Quick verdict
Seedance 2.5 wins. It is generally available through the BytePlus API[4], makes longer generations (30 s[1] against 20 s[5]), and leads Sora 2 on LMArena's text-to-video board. Sora 2 was shut down in 2026[2].
- Pricing Depends
- Output specs Tie
- Features Tie
- Access Seedance 2.5
- Public leaderboards Seedance 2.5
Category winners are computed from the sourced rows in the tables below; “Depends” means there was not enough comparable public data to call it.
Summary
ByteDance Seed released Seedance 2.5 on 2026-07-31[1], ten months after Sora 2 (2025-09-30[6]). Seedance 2.5 generates up to 30 s[1] per pass with multi-round extensions, and takes up to 30 images, 10 videos and 10 audio clips as references in one pass[1].
What is and is not published: text-to-video and image-to-video are both confirmed capabilities[1], but ByteDance has published no per-second API price and no frame rate for Seedance 2.5 on a page we could read. In its own Dreamina app it does publish a promotional rate of $0.035 per generated second at 720p (a first-month Basic price)[7]. The only official resolution figure is 480p / 720p on the BytePlus ModelArk plan cards[4]. Sora 2's specs are historical: up to 20 s[5] per clip, 1080p on sora-2-pro, and API prices from $0.10/s[3].
On LMArena's text-to-video board, the Seedance 2.5 720p entry ranks #7[8] with 1474[8]; sora-2-pro ranks #11[8] with 1368[8]. That gap is well outside both confidence intervals.
Snapshot
| Spec | Seedance 2.5 | Sora 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Generally available — API fully available to clients on BytePlus ModelArk; live in Jimeng Web and Doubao Pro[4] | Discontinued — the Sora 2 models and the Videos API were shut down on 2026-09-24 and are no longer available; no replacement model is listed[3] |
| Developer | ByteDance Seed[1] | OpenAI[9] |
| Released | 2026-07-31[1] | 2025-09-30[6] |
| Lowest API price (per second, with audio) | No public data | from $0.10/s (sora-2) historical[3] |
| Cheapest paid consumer plan | No public data | No public data |
| Free tier | No public data | No public data |
| Max length, single generation | 30 s[1] | 20 s historical[5] |
| Max resolution | 480p / 720p (BytePlus ModelArk plans)[4] | Portrait: 1080x1920 Landscape: 1920x1080 historical[5] |
| Native audio | Yes[1] | Yes historical[3] |
| Image-to-video | Yes[1] | Yes historical[5] |
| Public API | Yes (BytePlus ModelArk)[4] | Yes historical[3] |
Pricing
Depends — not enough comparable public data| Metric | Seedance 2.5 | Sora 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| API price, 720p with audio (per second) | No public data | $0.10/s sora-2 historical $0.30/s sora-2-pro historical[3][10] | — |
| API price, 1080p with audio (per second) | No public data | $0.70/s (sora-2-pro) historical[10] | — |
| API price, 4K (per second) | No public data | No public data | — |
| API billing basis | No public data | Per second of generated video, with native audio included; tiered by model and output resolution — sora-2 $0.1/s (720x1280 / 1280x720); sora-2-pro $0.3/s (720x1280 / 1280x720), $0.5/s (1024x1792 / 1792x1024), $0.7/s (1080x1920 / 1920x1080) historical[10] | — |
| Cheapest paid consumer plan | No public data | No public data | — |
| Consumer plan ladder | No public data | No public data | — |
| In-app cost per second | Dreamina app: $0.035 per generated second at 720p (Basic plan, first-month promotional price); $0.047 per second (Super annual, first-year price)[7] | No public data | — |
| Free tier | No public data | No public data | — |
Seedance 2.5 leads 0 rows, Sora 2 leads 0, 0 tied; rows marked — have no comparable data or no objective “better”.
Output specs
Tie| Metric | Seedance 2.5 | Sora 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max length, single generation | 30 s[1] | 20 s historical[5] | Seedance 2.5 |
| Max length with extensions | No public data | 120 s historical[5] | — |
| Max output resolution | 720p (BytePlus ModelArk plans)[4] | 1080p (sora-2-pro) historical[10] | Sora 2 |
| Frame rate | No public data | No public data | — |
| Aspect ratios | No public data | Portrait and landscape only, as fixed resolution pairs: 720x1280 / 1280x720 (both models); 1024x1792 / 1792x1024 and 1080x1920 / 1920x1080 (sora-2-pro) historical[10] | — |
| Max reference inputs per generation | 50 (images + video + audio)[1] | No public data | — |
Seedance 2.5 leads 1 row, Sora 2 leads 1, 0 tied; rows marked — have no comparable data or no objective “better”.
Features
Tie| Metric | Seedance 2.5 | Sora 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Native audio | Yes[1] | Yes historical[3] | Tie |
| Lip-sync | No public data | No public data | — |
| Text-to-video | Yes[1] | Yes historical[3] | Tie |
| Image-to-video | Yes[1] | Yes historical[5] | Tie |
| First / last frame control | No public data | No public data | — |
| Multi-shot in one generation | Yes[1] | No public data | — |
| Video editing | Yes (timestamp-level)[1] | Yes (edits endpoint) historical[5] | Tie |
| Video extension | Yes (multi-round)[1] | Yes historical[5] | Tie |
Seedance 2.5 leads 0 rows, Sora 2 leads 0, 5 tied; rows marked — have no comparable data or no objective “better”.
