OpenAI's Sora turns the camera towards profit

The air around OpenAI Sora I'm feeling a little different this week – like someone dimmed the lights at a party when things got exciting.

After months of giving users the ability to shoot stunning AI videos for free, Sora CEO Bill Peebles has confirmed that the app is moving towards monetary modelwhere users will pay around four dollars for ten additional generations after the daily limit is exhausted.

The news came as Peebles clarified that the platform's free-for-all days were “never sustainable,” a reality that is reverberating throughout the creative community.

You still get yours 30 free videos per dayand Pro users can stretch that number to a hundred, but after that? Time to open your wallet.

In a recent interview, Peebles suggested that these thresholds could change as usage increases, and honestly, who didn't see that coming?

The computational cost of rendering Sora's realistic motion scenes isn't pocket-friendly – not when each clip looks like it could have come straight from a movie set, as described in an inside look at OpenAI's own explanations for Sora's technology.

The monetization move fits perfectly into OpenAI's broader strategy to transform its once experimental products into sustainable businesses.

Last month there have been reports of OpenAI's growing revenues from generative servicesand Sora was chosen to be the next big driver.

It's part of a clear trend: let people try it for free, and once the excitement reaches the mainstream, set a reasonable price. Fair? Maybe. Inevitable? Definitely.

But there is another layer to this story. As Sora's user base expands in Asia, with launches in places like Thailand and Vietnam, the global AI video generation market is growing rapidly.

Just a few days ago OpenAI's deployment of Sora in Southeast Asia has attracted enormous attention from local developersmany of whom see it as a breakthrough in digital storytelling and marketing.

If you run a small business or manage a brand, you'll easily see the appeal: instant, cinematic advertising without the need for a production crew.

Still, this change raises ethical questions, and OpenAI is not ignoring them.

Earlier this year, the company had to do just that prohibit users from generating Martin Luther King Jr. deepfakes. after racist clips began to spread online.

The incident highlighted how thin the line is between creative freedom and image disaster in the AI ​​space.

And let's be honest, this change isn't just about paying for more movies. It's about transforming the social contract between creators and platforms.

As one industry analyst put it a report examining the growth of paid credits for video generationthe move “marks the point where AI-powered content creation stops being a novelty and becomes an economy.”

It sounds great, but it also means that creators may have to rethink how often and how freely they experiment.

I can't lie: I feel a mixture of admiration and frustration in all of this. I love that AI is finally giving regular people a chance to tell stories on a movie-like level. But when the meter is running, spontaneity becomes costly.

But perhaps this is the inevitable next step – the dream phase is over and now the business side is coming into the picture.

Whatever your approach, one thing is clear: Sora's camera is still rollingbut this time it is directed directly downwards.