After Sora's Shutdown: A Complete Guide to AI Video Generation Alternatives in 2026

Reviewed and verified by FeiYueh · Last verified 2026-10-06

OpenAI shut down the Sora app and web version on April 26, 2026, and the Sora 2 API will be retired on September 24, 2026. Teams that still rely on the Sora API

OpenAI shut down the Sora app and web version on April 26, 2026, and the Sora 2 API will be retired on September 24, 2026. Teams that still rely on the Sora API need to move their workflows to Google Veo 3.1, Runway Gen-4.5, or Kling before the deadline. At official prices, Veo 3.1 Lite generates an 8-second 720p video for just US$0.40. That is the lowest per-second price of any option with a publicly available official API. Sora Shutdown Timeline and Reasons Sora is shutting down in two stages: first the consumer products, then the developer API. On March 24, 2026, OpenAI notified developers that “the Sora app and web version will close on April 26, 2026, and the Sora 2 API will be removed on September 24, 2026” (Source: The Decoder) . After the deadline, user data will be permanently deleted and sora.chatgpt.com will stop working. The main reason for the shutdown is that operating costs far exceeded usage. “Sora peaked at about 1 million users worldwide, then fell below 500,000, with daily operating costs estimated at around US$1 million” (Source: TechCrunch, March 2026) . Video generation needs far more compute than text or images, so OpenAI chose to move that compute to coding and enterprise products. The shutdown also hit business partners. According to TechCrunch, Disney learned of the decision less than an hour before the public announcement, and the two companies' US$1 billion partnership ended as a result. For Sora's full history, see Wikipedia's Sora article . Comparing the Leading Alternatives In the second half of 2026, three commercial options can fully replace Sora: Google Veo 3.1, Runway Gen-4.5, and Kuaishou's Kling. They differ mainly in how they bill, whether audio is built in, and how mature their APIs are. Google Veo 3.1: The Most Transparent API Pricing Veo 3.1 comes in three tiers. All are billed per second and include audio by default. According to “Veo 3.1 Standard costs US$0.40 per second (720p/1080p), Fast costs US$0.10–0.12 per second, and

Reviewed and verified by FeiYueh · Last verified 2026-10-06. Independently maintained — not AI-generated boilerplate.