Anthropic Surpasses OpenAI in Revenue, OpenAI's IPO Under Pressure

Anthropic Surpasses OpenAI in Revenue

Anthropic recently announced that it has reached an annualized revenue of $30 billion, marking an impressive increase from the $9 billion recorded at the end of 2025. In February 2026, during a fundraising round that valued the company at $380 billion, revenues had already risen to $14 billion. This rapid growth highlights the gap between OpenAI's valuation and its profitability.

In comparison, OpenAI generates $2 billion in monthly revenue, amounting to $24 billion annualized. However, an accounting nuance must be noted: Anthropic reports its revenue gross through the cloud marketplaces of AWS and Google, while OpenAI reports it net for its sales through partners, making direct comparison imperfect.

Two Diverging Profitability Models

The difference between the two companies goes beyond revenue figures. Anthropic stands out with a solid customer base, boasting over 1,000 companies spending at least $1 million per year, a figure that has doubled in two months. Its programming tool, Claude Code, alone generates $2.5 billion in annualized revenue. Additionally, eight of the ten largest companies in the Fortune 10 are clients of Anthropic. The company aims for cash profitability by 2027.

In contrast, OpenAI faces projected losses of $14 billion for 2026, with infrastructure commitments exceeding $600 billion over five years. Profitability is not expected before 2030. Jefferies analysts point out that Anthropic added $21 billion in new revenue in three months, which represents more than a third of what all software publishers tracked by Jefferies generated in 2025.

Pressures on OpenAI's IPO

The performance gap between the two companies is putting direct pressure on OpenAI's planned IPO, scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2026 with a target valuation of $1 trillion. Its latest fundraising round, completed on April 1, valued OpenAI at $852 billion with $122 billion raised. Among the investors are Amazon and NVIDIA, which are also its chip and cloud suppliers, blurring the line between financing and supply.

Internal Doubts at OpenAI

According to The Information, Sarah Friar, OpenAI's Chief Financial Officer, has expressed doubts about the company's readiness for an IPO in 2026, emphasizing the organizational and regulatory work still needed. However, CEO Sam Altman is pushing for an accelerated timeline, revealing a vision gap within the company.

Anthropic, for its part, is also preparing for its IPO, potentially as early as October 2026. With a valuation of $380 billion, it is 2.2 times lower than OpenAI's, but its revenues are now higher. Anthropic has also secured 3.5 gigawatts of TPU capacity with Google and Broadcom starting in 2027.

Although OpenAI has 900 million weekly users and is the most recognized AI brand, the markets favor margins over logos.