OpenAI's ChatGPT maintains a commanding lead in global usage with over 900 million weekly active users, but new estimates suggest Anthropic may be generating more revenue despite serving a fraction of the user base. According to IDC Research Vice President Arnal Dayaratna, ChatGPT remains the dominant consumer-facing large language model chatbot. In contrast, Alphabet Inc.’s Google Gemini has between 200 million and 250 million weekly active users, while Anthropic’s Claude is estimated to have between 40 million and 60 million weekly active users.
Revenue Estimates Diverge from User Base
While OpenAI leads in scale, IDC estimates its annualized revenue is between $30 billion and $40 billion. This includes roughly $10 billion to $13 billion from consumer subscriptions and as much as $20 billion from API and platform-related usage. Conversely, IDC estimates Anthropic’s annualized revenue is between $40 billion and $50 billion, with consumer subscriptions accounting for less than $2 billion. Anthropic’s revenue appears concentrated in enterprise subscriptions, Claude Code seats, API consumption, and other high-volume workloads.
| Metric |
ChatGPT (OpenAI) |
Claude (Anthropic) |
| Weekly Active Users |
> 900 million |
40-60 million |
| Annualized Revenue |
$30-40 billion |
$40-50 billion |
| Consumer Subscriptions |
$10-13 billion |
<$2 billion |
Enterprise Focus Drives Monetization
Dayaratna noted that usage scale tells a different story from revenue mix, with Claude’s business appearing far more weighted toward enterprise and developer use cases than consumer adoption. In an emailed statement, Anthropic pointed to a May 2026 blog post announcing that its annualized run-rate revenue had surpassed $47 billion. Separate estimates from Counterpoint Research support this trend, indicating Anthropic captured 31.4% of global LLM revenue in Q1 2026, ahead of OpenAI’s 29% share. Counterpoint also estimated Anthropic generated the highest average monthly revenue per user at $33.3, significantly above OpenAI’s $2.2.
Financial Performance and Valuation
Earlier reports indicated OpenAI generated $5.7 billion in revenue during the first quarter of 2026 while spending approximately $3.7 billion. The company’s net loss reportedly expanded to roughly $39 billion in 2025, compared with about $5 billion the previous year. Both OpenAI and Anthropic have confidentially begun laying the groundwork for potential future public offerings. In May, Anthropic surpassed OpenAI to become the world’s most valuable startup after securing a $65 billion Series H funding round that valued the company at $965 billion.
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