OpenAI Makes Less Than We Thought. Here's Why
OpenAI has told investors it is bringing in money at a yearly rate of almost $50 billion. That is about $20 billion less than the $70 billion number reported in late September. TechCrunch on October 8, 2026 said the lower number came from Financial Times reporting.
The $70 billion number came from information OpenAI had earlier shared with investors, according to the Financial Times. OpenAI's own investors put that number together to try to compare OpenAI directly with Anthropic. Axios had earlier reported that OpenAI's yearly rate was near $70 billion, a report shared by Reuters on September 29, 2026.
The two companies count in different ways. Anthropic counts sales made through its cloud partners. OpenAI does not. Think of farm apples sold at the farm stand compared with apples sold through a large supermarket. Money that passes through big cloud companies is not the same as money a company collects itself.
September reports said OpenAI's yearly rate from subscriptions and use was up more than 70% since the start of the third quarter of 2026. Business sales had more than doubled since July 2026, according to that same Reuters report. A separate Yahoo Finance summary of the Axios reporting on September 29 gave the same growth rate since the start of the quarter.
The new number follows a series of higher reports. The Information reported the yearly rate doubled to $3.4 billion since late 2023, with most money from subscriptions and paid access to its tools. It later reported OpenAI reached $12 billion on a yearly-rate basis after about doubling in the first seven months of the year, with ChatGPT passing 700 million weekly users. By March 4, 2026, The Information reported OpenAI had passed $25 billion on a yearly-rate basis, up 17% from $21.4 billion.
Other numbers show the same climb. The Information reported OpenAI brought in about $5.7 billion in the first quarter. It reported OpenAI was on course to pass $13 billion in 2025 income, up from about $4 billion the year before. Leaked 2025 numbers showed it made about $13 billion but spent much more. Bloomberg reported on August 14, 2026 that OpenAI was on course to pass $40 billion on a yearly-rate basis.
Anthropic grew in a similar way. The Information reported in May that Anthropic's yearly rate was near $45 billion. Bloomberg reported on August 18, 2026 that Anthropic's yearly rate passed $65 billion.
Company value and fundraising grew at a different pace than income. OpenAI raised $122 billion in a March funding round. It finished a sale of employee shares at a $500 billion value, as reported by Bloomberg on October 2, 2025. On October 8, 2026, Bloomberg reported OpenAI was talking about raising $30 billion at a $1.4 trillion value, with Tiger Global set for a $5 billion paper profit on its OpenAI stake. Reuters on September 29, 2026 also reported, citing Bloomberg News, that OpenAI planned $30 billion in funding at a $1.4 trillion value. OpenAI said it would buy $250 billion worth of cloud services. Its stock market listing, once talked about for 2026, has been moved to early 2027.
The broader context here is how the math works, not only growth. A yearly rate takes one recent month or quarter and multiplies it to cover a full year. It responds to timing, to short jumps in use, and to what is counted. Sales through cloud partners can make the headline number look bigger if one company counts them and the other does not.
In my view, we have seen this before with new technology. Company values, big spending promises, and income reports often use different measures for a while. When my children moved from home computers to phones to online services, they never asked about yearly rates or partner sales. Businesses are now doing the same at larger scale, paying for seats, chats, and tool access. Over time, use keeps spreading. This fix does not change that direction. It only makes the comparison more exact.
