Anthropic vs OpenAI: Revenue, Profit and Business Model
Anthropic reported $65B of revenue in FY2026 and — of net income. OpenAI reported $20B of revenue in FY2025 and — of net income.
Latest financial snapshot
Financial summary
Anthropic
Anthropic's draft IPO prospectus, described by Reuters on September 28, 2026, shows 2025 revenue of $4.59 billion against $386 million in 2024, an operating loss of $8.06 billion (from $2.98 billion) and a GAAP net loss of $41.97 billion (from $8.31 billion). About $34 billion of that loss was a non-cash charge tied to convertible financing from Google and Amazon rather than cash burn. Operating expenses reached $12.65 billion, including $7.33 billion of compute and infrastructure, and the company ended 2025 with $20.28 billion of cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. Growth since then has outpaced the annual accounts: run-rate revenue was $14 billion in February 2026, crossed $47 billion in May, reached about $65 billion in July, and second-quarter revenue of $11.5 billion came with the first positive adjusted operating income. Funding followed the same curve, from a $13 billion Series F at a $183 billion valuation in September 2025 to a $30 billion Series G at $380 billion in February 2026 and a $65 billion Series H at $965 billion in May 2026.
OpenAI
OpenAI reports revenue as annualized run rate rather than audited GAAP figures. The company says it reached $1 billion of revenue within a year of launching ChatGPT, was generating about $1 billion per quarter by the end of 2024, and passed $20 billion of annualized revenue by the end of 2025. Axios reported the run rate was nearing $70 billion at the end of September 2026. Funding has scaled alongside: $110 billion announced in February 2026 at a $730 billion pre-money valuation grew to $122 billion committed at $852 billion post-money by March 31, 2026, anchored by Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank. An employee tender of about $7 billion followed in August 2026 at the same valuation. The company remains unprofitable because compute spending outpaces revenue.
Revenue and profit by year
Anthropic
| Year | Revenue | Net income | Margin | Growth | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2026 | $65B | — | 0.0% | +1316.1% | Source |
| FY2025 | $4.6B | -$42B | -914.4% | +1089.1% | Source |
| FY2024 | $386M | -$8.3B | -2152.8% | — | Source |
OpenAI
| Year | Revenue | Net income | Margin | Growth | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | $20B | — | 0.0% | +400.0% | Source |
| FY2024 | $4B | — | 0.0% | +100.0% | Source |
| FY2023 | $2B | — | 0.0% | — | Source |
Where the revenue comes from
Anthropic
- Developer and enterprise API consumption
Token-billed access to the Claude models through the Claude Developer Platform, with prompt caching priced at $0.20 per million tokens on Claude Opus 5.5 to make long agent loops affordable. Anthropic does not publish a segment split; the two largest customers each accounted for about 12 percent of 2025 revenue.
- Agent products
Claude Code and Cowork are sold to individuals, teams and enterprises. Claude Code passed $1 billion of run-rate revenue in December 2025 and $2.5 billion by February 2026, when enterprises accounted for more than half of its revenue.
- Seat subscriptions
Claude Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans for individuals and organizations, including HIPAA-eligible enterprise deployments since January 2026.
- Cloud marketplace resale
Claude is sold through Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud Vertex AI and Microsoft Azure Foundry, which lets customers spend committed cloud budget on Claude.
OpenAI
- ChatGPT SubscriptionsMajor
Consumer, team, business, education, and enterprise subscriptions.
- API UsageMajor
Usage-based developer and enterprise model access through OpenAI APIs.
- Enterprise PlatformGrowing
Business deployments, governance, custom workflows, and platform services.
- Partnerships and LicensingEmerging
Strategic licensing, infrastructure partnerships, commerce, and outcome-based AI workflows.
Business model and strategy
Anthropic
How it makes money
Anthropic charges for Claude in four ways. Developers and enterprises pay per million tokens on the Claude API, where cache reads cost far less than fresh input ($0.20 per million against $4 on Claude Opus 5.5). Individuals and teams pay subscriptions across Claude Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans.
Growth strategy
Growth runs through three channels. First, agent products: Claude Code went from internal experiment to general availability in May 2025 and over $2.5 billion of run-rate revenue by February 2026, and Cowork extended the same engine to non-technical work in January 2026. Second, cloud co-selling, with Claude the only frontier model on Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud Vertex AI and Microsoft Azure Foundry.
Competitive advantage
Anthropic leads on agentic coding and long-horizon tasks. Claude Opus 5.5, released September 22, 2026, tops Anthropic's published benchmark table on SWE-bench Pro (89.9 percent) and Terminal-Bench 4.0 (66.4 percent) while costing $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens, roughly 40 percent less to run than Opus 5.
OpenAI
How it makes money
OpenAI earns revenue in three main ways. First, ChatGPT subscriptions: consumer tiers such as Plus and Pro, plus Business, Enterprise and Edu seats sold to organizations. Second, the API platform, where developers and companies pay per token to build OpenAI models (GPT, reasoning, image, audio and embeddings) into their own software.
Growth strategy
OpenAI is growing on four fronts: selling ChatGPT and Codex into enterprises, turning ChatGPT into a broader 'super app' with agents, shopping and apps inside the chat, building its own compute through the Stargate data center program and chip partnerships, and moving into hardware through the 2025 acquisition of Jony Ive's io.
Competitive advantage
OpenAI's advantage is distribution plus scale. ChatGPT is the most widely used AI assistant, with OpenAI citing more than 900 million weekly users in February 2026, which gives it a direct consumer channel that rivals have to buy or build.
Questions about Anthropic vs OpenAI
Which company has higher revenue — Anthropic PBC or OpenAI?
Anthropic PBC reported $65.0B (FY2026), while OpenAI reported $20.0B (FY2025). By last reported revenue, Anthropic PBC is the larger business, with OpenAI reporting a smaller revenue base. Note: these are from different fiscal years and are not a direct like-for-like comparison.
Which is more financially efficient — Anthropic PBC or OpenAI?
Anthropic PBC generates $26.00M / employee in revenue per employee, while OpenAI generates $4.44M / employee. Anthropic PBC shows higher revenue efficiency per headcount, though this reflects business model differences — capital-light software companies routinely outperform labour-intensive manufacturers on this metric.
How do Anthropic PBC and OpenAI make money?
Anthropic PBC and OpenAI generate revenue in fundamentally different ways. Anthropic PBC: Anthropic charges for Claude in four ways. OpenAI: OpenAI earns revenue in three main ways.
Is Anthropic PBC bigger than OpenAI?
By last reported revenue, Anthropic PBC ($65.0B (FY2026)) is the larger company compared to OpenAI ($20.0B (FY2025)). Revenue scale is one dimension of size — market capitalisation, employee count, and geographic reach are also relevant depending on the context.
Figures come from each company's filings and the sources linked beside them. Amounts reported in another currency are shown in US dollars at an approximate rate and marked with ~. Back to the Anthropic vs OpenAI overview