The Pulse
OpenAI Tells Investors Revenue Run Rate Is Near $50B
OpenAI’s annualized revenue was reported at $50 billion, about $20 billion below a figure circulated in September. The higher figure was an investor comparison that adjusted for differences in how OpenAI and Anthropic account for cloud-part
AI.info Team · Written with AI ·
OpenAI’s annualized revenue is $50 billion, about $20 billion less than a figure reported in September, Axios reported on October 8. The difference concerns how the companies account for sales made through cloud providers, not evidence that OpenAI’s revenue fell by $20 billion.
The Financial Times, which first reported the lower figure, cited financial documents it had reviewed and said OpenAI had told investors its annualized revenue was approaching $50 billion at the end of September. OpenAI did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
What the September figure represented
On September 29, Axios reported that OpenAI’s annualized revenue run rate had reached almost $70 billion, citing people familiar with the company’s financials. The report said the run rate had grown more than 70% since the beginning of the third quarter. OpenAI’s business-to-business revenue had increased by more than 100% over the same period, while the company added more consumer revenue in the quarter than it had added during all of 2025.
That report described a fast-growing business, but did not provide a full set of financial statements. Axios said it could not immediately learn details about OpenAI’s expenses, which would be needed to assess the cost of that growth. An annualized run rate projects sales from a shorter period across a year; it is not the same as revenue recorded over a completed year.
Cloud-partner accounting explains the gap
The $70 billion figure was an attempt to adjust OpenAI’s revenue to make it more directly comparable with Anthropic’s, Axios reported October 8. Both companies comply with generally accepted accounting principles, but their treatment of some partner transactions differs.
When a customer buys an AI service through a cloud provider, Anthropic can count the full customer payment as revenue and record the provider’s share as an expense. OpenAI records only its share of certain partner sales. The accounting treatment depends in part on each company’s role in the transaction, including who controls the customer relationship and is responsible for delivering the product, according to Francine McKenna, a lecturer in financial accounting at the Wharton School and author of the newsletter The Dig.
McKenna described the test in a September 3 Axios explainer on the two companies’ revenue:
“The criteria here has a lot to do with who is the principal and who is the agent in the transaction.”
Francine McKenna, Wharton School accounting lecturer and author of The Dig, to Axios
Investors sought the adjusted figure as an apples-to-apples comparison using Anthropic’s method, Axios reported, citing unnamed sources. Reuters, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported that the discrepancy mainly arose from an attempt to produce a direct comparison with Anthropic’s figures. The Financial Times report’s headline described the company’s annualized revenue as $20 billion less than previously signalled.
Run rate is not a full-year result
Annualized revenue is a commonly used figure in Silicon Valley, Axios reported, but public-market investors prefer actual revenue to financial constructs that suit early-stage startups better. Neither figure alone establishes OpenAI’s full-year revenue, profitability or expenses.
The September report also situated OpenAI’s growth amid preparations by OpenAI and Anthropic for possible public offerings, which could give investors a clearer view of revenue and spending. It reported that Anthropic’s revenue had grown twelvefold to nearly $4.6 billion in 2025, according to an IPO prospectus seen by Reuters, and that its annualized revenue was about $65 billion in July, according to figures reported by The New York Times and other outlets. Those figures are separate from OpenAI’s investor-shared comparison and do not resolve the accounting difference between the two companies.