If an app still calls OpenAI’s Sora 2 video endpoint, inspect the integration on September 24. The official notice names the affected API and models but does not name a drop-in replacement.
OpenAI’s deprecations page lists September 24, 2026, as the scheduled removal date for the Videos API sora-2, sora-2-pro and the listed Sora 2 snapshots. OpenAI first notified developers on March 24. At the time of publication, this article reports the official deadline, not an independently verified outage of every endpoint.
What exactly is scheduled to go away?
The deprecation table covers the Videos API itself. sora-2, sora-2-pro and three dated snapshots: sora-2-2025-10-06, sora-2-2025-12-08 and sora-2-pro-2025-10-06. Developers should compare those exact strings with configuration files, environment variables, job queues, and saved templates. A friendly name in a dashboard is not enough: a batch worker may still call a pinned snapshot.
The table does not list a recommended replacement. That differs materially from a normal model migration, where an API provider can point to a new ID with broadly comparable behavior. Do not tell users to swap in an unnamed model and expect video generation to continue.
A developer checklist for September 24
- Search code, secrets, and deployment configuration for Videos API paths
sora-2,sora-2-proand the dated snapshots listed by OpenAI. - Find scheduled jobs and retries that could submit video work after the removal date.
- Export required outputs and metadata under your retention policy, and confirm the files are usable outside the API.
- Make the product handle an unavailable endpoint clearly. Do not silently charge or queue users for a generation job that cannot start.
- Evaluate other providers against your actual requirements: duration, resolution, latency, moderation, commercial rights, pricing, and data handling.
Teams comparing alternatives can start with our AI video cost comparison, but should rerun tests against current vendor terms before replacing a production workflow.
This is not the consumer Sora shutdown date.
OpenAI’s Sora discontinuation FAQ says the Sora web and app experience ended on April 26, 2026. The September 24 date is for the developer Videos API and its Sora 2 models. Treating the two dates as one launch or shutdown would mislead both consumers and developers.
The FAQ also points users to an export flow and explains that stored Sora data will eventually be permanently deleted after any final export window. Anyone who still needs a project or clip should check the FAQ’s current export instructions rather than assume an API migration will preserve a consumer library.
What an alternative must replace
Moving a video app is not only a model-name change. It may need a different job lifecycle, webhook or polling logic, content-filter response, output storage path, prompt format, and billing model. Keep a small reference set of prompts and evaluate the new service on the scenes that matter to your users. A visual match on a single sample says little about reliability over hundreds of jobs.
If your workflow also makes still images, do not conflate that with video generation. OpenAI’s ChatGPT Images 2.5 guide covers a different product and API family.
What remains unconfirmed
The official page states a removal date; we have not made a production API call to confirm the exact minute or shutdown behavior. An account-specific grace period, if any, is not in the cited deprecation table. Engineers should use the published deadline for planning and confirm live behavior in their own environment.
Official sources
Checked September 24, 2026. OpenAI has scheduled the removal; endpoint unavailability has not been independently verified.
