Today is the day. On May 12, 2026, OpenAI is shutting down the DALL-E 2 and DALL-E 3 API endpoints for good. What was announced back in November 2025 is now reality — and developers who haven’t migrated yet are about to have a bad day.
What’s Happening
Both models — DALL-E 2 and DALL-E 3 — are being removed from the OpenAI API. All API calls targeting these models will fail starting today. This affects anyone who has built image generation into their products using the OpenAI API and is still on the old endpoints.
The Successors Are Ready
OpenAI recommends migrating to gpt-image-1.5 or gpt-image-1-mini. Both models have been available since December 2025 and offer significantly better quality than their predecessors — especially in text rendering, photorealism, and following complex prompts.
The pricing model has changed, though. While DALL-E 3 worked on a simple per-image pricing model, the new models use token-based pricing. Depending on your usage patterns, this could be cheaper or more expensive.
Why This Matters
DALL-E was a milestone. DALL-E 2 opened up the world of image generation to the masses in 2022, and DALL-E 3 took quality to a new level in late 2023. Both being shut down marks the end of an era.
At the same time, it shows how fast the AI industry moves. Models that were state of the art two years ago are now being retired. For developers, the lesson is clear: abstraction is a must. If you’ve tightly coupled your image generation to a specific model, you’re now looking at a migration project.
My Take
The deprecation was announced well in advance — six months of lead time is fair. But there will be developers caught off guard today. The OpenAI Developer Community has been buzzing with heated discussions for weeks. Many developers criticize that gpt-image-1.5 doesn’t cover all DALL-E 3 features — particularly around control over image size and aspect ratio.
We know this pattern from software development: new versions are better, but not always backward-compatible.
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