Now that Sora has been released and its pricing is public, I decided to compare the price with Runway which is one of the other top competitors for AI video generation.

Note that this is pricing comparison only, not features. Both of these are prices for the monthly plan, 5 secs per video:

• Sora: $20 for 50 videos (or) $200 for 500 videos == $0.4 per video

• Runway: standard is $15 for 25 videos (625 credits, 25 credits per video) == $0.6 per video

  • pro is $35 for 90 videos (2250 credits) == $0.39 per video

In addition, OpenAI's monthly plan includes ChatGPT and other features, which Runway doesn't, so Sora wins out clearly on the pricing front since you get ChatGPT paid features as well for the $20 / $200 per month.

If everyone starts paying $200/month because of sora, then this will be the new norm. More and more AI companies will see that $200/month is viable and they will move towards that. If this plan is successful for OpenAI then expect all AI subscriptions to get more and more expensive. I want to have full access to Sora, but I won't pay for this no matter how bad I want to use Sora. Keep AI accessible to the general public and not just people lucky enough to overpay for it.

I recently put together a product commercial for a client using SORA. It’s not just about saving time; it feels like having a video production studio right on your computer! 🤯 The footage it generates is great when you have the right prompt (despite a lot of glitches) and with a little help from After Effects and Premiere and other tools, I was able to fine-tune everything.

We know it's not perfect but my client loved and here’s what stood out to me:

• Ready-to-Use Footage: Instead of filming everything myself, I had quality clips to work with right away. It saved a ton of time.

• Creative Flexibility: Once I had the footage, I could easily tweak it in Premiere and After Effects, Runway and Topaz to get the final look I wanted.

• Worth the Cost?: For $200/month, you get a lot of solid content without having to spend a ton on production.

It got me thinking... Could creating product commercials like this actually be a full-time job? With the growing demand for content, especially high-quality videos, it seems like there’s plenty of room to do this professionally.

Anyone else using this? Is it worth the price? I’d love to hear what you think!

They just rolled this out.
Sora 2 Model 10 s costs 1 video gen.
Sora 2 Model 15 s costs 2 video gens.

Sora 2 Pro Model 10s costs 10 video gens

Sore 2 Pro Model 15s costs 20 video gens

if you run out of your daily allotment, you can b u y "Credits" in the app store to purchase more video gens in the sora app...

https://help.openai.com/en/articles/12642688-using-credits-for-flexible-usage-in-chatgpt-freegopluspro-sora#h_24c61e8f99

If they eventually have a subscription tier with generous Sora 2 video generation limits and no watermark, I think I kind of have to get that.

Do we think there’s any chance of that at the current Pro account cost?

(I guess “generous” limits is subjective. Maybe 100/day?)

Thinking about upgrading, wondering if it's worth it.

As far as I understand OpenAI wants to make a tiktok alternative for a wide audience.

TikTok reportedly sees 1+ billion videos uploaded per day. If each 10-second Al video costs roughly 0.1$-1$ in compute + infra, that will cost hundreds of millions a day just to support uploads. How are they gonna finance it?

At a reasonable video generation limit, like at least 25 per day, I’d personally consider the $200/month Pro plan. Right now, O1 doesn’t seem significantly better than the O1 preview or Sonnet 3.5. To me, it’s more hype and self promotion than actual performance.

I’m waiting for Livebench results, I don’t think O1 beats Sonnet, especially in programming.

Not sure why I am paying $200 / month for pro when I need to beg for access codes to new models.

I'm sure it will follow some kind if subscription model or credits model.

Some if me wants it to be astronomically expensive so its not cost effective to build something like a bullshit corporate video promo with 8-12 clips. Kinda like how its not cost effective to build something like that from stock footage bought from getty or shutter stock.

But also I might want to use it every now and again to fill in b-roll gaps so in that case i want it to be affordable.

I guess OpenAI is trying to be the Adobe of the AI world by offering one subscription for everything. On the one hand, I like this; on the other, I don’t.

Sora seems WAY TOO EXPENSIVE. With RunwayML, I can pay around $100 for unlimited video generations. With Sora, I have to choose between a $20 or $200 plan, each giving me a predefined number of credits.

With RunwayML, I can first generate a low-resolution video and then upscale it. With Sora, I have to choose the resolution upfront before even seeing the result.

For example, I just generated two 5-second, 480p (16:9) variations, which cost me 50 credits (25 per video). This means I can only produce 40 clips per month on my current plan. The advertised 50 clips for the Plus plan refer to 5-second, 480p (1:1) videos.

What happens if I run out of credits? Can I buy more, or do I have to upgrade to the Pro plan?

Right now, it feels like a cute proof of concept—but not a tool to be taken seriously.

I saw a comment saying that it might only be accessible to film studios paying large sums, and not being available to the general public like ChatGPT. I’m pretty sure it will be made available to everyone, even if it’s in a more limited form.

I saw some other comments saying that they might be waiting until after the US election, which honestly makes sense.

I’m really looking forward to this technology and planning to start a YouTube channel using it (even though I know there will probably be unprecedented over saturation from it).

I don’t understand all the technical skills required now, and by the time I might finally grasp them, the AI video technology will most likely be out by or before then anyway, but I think AI generation tools will make creation accessible to anyone and everyone, eliminating the barrier of technical skills (which aren’t related to the actual content itself).

I am planning on disclosing that I use AI in my channel description, maybe even include “AI” in the channel name. My intention is not to deceive anyone into thinking that I did more work than I actually did, but to showcase what the technology can do, and simply manifest my thoughts, dreams, and ideas into reality (within the digital realm, at least).

Will it also streamline video editing, like just telling it what to do, how it should be, and it generates or regenerates those specified parts? (I’m also concerned about the cost of multiple edits or regenerations).

Will it include lip syncing like Runway? ElevenLabs lets you generate SOUND EFFECTS now. Will that (and AI TTS voices) be included, or will those have to be used separately, and then edited into the video? And will SORA be able to seamlessly import those and edit them in where you TELL THEM (in plain English) too?

Or is OpenAI not announcing all planned features yet?

Due to how much more GPU this definitely takes, I do expect it to cost a bit more than ChatGPT, but will it be a monthly subscription (probably with limits though) or just pay a few dollars for each, 1 minute of video? How is this going to work?

The other screenshot of pricing is grossly misleading. Plus users get 1000 credits per month. Here's the credit costs for 5 second watermarked clips -