What DALL-E is, and the short answer
DALL-E is gone. OpenAI retired the model on 12 May 2026 and replaced it with GPT Image 2, built into ChatGPT.
So if you came here looking for DALL-E, there is nothing to sign up for. There is no DALL-E website, no DALL-E subscription and no DALL-E app. There is image generation inside ChatGPT, and that is a different product with a different name.
This review covers what replaced it, because that is the actual question.
How to access OpenAI image generation in 2026
| Plan | Price | What you get for images |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | Very limited generation with GPT Image, sometimes watermarked |
| Go | $8/mo | More generations per month, fewer restrictions |
| Plus | $20/mo | GPT Image 2 at higher volume, native 2K resolution |
| Pro | from $100/mo | 5-20x higher usage, generation priority |
There is no image-only tier. You are buying a ChatGPT subscription that happens to include images.
What actually changed
GPT Image 2 is better than DALL-E 3 was at prompt adherence and text rendering, and it outputs at higher resolution. That is a real improvement.
What did not change is the ceiling. Put a GPT Image 2 result next to Midjourney or Flux and the difference is obvious: OpenAI’s images are competent and generic, the others are striking.
The one thing it does better than anyone
Conversational editing. You generate an image, then say “make the background darker and remove the text on the left”, and it does that to the image you already have.
Every other tool makes you rewrite the prompt and generate again, which produces a different image rather than an edited one. For iterating toward a specific result without learning a tool, nothing else comes close.
Verdict
The 2.5 rating is not a judgement on the quality of GPT Image 2. It reflects that DALL-E, the thing you searched for, does not exist, and what replaced it is a feature of another subscription rather than a product you can choose.
If you already pay for ChatGPT, you have decent image generation and you should use it before buying anything else. If you do not, do not subscribe to ChatGPT for the images: $10/mo of Midjourney or the free tier of Ideogram will serve you better.
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