OpenAI profitability surges as annual recurring revenue surges from $25B to $70B

OpenAI’s annual recurring revenue is about to reach $70 billion, due to business customers signing on at roughly twice the rate they did in July. 

OpenAI is working to close the revenue gap between its business and Anthropic’s while both labs aim to launch IPOs.

Is OpenAI performing better than Anthropic? 

OpenAI’s annualized revenue run rate, according to anonymous sources speaking to Axios, has risen by over 70% since the third quarter began, landing just short of $70 billion. 

Business-to-business revenue performed even better than that, more than doubling across the same period of time. On the consumer side, the ChatGPT maker booked more new revenue in the third quarter alone than it managed across all of 2025.

The momentum is a sharp turn from OpenAI’s position in late summer. As of August 18, OpenAI’s revenue had risen only 18% between the first and second quarters, from $5.7 billion to $6.7 billion in the three months ending in June. 

Anthropic, over the same window, said its revenue more than doubled from $4.73 billion to $11.6 billion and logged an adjusted operating profit of $559 million.

That gap in revenue was followed by a run of bad headlines and executive exits, including the departure of Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser after less than a year. Holger Mueller of Constellation Research stated back then that Anthropic’s early bet on enterprise customers was “a smart move because the enterprise is always the ultimate prize.” 

Six weeks later, OpenAI’s own enterprise line is the one growing fastest.

Notably, Anthropic’s revenue grew twelvefold to nearly $4.6 billion in 2025, according to an IPO prospectus reviewed by Reuters. The company also reached an annualized run rate of about $65 billion in July. The same prospectus disclosed $518 billion in future cloud, computing, and infrastructure obligations, and warned investors that the company’s technology could pose “existential risk” to humanity.

What is OpenAI spending to build its products? 

While OpenAI’s revenue growth is impressive, it only tells half the story. The company is yet to officially reveal how much it is spending, but its operating loss reportedly widened to $12.3 billion in the second quarter, up from $9.3 billion in the first. 

Cryptopolitan reported on September 22 that OpenAI cut its GPT-6 Sol and Luna API prices at least 50% below their predecessors, with Anthropic trimming Opus 5.5 pricing the same day. 

Both Anthropic and OpenAI are moving toward public listings. Anthropic filed confidentially earlier this year and has been linked to a valuation nearing $2 trillion, while OpenAI has started work toward an IPO filing. 

Cryptopolitan recently reported that OpenAI held early talks over a funding round valuing it at roughly $1.2 trillion, up from the $852 billion in its March round. However, CEO Sam Altman has ruled out a 2026 listing on AI-safety grounds.

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