Sora is gone, so the choice is between tools that are still selling video. OpenAI’s help page says the Sora web and app experiences were discontinued on 26 April 2026 and gives 24 September 2026 as the Sora API end date (a date that has now passed; the page still words it in the future tense), and its deprecations page lists no replacement model. On 2 Oct 2026 a five-second clip costs about $0.25 to $0.60 on Google’s cheaper Veo 3.1 tiers, $0.48 to $1.44 on Runway’s Gen-4.5 plans, and $0.76 to $1.87 for Seedance 2.0 through BytePlus’s API. Those prices are for one attempt; you pay again for every retake.
What happened to Sora
| Item | Record | Source, read 2 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| API deprecation announced | 24 March 2026, to developers using the Videos API and the Sora 2 model aliases and snapshots | OpenAI API deprecations page |
| Replacement named | None listed | OpenAI API deprecations page |
| App and web | Discontinued 26 April 2026 | OpenAI help page |
| API | Scheduled to end 24 September 2026; that date has passed. The help page still says “will be discontinued”, and the deprecations page lists the removal on that date | OpenAI help page, deprecations page |
| Your clips | Export at sora.chatgpt.com/sunset; OpenAI says it will permanently delete Sora data after any final export window | OpenAI help page |
| Refunds and credits | Through the ChatGPT refund process; purchased ChatGPT and Sora credits can still be used for Codex | OpenAI help page |
If you still have Sora clips, the export page and the “final export window” wording are on the help page. Press figures about what Sora cost OpenAI to run circulate on other sites; none came from an OpenAI page, so none is repeated here.
Price of one five-second clip
One attempt, list price, no retakes. Runway sells credits, so its range is the cheapest plan (Max, annual billing) to the dearest (Standard, monthly billing). The others are pay-as-you-go.
| Option | Billing basis | Five seconds, one attempt |
|---|---|---|
| Midjourney Pro, SD image-to-video | $48 a month billed annually; 4 clips cost 8 of 1,800 Fast minutes | $0.05 |
| Veo 3.1 Lite, 720p to 1080p | Gemini API, $0.05 to $0.08 a second | $0.25 to $0.40 |
| Seedance 2.0 Mini, 720p | BytePlus API, vendor example price | $0.38 |
| Veo 3.1 Fast, 720p to 1080p | Gemini API, $0.10 to $0.12 a second | $0.50 to $0.60 |
| Runway Gen-4.5 | 60 credits per clip; $12 to $15 for 625 credits (Standard) down to $76 to $95 for 9,500 (Max) | $0.48 to $1.44 |
| Seedance 2.0 Fast, 720p | BytePlus API, vendor example price | $0.60 |
| Seedance 2.0, 720p to 1080p | BytePlus API, vendor example price | $0.76 to $1.87 |
| Seedance 2.0, 720p, through Runway’s API | 36 credits a second at $0.01 | $1.80 |
| Veo 3.1 Standard, 720p to 1080p | Gemini API, $0.40 a second | $2.00 |
Midjourney needs a still image as the first frame, makes 480p video by default, and a prompt returns four clips; the figure counts all four as generated. Veo’s prices include audio. Runway’s page also lists Seedance 2.0 Pro 1080p at 160 credits per four seconds and Seedance 2.0 Fast at 116, so one subscription covers several models. The per-clip cost at your own retake rate, with the arithmetic shown, is on the cost per finished minute calculator.
Which to pick by job
| Job | What to look for | Where the stated facts point |
|---|---|---|
| Product or social clip from a still | Image-to-video, cheapest retakes | Midjourney’s video takes a starting image; Runway and Seedance on BytePlus are the other priced routes. Compare at your own keep rate |
| Clip with spoken or ambient audio | Audio in the price | Veo 3.1 prices include audio; Seedance 1.5 Pro on BytePlus has a with-audio rate ($2.4 per million tokens against $1.2 without); Runway lists Veo with audio at 40 credits a second and without at 20 |
| A steady monthly bill and an editor | Plans with included credits | Runway: Standard $15 a month, Pro $35, Max $95 on monthly billing; unspent credits roll over only on Max, by up to one month |
| Calling it from your own code | Per-second API pricing, no allowance to waste | Google’s Gemini API for Veo; BytePlus ModelArk for Seedance; Runway’s developer API at $0.01 a credit |
| 4K output | A tier that lists 4K | Veo 3.1 Standard ($0.60 a second) and Fast ($0.30); Seedance 2.0 on BytePlus (about $3.89 for five seconds) |
| A talking presenter rather than a generated scene | An avatar tool, not a video model | Different product; see Synthesia vs HeyGen |
Quality, motion and character consistency are not on any pricing page and are not assessed here. Before choosing, make the same short test prompt in two candidates and count how many generations it takes to get one you would publish; that number is your retake rate for the calculator.
Sora vs Runway
There is nothing to run side by side now. The old comparison ranked the two on physics and cinematic quality, claims about a product no one can test again, so they were removed. What can be stated is the price on the Runway side. Gen-4.5 costs 12 credits a second on every plan, so $0.096 a second on Max billed annually and $0.288 on Standard billed monthly. Runway’s plans carry no watermark, and Standard includes 4K upscaling. Details are in the Runway review.
Seedance vs Sora
Seedance is one of the places the Sora gap is being filled. It is sold by Runway (inside its credits) and by ByteDance’s BytePlus cloud through an API, at different prices for the same model: Seedance 2.0 at 720p is $0.152 a second on BytePlus and $0.36 on Runway’s API. Whether ByteDance sells Seedance directly to consumers, and at what price, was not read, so availability here is limited to those two routes. Google’s side is in the Veo review; Kling has no readable public price.
Method
Researched from OpenAI’s help and deprecations pages and the Runway, Google, BytePlus and Midjourney pages listed above, read on 2 Oct 2026, USD list prices; the OpenAI help page’s own “updated” label is relative (“last month”). Per-clip figures are our division of the vendor’s rate by five seconds, with Runway’s range running from the cheapest to the dearest plan and assuming the plan’s credits are fully used. No Kling price is quoted because its plan tables are visible only after sign-in. Nothing here comes from using these products.