DALL-E 2
by OpenAI
Announced
2023-10-19
Complete
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Refund status
No refund applicable
DALL-E 2 was OpenAI's second-generation text-to-image model, released in April 2022 as the first commercial text-to-image API to ship at scale. When DALL-E 3 launched in October 2023, OpenAI moved active development to the new model. DALL-E 2 endpoints remain accessible via the API for backwards compatibility but receive no further improvements, and the standalone DALL-E 2 web interface (labs.openai.com) was retired.
Refund flow
- 1
Not applicable. The OpenAI API is pay-as-you-go — no pre-paid credits tied to specific deprecated models.
- 2
For unused ChatGPT Plus credits that historically included DALL-E 2 generations, no separate refund applies because Plus pricing wasn't broken out per-model.
Migration path
Recommended successor
DALL-E 3 (via OpenAI API) or GPT Image (via ChatGPT)
Why this is the closest fit
DALL-E 3 is the direct successor — same OpenAI text-to-image lineage, significantly improved prompt adherence and detail. GPT Image is the multimodal-output variant of GPT-4 that's replacing standalone DALL-E for many use cases.
What differs from the original
DALL-E 3 has better prompt adherence on long prompts but less stylization latitude than DALL-E 2. Higher cost per image. Different aspect-ratio support.
What this tool meant
DALL-E 2 was the model that made text-to-image generation a commercial category. Released in April 2022, it predated Midjourney's public launch and Stable Diffusion's open release by months. Its waitlist generated more demand than OpenAI had compute for, defining the "AI art" moment of 2022. The model's relatively low-resolution output (1024×1024) and inconsistent prompt adherence created the niche that Stable Diffusion and Midjourney would later fill with better control. DALL-E 2 isn't fully dead — its endpoints still respond — but it stopped being a serious choice when DALL-E 3 launched.
Sources
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