There is nothing left to review: OpenAI’s API deprecations page lists DALL-E 2 and DALL-E 3 as removed on 12 May 2026, after a 14 Nov 2025 announcement. The replacements it names are the GPT Image models. Billing changed with them: instead of a price per image, the API bills tokens, and on 29 Sep 2026 its pricing page listed two GPT Image 2.5 models at $8.00 per million image input tokens and $30.00 per million image output tokens.
Dates
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 14 Nov 2025 | Removal of dall-e-2 and dall-e-3 announced | OpenAI deprecations page |
| 21 Apr 2026 | gpt-image-2 snapshot gpt-image-2-2026-04-21 released | OpenAI model page |
| 12 May 2026 | dall-e-2 and dall-e-3 removed from the API | OpenAI deprecations page |
The deprecations page points developers to gpt-image-2, gpt-image-1 and gpt-image-1-mini. How ChatGPT’s own image feature switched over is reported only by third parties, so it is not dated here.
What the replacements cost
| Item | What OpenAI’s page says (29 Sep 2026) |
|---|---|
| Billing | Per million tokens, not per image |
| Image input, output | $8.00 and $30.00 per million tokens on gpt-image-2.5-sunburst and gpt-image-2.5-flare; cached input $2.00 |
| Text input | $5.00 per million tokens; cached $1.25 |
| Per-image estimates | Not on the pricing page; it points to a calculator in the image generation guide |
| Rate limits, gpt-image-2 | Tier 1: 100K tokens and 5 images a minute; Tier 5: 8M tokens and 250 images a minute |
Old figures for DALL-E 3 per-image prices describe a product that has gone; no per-image price for the new models is quoted here because the cost depends on image size and quality settings.
Who owns the output
OpenAI’s Terms of Use (Europe edition, updated 16 January 2026) say that, as between you and OpenAI, you own the Output and OpenAI assigns whatever rights it has to you. They add that output may not be unique and that the assignment does not cover other users’ output or third-party output. Whether copyright protects an AI image at all is separate: see can you use AI output commercially.
What to read next
The comparison with Midjourney, rewritten for the replacement, is Midjourney against what replaced DALL-E 3. For plans and terms across five generators, see best AI image generators. Other reviews: Midjourney, Ideogram, Flux.
Method
Researched from OpenAI’s deprecations, model, pricing and terms pages, read 29 Sep 2026 (pricing and terms in a browser session). USD list prices as displayed. Nothing here comes from using the models.