DALL-E (in ChatGPT)

The job in the stack

The in-chat image seat: conversational generation and editing where ChatGPT users already work.

Pricing

Pricing verified 2026-10-24. Plans change — the source of truth is DALL-E (in ChatGPT)'s own pricing page.

Models & versions

• GPT Image 2.5 (Flare / Sunburst) Current flagship, shipped Sept 8, 2026 as ChatGPT Images 2.5. It adds Sketch-to-image in ChatGPT, cuts generation latency by up to 50% versus 2.0, keeps subjects consistent across edits better, and takes up to 16 reference images per request. The API has two versions at identical token rates: Flare (faster, lighter) and Sunburst (slower, more detailed). Rates held from the prior model ($8/M image input, $2/M cached image input, $30/M image output, $5/M text input, $1.25/M cached text input). GPT Image 1 is gone from the API pricing page after its Oct 23, 2026 deprecation. gpt-image-1.5 and chatgpt-image-latest remain at $32/M image output, and gpt-image-1-mini stays the budget option ($8/M image output)
• DALL-E (retired name) DALL-E 2 and 3 removed from the API May 12, 2026; the official DALL-E GPT in ChatGPT retires Aug 30, 2026. Custom GPTs with image generation enabled are unaffected, and images already generated should be downloaded before that date

The honest read

Questions operators ask

What changed

1. 2026-10-24 Freshness sweep: GPT Image 2.5 Flare and Sunburst API rates hold ($5/M text in, $8/M image in, $30/M image out). Fixed a stale row: ChatGPT Pro is now $100–$500/mo, not $200. GPT Image 1 is off the pricing page after its Oct 23 deprecation. The verdict now names GPT Image 2.5, not 2.
2. 2026-09-30 Freshness sweep: no price change. Fixed two gaps. GPT Image 2.5 ships in the API as two versions, Flare (fast) and Sunburst (detailed), at the same token rates. We had listed only Sunburst. The API pricing row still said GPT Image 2 and is now 2.5, with the per-image range restated from token rates (about $0.006–$0.21 for a 1024×1024 output). The DALL·E GPT retired on schedule Aug 30.
3. 2026-09-12 NEWS SCAN: OpenAI shipped ChatGPT Images 2.5 (Sept 8, 2026), with GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst as the new flagship — up to 50% lower latency than 2.0, stronger reference-subject preservation across successive edits, up to 16 reference images per request. API token rates are unchanged from the prior model, so this is a quality bump, not a repricing. Updated model list; pricing table unaffected.
4. 2026-09-11 Integrity-pass spot-check: website_url pointed at the old openai.com/dall-e path; corrected to the current openai.com/index/dall-e/ path (confirmed live via search, both 403 to automated fetch — openai.com bot-blocks curl/WebFetch generally, same pattern as other well-known domains, not evidence either path is actually dead). URL fix only, not a full freshness re-verification.
5. 2026-08-19 News scan: OpenAI is retiring the official DALL-E GPT in ChatGPT on August 30, 2026 — the last surface still carrying the DALL-E name. This is a consolidation, not a shutdown of image generation: ChatGPT Images on GPT Image 2 keeps the job, and custom GPTs with image generation stay live. Anything generated inside the DALL-E GPT should be downloaded before the date; it does not migrate. Verdict sharpened to say plainly that DALL-E is now a label, not a seat you buy.
6. 2026-07-29 Freshness sweep: no changes. GPT Image 2 remains the flagship in ChatGPT and the API (dall-e-2/3 stayed removed since May 12); API pricing still $0.005–$0.21/image by tier.
7. 2026-07-09 Verified and released from staging. DALL-E 2 and 3 were removed from the API entirely on May 12, 2026 — the model powering image generation now is GPT Image 2. Updated pricing to confirmed ChatGPT Plus/Pro tiers and current per-image API rates.
8. 2026-07-08 Added to the stack (in-chat image seat) with the honest frame: standalone DALL-E has folded into ChatGPT. Seeded from January 2026 baseline; pricing pending fresh verification by the update loop.