Best Sora API Providers Compared (2026)

One fact shapes everything below: the Sora API is gone. OpenAI shut down the Sora app and website on April 26, 2026, and switched off the Sora API on September 24, 2026. As of this update in October 2026, there is no supported way to call Sora 2 or Sora 2 Pro, from OpenAI or from anyone reselling it.

That matters more than any price comparison, because every third-party provider in posts like this one resold access to OpenAI's own Sora models. None of them ran an independent copy. When OpenAI switched the API off, the services built on top of it stopped working at the same time. So this is no longer a guide to finding the cheapest Sora access. It is a record of what the market looked like, what it cost, and where to go now.

What the Sora API Was and How Access Worked

OpenAI's Native Access (Now Closed)

Until late September 2026, OpenAI's developer platform served the sora-2 and sora-2-pro models. Sora 2 cost $0.10 per second at 720p, so a 12-second clip came to about $1.20. Sora 2 Pro ran from $0.30 per second at 720p, to $0.50 at 1024x1792, to $0.70 at 1080p. A batch option cut those rates by roughly half for jobs that could wait up to 24 hours. Getting access was never really the problem for anyone with a funded account. The end date was.

OpenAI announced the shutdown on March 24, 2026. The reasoning, as reported at the time, came down to what the service cost to run against how much it was actually used, plus growing pressure over copyright and deepfake concerns from the consumer app. OpenAI has not released a direct replacement.

Why the Third-Party Provider Question Changed

Developers used to route around a native API for faster signup, one bill instead of several, and more headroom on request volume. Those reasons still hold for other models. They no longer apply to Sora, because there is no Sora left to resell. If you came here hoping to keep an existing Sora integration running, the honest answer is that you cannot. What follows is what the options were, and what to move to.

How We Compared These Providers

For each provider we checked confirmed per-second pricing rather than marketing copy, whether both Sora 2 and Sora 2 Pro were offered, resolution and duration limits, and whether the provider added a markup over OpenAI's rate or passed it through. Every figure below was accurate in the weeks before the shutdown and is kept here for reference, not as a price you can still pay.

The Sora API Providers That Were Available in 2026

Quick comparison (per second, before the shutdown)

1. OpenAI (native API)

Going direct meant no markup and the full parameter set, including anything OpenAI shipped first. Pricing was $0.10 per second for Sora 2 at 720p, and $0.30 to $0.70 per second for Sora 2 Pro depending on resolution, with a batch option at roughly half price for jobs that were not time-sensitive.

Status: Closed. Sora requests stopped being accepted on September 24, 2026, and OpenAI has not announced a successor video model.

2. Apiframe

Apiframe offered Sora 2 and Sora 2 Pro behind the same API key and billing as every other model on the platform, including Kling 3.0, Runway, Veo 3.1, and dozens more. That design is why Apiframe users felt the shutdown the least: moving off Sora meant changing a model name in a request that already worked, not building a new integration. Our guide to unified AI APIs explains how that pattern works in practice.

Pricing was per clip. Sora 2 cost 58 credits for 4 seconds and 218 credits for 15 seconds, Sora 2 Pro Standard cost 174 credits for 4 seconds, and Sora 2 Pro High cost 290 credits for 4 seconds. At the pay-as-you-go rate of $0.01 per credit, that worked out to roughly $0.15 per second for Sora 2 and $0.44 to $0.73 per second for Sora 2 Pro, above OpenAI's own rate. Monthly plans bundled credits at about the same price, so a plan did not change the comparison. Failed jobs were refunded automatically.

Status: The Sora models are retired. Every other video model on the platform still runs, so integrations built on Apiframe keep working after a model swap.

3. PiAPI

PiAPI published flat, confirmed per-second pricing: $0.08 per second for Sora 2 text-to-video and $0.24 per second for Sora 2 Pro, both below OpenAI's listed rates. Resolution went up to 1080p on Pro mode, with clip lengths from 4 to 12 seconds. New accounts got free credits to test with.

Status: Sora access ended with OpenAI's. PiAPI continues to serve other video models.

4. Kie.ai

Kie.ai advertised Sora 2 at roughly $0.015 per second, Sora 2 Pro Standard at around $0.045 per second, and Sora 2 Pro at 1080p at around $0.10 per second, claiming savings of more than 60% against OpenAI and fal.ai. It used a pay-as-you-go credit model with no subscription. We were never able to confirm every figure against a live checkout, which is worth remembering if you see those numbers quoted elsewhere as still current.

Status: Sora access ended with OpenAI's.

5. fal.ai

fal.ai listed Sora 2 Pro at $0.30 per second for 720p and $0.50 per second for its higher resolution tier, the same rates OpenAI charged for those sizes. That was a pass-through of OpenAI's pricing rather than a discount, so the reason to use it was workflow, not cost: one dashboard if you were already building on fal.ai for other models.

Status: Sora access ended with OpenAI's. Other models on the platform are unaffected.

Sora API Pricing, For Reference

These were the rates in the final weeks before the shutdown. Treat them as a benchmark for sizing a replacement budget, not as prices you can still pay. For current rates on models that are still running, see our breakdown of what you actually pay per second for AI video.

What to Use Instead of Sora

Sora's reputation rested on scene coherence over longer clips and believable physics. If you needed several seconds of continuous action to hold together, it usually did better than models of a similar size. It also produced synchronized audio alongside the video, which is worth keeping in mind when you pick a replacement, because not every model does.

Three models cover most of what Sora was used for. Google Veo 3.1 matches it on general-purpose quality and has the strongest native audio of the group. Kling 3.0 is usually cheaper per second and holds up well on motion. Runway Gen-4.5 is the pick when shot-level creative control and editing matter more than clip length. None of them is a straight swap for Sora's particular strengths, but all three are actively maintained with no end date announced. For the wider field, see our comparison of the best AI video generation APIs, or our Runway API providers comparison if that is the direction you are headed.

How to Migrate Off Sora

The integration pattern is the same on every provider here: authenticate, submit a prompt with a duration and aspect ratio, then either poll for status or register a webhook. If you built on a unified API, swapping Sora for something else is a change to one string and its matching parameter block. On Apiframe, a Veo 3 request looks like this:

curl -X POST https://api.apiframe.ai/v2/videos/generate \
  -H "X-API-Key: afk_your_api_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "prompt": "a cinematic dolly shot of neon-lit Tokyo streets in the rain",
    "model": "veo-3",
    "veoParams": {
      "duration": 8,
      "resolution": "1080p"
    }
  }'

The old version of that request used "model": "sora-2" with a soraParams object. Everything around it, authentication, polling, webhooks, and error handling, stays the same. If you called OpenAI directly or used a Sora-only wrapper, there is more work ahead: a new client, new authentication, and new job handling. Our text-to-video API guide walks through that setup from scratch.

Conclusion

There is no cheapest Sora provider anymore, because there is no Sora. If you are rebuilding, Veo 3.1 is the closest match on quality and audio, Kling 3.0 is the cheaper option, and Runway Gen-4.5 gives you the most creative control. All three run on Apiframe's video API, so you can test them against each other without a separate integration for each. Our AI video API guide compares them side by side. The broader lesson is the one this shutdown made expensive for a lot of teams: when a model can disappear on a vendor's schedule, the code around it should not be hard to replace. Build on a unified API, where the model is just a string in the request, and an event like this becomes a config change instead of a rewrite.

Get an API key and start with free credits to test Veo 3.1, Kling 3.0, and Runway on the same account. If you are still weighing options, our roundup of Sora alternatives for AI video APIs is the place to start.