Access
Winner: Seedance 2.5| Metric | Seedance 2.5 | Sora 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Status | Generally available — API fully available to clients on BytePlus ModelArk; live in Jimeng Web and Doubao Pro[4] | Discontinued — the Sora 2 models and the Videos API were shut down on 2026-09-24 and are no longer available; no replacement model is listed[3] | Seedance 2.5 |
| Public API | Yes (BytePlus ModelArk)[4] | Yes historical[3] | — |
| Where to use it | Jimeng and Doubao apps; Dreamina (international consumer app); API on BytePlus ModelArk[1] | None today. Until 2026-04-26: Sora web and apps; until 2026-09-24: OpenAI Videos API historical[2] | — |
| Regional limits | No public data | No public data | — |
| Release date | 2026-07-31[1] | 2025-09-30[6] | — |
Seedance 2.5 leads 1 row, Sora 2 leads 0, 0 tied; rows marked — have no comparable data or no objective “better”.
Public leaderboards
Winner: Seedance 2.5| Metric | Seedance 2.5 | Sora 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena text-to-video score | 1474 ±9 (dreamina-seedance-2.5-720p)[8] | 1368 ±7 (sora-2-pro)[8] | Seedance 2.5 |
| LMArena text-to-video rank (of 48) | #7 (dreamina-seedance-2.5-720p)[8] | #11 (sora-2-pro)[8] | — |
| LMArena image-to-video score | 1477 ±7 (dreamina-seedance-2.5-720p)[11] | No public data | — |
| LMArena image-to-video rank (of 48) | #4 (dreamina-seedance-2.5-720p)[11] | No public data | — |
| VGI-Bench overall score | No public data | 36.7[12] | — |
Seedance 2.5 leads 1 row, Sora 2 leads 0, 0 tied; rows marked — have no comparable data or no objective “better”.
How rows are judged: a lower price, a longer clip, a higher resolution or frame rate, more reference inputs and a supported feature win. Prices of a discontinued product are shown as historical and cannot win. LMArena scores are human-preference ratings (board snapshot dated 2026-09-21, read 2026-10-07); scores whose ± intervals overlap count as a tie. VGI-Bench is a research benchmark of visual reasoning. A row marked — has no comparable data.
Where each model leads
Where Seedance 2.5 leads
Length, references and editing. 30 s per generation, 50 reference inputs, multi-shot output and timestamp-level editing[1]. You can try it as Seedance 2.5 on AIContentDrop . Our notes on Seedance 2.5 vs Seedance 2.0 and Minimax H3 compare it with its siblings.
Where Sora 2 leads
Resolution on record. Sora 2 Pro rendered up to 1920x1080, and Sora 2 accepted an image as the first frame[5]. These are historical specs; Sora 2 can no longer be used.
Working with the Seedance 2 API or migrating prompts off Sora? Two short guides cover the Seedance 2 API and how to use Seedance 2 — both keep the current access routes in one place.
Which should you choose?
Pick Seedance 2.5 if…
you want a live model with single-pass generations of up to 30 s[1], heavy reference input (images, video and audio) and in-place editing.
Pick Sora 2 if…
you are only comparing against archived Sora 2 output. No new Sora 2 videos can be generated.
Frequently asked questions
Is Seedance 2.5 available outside China?
Its API is generally available to clients on BytePlus ModelArk, ByteDance's international cloud[4]. In ByteDance's own apps it launched in Jimeng and Doubao[1].
How long can a Seedance 2.5 video be?
Up to 30 s[1] per generation, with multi-round extensions on top. Sora 2 made up to 20 s[5] per clip.
What resolution does Seedance 2.5 output?
The only official figure we found is 480p / 720p on the BytePlus ModelArk plan cards[4]. ByteDance's launch post gives no resolution.
How much does Seedance 2.5 cost?
There is no public API price: the BytePlus page loads its prices dynamically and ByteDance publishes no per-second API rate. In its own Dreamina app it lists $0.035 per generated second at 720p as a first-month Basic price, and $0.047 per second on the Super annual plan's first year[7]. Sora 2 cost from $0.10/s[3] before it was discontinued.
Evidence
Only official sources are cited: vendor pages, and leaderboard publishers for their own rankings. Anything we could not find on such a page is shown as “No public data”.
- Introducing Seedance 2.5 — One-Take Creation, Flexible Referencing — ByteDance Seed. seed.bytedance.com/en/blog/one-take-creation-flexible-referencing-i…. Checked 2026-10-06
- What to know about the Sora discontinuation — OpenAI Help Center. help.openai.com/en/articles/20001152-what-to-know-about-the-sora-di…. Checked 2026-10-06
- OpenAI API — sora-2 model page — OpenAI. developers.openai.com/api/docs/models/sora-2. Checked 2026-10-06
- Dreamina-seedance-2.5 API Now Fully Available to Clients — BytePlus (ByteDance). www.byteplus.com/en/product/seedance. Checked 2026-10-06
- OpenAI API — Video generation guide — OpenAI. developers.openai.com/api/docs/guides/video-generation. Checked 2026-10-06
- Sora 2 is here — OpenAI. openai.com/index/sora-2. Checked 2026-10-06
- Seedance 2.5 pricing (Dreamina) — Dreamina (ByteDance / CapCut). dreamina.capcut.com/seedance/seedance-2-5-pricing-2026. Checked 2026-10-06
- Text-to-Video Arena leaderboard — LMArena (arena.ai). arena.ai/leaderboard/text-to-video. Checked 2026-10-06
- OpenAI API — Deprecations (Videos API / Sora 2) — OpenAI. developers.openai.com/api/docs/deprecations. Checked 2026-10-06
- OpenAI API — sora-2-pro model page — OpenAI. developers.openai.com/api/docs/models/sora-2-pro. Checked 2026-10-06
- Image-to-Video Arena leaderboard — LMArena (arena.ai). arena.ai/leaderboard/image-to-video. Checked 2026-10-06
- VGI-Bench leaderboard (EMNLP 2026) — VGI-Bench research team. hexuan21.github.io/VGI-Bench. Checked 2026-10-06