OpenAI starts selling Sora video credits for $4 per 10 generations

OpenAI has begun selling additional Sora credits for $4 per 10 video generations through Apple’s App Store, marking the company’s first monetization step for its AI video tool. The move signals OpenAI’s shift toward commercializing Sora while simultaneously planning to reduce the current 30 free daily generations as demand grows and GPU resources become constrained.

What you should know: OpenAI is testing multiple revenue streams for Sora beyond simple credit purchases.

• The company currently offers 30 free video generations per day, but this limit will decrease as OpenAI accommodates growth and GPU limitations.
• Bill Peebles, who heads OpenAI’s Sora division, confirmed that “Eventually we will need to bring the free gens down to accommodate growth (we won’t have enough gpus to do it otherwise!), but we’ll be transparent as it happens.”

Future monetization plans: OpenAI envisions licensing copyrighted material as a core revenue strategy for Sora.

• The company plans to allow entities to license their artwork, characters, or likenesses for use in AI-generated videos.
• Peebles described a vision where “rightsholders have the option to charge extra for cameos of beloved characters and people.”

The irony: OpenAI’s emphasis on character cameos as a monetization feature comes while facing legal challenges from Cameo, a celebrity video messaging platform, for trademark infringement.

• This represents just the latest controversial decision surrounding OpenAI’s text-to-video AI application.
• The timing highlights the complex legal landscape surrounding AI-generated content and intellectual property rights.

Why this matters: The pricing strategy reveals OpenAI’s approach to balancing accessibility with sustainability as AI video generation becomes more mainstream, while also testing how much users are willing to pay for premium AI creative tools.