Sora API last-day checklist, 24 Sept

Update, 8 October 2026: the Sora 2 API shut down on 24 September 2026 as scheduled, and Versely has removed its Sora 2 rows. The replacement picks below still apply; the full comparison is in Sora 2 alternatives.

On the morning of 24 September 2026 the Sora 2 API is still a live endpoint until OpenAI pulls it. That is an operations window, not a migration plan. Export the library. Stop prompts that assume October. Reroute anything still queued. Do not spend the day hunting for a twin of Sora.

OpenAI’s Help Centre (updated September 2026) splits two clocks: the Sora web and app experiences discontinued on 26 April 2026; the Sora API discontinues on 24 September 2026. The Help Centre does not publish an hour. Treat the whole calendar day as the last day the endpoint can answer, and treat “after shutdown” as permanent deletion of Sora-associated data. Credits left on ChatGPT/Sora can still be used for Codex. They do not become more video.

The Sora API sunset migration plan is the rebuild. This page is the last-day ops list: what still works at breakfast, what to export, what to stop prompting.

What still works the morning of the 24th

Until OpenAI disables the route, three things can still be true at once.

The API can still return a clip. Scripts, agents, and scheduled jobs that call sora-2 or sora-2-pro may still complete if they fire before the cut. That is not a reason to start a new campaign. It is a reason to finish in-flight renders you already paid for and to download them.

The Versely catalog rows can still be listed. Sora 2 Text to Video publishes 32 credits minimum, text-to-video, native audio, 720p, 4 / 8 / 12 / 16 / 20 seconds. Sora 2 Pro Storyboard publishes 240 credits minimum, image-to-video, native audio, 10 / 15 / 25 seconds. A listed row is not a promise that OpenAI’s endpoint survives the afternoon. Do not point a new pipeline at either slug on the 24th.

The export door can still be open. The Help Centre path is sora.chatgpt.com/sunset → Export. You get an email when the archive is ready. If a final export window is offered, OpenAI says it will notify by email. It also says to export as soon as possible. Do not wait for a second email on the 24th.

What does not still work, even if the endpoint is up:

• Treating a successful 8 a.m. generate as proof that a 6 p.m. batch will land.
• Assuming a grace window. The Help Centre does not describe one for the API.
• Spending leftover ChatGPT/Sora credits on more Sora video in the hope they convert to another video product. The Help Centre’s remaining-credit path is Codex.
• Prompting “one last hero” that you cannot restyle later because you never exported the master.

If a job is already in flight at dawn, let it finish and save the file. If a job is only an idea, it is not a last-day job. Put it on a row that will exist on the 25th. The AI video generator is the Versely door for those rows.

What to export before the endpoint dies

OpenAI will permanently delete data associated with Sora use after discontinuation and after any final export window. The Help Centre is explicit. Masters you might restyle next month will not be waiting in a Sora library.

Export in this order:

1. Finished videos you might ship or restyle. Full-resolution files, not timeline previews. Keep the 20-second take you would never want to regenerate from a prompt.
2. Stills and first frames that locked identity. The Pro storyboard row is image-to-video. The still is the contract. If the still only lives inside Sora, you lose the input as well as the output.
3. Prompt text and storyboard boards. Copy them out of the vendor UI into your own brief store. A prompt is cheaper to lose than a master, but a lost prompt is how teams re-roll a SKU they already approved.
4. Job logs. Request ids, timestamps, durations, aspect. You will need them when someone asks why a 16-second Sora take became an 8-second Veo take.

The Help Centre export is the official path. Local downloads you already made still count; do not skip the sunset export because a Desktop folder looks full. Folders miss the takes you generated on another machine.

After export, keep a restyle set: the clips whose identity you would rather continue than invent. Those files are inputs for Veo first-last, Seedance reference rows, and Flux 3 first-last — not nostalgia. The companion page is export the Sora library before delete.

Do not export into a single zip you never open. Split by job: dialogue heroes, SKU turns, silent drafts, storyboard stills. Tomorrow’s routing is duration plus input type, not “everything that used to be Sora.”

