OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue was approaching $50 billion at the end of September, roughly $20 billion below the $70 billion figure that had been widely reported based on earlier investor documents, according to the Financial Times1,2.
The gap traces to how the higher number was produced. The $70 billion figure was devised by OpenAI's own investors attempting to create a direct comparison with Anthropic's reported annualized revenues, the Financial Times reported. The two companies calculate annualized revenue differently: Anthropic counts sales made by its cloud partners, while OpenAI does not.
The revenue question carries weight as OpenAI works to justify the scale of capital flowing into the company. OpenAI raised $122 billion during a March funding round alone. Leaked 2025 financials earlier this year showed the company had generated about $13 billion in revenue but spent significantly more. OpenAI's IPO, previously rumored to materialize this year, has been pushed to early 2027.
ANALYSIS A $50 billion annualized run rate still represents rapid growth from the $13 billion in 2025 revenue, but the correction from $70 billion to $50 billion narrows the gap with Anthropic that investors had been using to benchmark OpenAI's position.
OpenAI's latest product moves include the October 8 rollout of an Ultrafast inference tier for GPT-6.1 Sol in Codex and ChatGPT Work, available on the $500 Pro plan and eligible Enterprise and Edu plans[2]. TechCrunch reported it had reached out to OpenAI for comment on the revenue discrepancy.