Sora shipped with a video ceiling and was later switched off

The figure or the record

On 9 December 2024, OpenAI's own announcement, Sora is here, moved its video model 'out of research preview' and released it as a standalone product at Sora.com, open to ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers. The post states the model, internally called Sora Turbo, was 'significantly faster' than the version OpenAI had previewed that February, and that output could reach 1080p resolution, up to 20 seconds long, in widescreen, vertical or square framing.

What the documents establish

The announcement sets limits by plan rather than a single ceiling: a Plus subscription included Sora 'at no additional cost' but capped output at 50 videos a month at 480p, or fewer videos if generated at 720p; the Pro plan stated '10x more usage, higher resolutions, and longer durations' without naming an exact figure. The same document states Sora was not included with ChatGPT Team, Enterprise or Edu plans, was withheld from users under 18, and was not available in the United Kingdom, Switzerland or the European Economic Area at launch. It states every generated video carried C2PA metadata and a visible watermark by default, and that uploads of real people's likeness were limited at launch pending further 'deepfake mitigations.' A second, separate document — OpenAI's help-centre article on the Sora discontinuation — states the web and app product was discontinued on 26 April 2026, and that the underlying API will be discontinued on 24 September 2026, a date eight days after this record's retrieval.

Scope and caveats

These are two different kinds of record: the 2024 post describes an announced launch, not a delivered ongoing service, and the tier limits it states were the launch terms, not necessarily the terms in force in the months before discontinuation, since no opened document shows an intermediate pricing revision. The 20-second, 1080p ceiling is a stated maximum, not a claim about typical output quality, which the same post concedes 'often generates unrealistic physics.' Region and age restrictions stated at launch are not confirmed to be the restrictions that applied at the point of shutdown.

What to watch

Editorially, a product announced with per-plan video quotas and discontinued roughly sixteen months later is a short lifecycle for a headline consumer AI product; whether the API shutdown on 24 September 2026 is followed by a successor product is not stated in either document.

• What did Sora's per-plan quotas look like immediately before the 26 April 2026 discontinuation, compared with the December 2024 launch terms?
• What replaces the Sora API after its 24 September 2026 shutdown, if anything, for developers who built on it?
• Did the UK, Switzerland or the EEA ever gain access before the product was discontinued there too?

A model can move from research preview to a shelved product inside two years; a rate card or a quota table describes the terms of a moment, not a permanent feature of the technology.