What to stop prompting

Stop anything that assumes the endpoint is a studio.

Stop new T2V batches on Sora 2. 4 / 8 / 12 / 16 / 20 seconds with native audio at 720p is a duration map, not a last-day spend. If the shot is 8 seconds of dialogue, it already has a 25 September row: Veo 3.1 from 64 credits (32 a second with sound, so 256 for the full eight), 4 / 6 / 8 seconds, 4K, native audio. If the shot is 20 seconds with native audio, Flux 3 Text to Video is 34 credits at five seconds and 136 at twenty, native audio. If the shot is a cheap silent draft, Kling 3 Turbo Text to Video is from 22 credits (was 27), 3–15 seconds, 1080p, audio false.

Stop new Pro storyboard jobs. 10 / 15 / 25 seconds, image-to-video, from 240 credits. That row dies with the API. If you have stills, pick a still-contract row that survives: Seedance 2.0 / 2.5, Flux 3 first-last, Veo first-last, or movie-mode on Versely. The pick is duration and whether you have stills, written on Sora 2 Pro storyboard after the API.

Stop scheduled agents that call Sora. A cron that “just retries” on the 24th is how you burn the morning on timeouts. Disable the schedule. Point the same brief at a living row. Leave a comment in the job with the old model id so the next person does not “fix” it by turning Sora back on.

Stop prompt-only recovery. If a take is missing from disk, do not spend last-day credits hoping the same prompt returns the same face. Export first. If the file is gone and the still is gone, that job is a new generate on a new row, not a Sora encore.

Stop treating remaining OpenAI credits as video budget. The Help Centre’s remaining-credit sentence is Codex. A last-day video spend on OpenAI’s Sora SKU is optional. A last-day export is not.

The last-day sequence

Run this as a list, not as a mood.

Before noon. Confirm which jobs are actually in flight. Let those finish. Cancel queued Sora jobs that have not started. Hit sora.chatgpt.com/sunset and Export if you have not already. Download anything still sitting in a vendor preview.

Afternoon. Sort the export into dialogue, SKU, draft, and storyboard-still piles. Write the replacement row on each pile: Veo 3.1 for talking 4 / 6 / 8s; Seedance 2.0 for identity that has to hold 4–15s at 1080p; Seedance 2.5 for 4–30s at 720p; Flux 3 T2V for 5–20s native audio; Kling 3 Turbo for silent 3–15s drafts; Grok Imagine Video for 6 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 30s from 24 credits, 720p, native audio. Duration mapping lives on map Sora 2 durations to Versely rows.

Before you leave the desk. Confirm the archive email arrived or the download completed. Confirm no production cron still names sora-2. Confirm leftover ChatGPT/Sora credits are either spent on Codex on purpose or left alone — not assumed to be video. Caption and burn-in still happen after the file exists; captions for silent autoplay and add captions to video do not care which model died.

The 24th is a cutover day. It is not a creative day. If you only do one thing, export. If you do two, export and disable the Sora schedule. If you do three, put tomorrow’s first job on a row that will still be there.

When the archive is on your disk, run the surviving rows from Versely.

FAQ

Will the Sora API still work at 9 a.m. on 24 September 2026?

OpenAI’s Help Centre dates the API discontinuation to 24 September 2026 and does not publish an hour. Plan as if any request that day can be the last one that succeeds. Finish in-flight work. Do not start a new Sora campaign that morning.

Do leftover ChatGPT/Sora credits become more Sora video after the 24th?

No. The Help Centre says purchased ChatGPT/Sora credits can still be used for Codex. That is not a video row. Export files. Do not treat the credit balance as a generate budget that outlives the endpoint.

Is this the same as the migration plan?

No. The migration plan is how you rebuild Sora-shaped jobs on other families. This page is what to do while the endpoint is still theoretically up: export, stop prompting, reroute queues. You need both. You cannot migrate files you never downloaded.