews higher. For developers, Kling's API is reported to start from $0.075/second — between Veo Lite's $0.05 and Veo Fast's $0.10–$0.12, so not the decisive saving it first appears. Full breakdown, including cost per finished clip on each tier: Kling AI public-data review.

Runway

Runway is the pragmatic pick if you do not want to bet a workflow on one model. Its official pricing page lists Free ($0, 125 one-time credits), Standard at $12/month billed annually ($15 monthly, 625 credits/month), Pro at $28/month annually ($35 monthly, 2,250 credits), Max at $76/month annually ($95 monthly, 9,500 credits), and custom Enterprise packages, with a 20% annual discount across paid tiers.

The more interesting part is the model list. Runway's pricing page names not only its own Gen-4.5 and Aleph 2.0 but also Seedance, Kling 3.0 and Veo 3.1 — so a single Runway subscription can be a hedge against exactly the situation Sora users are in now. Confirm which models your specific tier includes, since access to third-party models is the sort of thing that moves between plans, and note that Kling appears in Runway's app lineup but not on its developer API pricing page.

Two things changed in September 2026 that affect this recommendation. First, Runway retired the Unlimited plan: its help centre states that existing Unlimited subscriptions switched automatically to the credit-metered Max plan on 1 September 2026, and Explore Mode — which generated without spending credits — did not carry over. Every tier is now capped. Second, the consolidation saving is real only at the top: Runway charges 40 credits per second for Veo 3.1 with audio, which works out to $0.32/second on Max billed annually against Google's own $0.40/second list price, but $0.96/second on Standard billed monthly. Routing Veo through Runway on a cheap plan costs more than going direct to Google. Full breakdown of the credit rates, what each tier buys per month, and the cost of a finished clip: Runway public-data review.

If Sora was not really the right tool anyway

A lot of people reaching for Sora were trying to make something a prompt-to-video model is bad at. If your actual output is a person talking to camera, look at HeyGen or Synthesia instead — the HeyGen vs Synthesia comparison covers that split. If it is faceless social video built from a script or an article, Fliki and Pictory are built for that pipeline. If you mostly needed to cut and caption footage you already have, Descript and VEED are editors rather than generators, and cost far less per finished minute.

Migration checklist

Export anything still on OpenAI infrastructure now. The API date is a removal date, not a read-only date.
Budget in seconds, not clips. Veo bills per second of output, so a per-clip cost from your Sora usage will not translate directly.
Re-test your prompts. Prompt phrasing does not transfer cleanly between video models; expect to rewrite your prompt library, not port it.
Check audio separately. Veo and recent Kling versions generate audio natively, which changes whether you still need a separate voice tool from the AI voice category.
Read the rights terms before republishing. Commercial-use, likeness and watermarking rules differ by vendor and by plan tier.
Avoid single-vendor exposure. Sora is the clearest recent case of a well-funded video model being switched off; a platform that hosts several models, or a thin abstraction of your own, limits the damage next time.