IMPLICATOR
Anthropic's revenue growth has become "hard to handle," chief executive Dario Amodei told the company's developer conference this month, The Decoder reported on May 21. Days earlier, Anthropic had told investors it expects to more than double second-quarter revenue to $10.9 billion, from $4.8 billion in the first quarter, and to post its first operating profit of $559 million, the Wall Street Journal reported on May 20. Most of the growth comes from enterprise demand for Claude's coding tools.
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The figures, shared with investors during a fundraising round, would make Anthropic the first frontier AI lab to project a quarterly operating profit. Its compute cost per dollar of revenue fell from 71 cents to a projected 56 cents over the two quarters, according to figures the Journal reviewed, the change that turns a near-break-even quarter into a profit. The Information now estimates Anthropic generates about 35 percent more revenue than OpenAI, at roughly $45 billion in annualized recurring revenue against OpenAI's $33 billion, Sherwood News reported.
Key Takeaways
- Anthropic projects $10.9 billion in second-quarter revenue and a first operating profit of $559 million, up from $4.8 billion in Q1.
- Coding agents drive the growth; both labs repriced enterprise coding plans to metered API rates this spring.
- Compute cost per revenue dollar fell from 71 cents to a projected 56 cents, the swing that produces the profit.
- The figures are unaudited and lean on a temporary SpaceX compute discount that reaches full rate in July.
AI-generated summary, reviewed by an editor. More on our AI guidelines.
What is driving the revenue
Both Anthropic and OpenAI have repriced their coding products toward metered API rates. OpenAI moved Codex to API token pricing on April 2 and extended it to existing enterprise plans on April 23. Anthropic switched enterprise Claude seats to $20 a month plus API usage, a change the developer Simon Willison reported The Information had dated to November, and which many customers are encountering as annual contracts renew.
Willison, who published the analysis on May 27, calculated that his own month of coding work would have cost $1,199.79 for Claude Code and $980.37 for Codex at API rates, against the $200 he pays in subscriptions. Anthropic's Claude Code had taken 54 percent of the AI coding market by spring, Implicator reported. OpenAI, by comparison, reported more than 900 million weekly ChatGPT users in February, of whom about 50 million, or 5.6 percent, paid for subscriptions.
Customers face higher bills
Some customers have been surprised by the cost. Uber's chief operating officer, Andrew Macdonald, said on the Rapid Response podcast that "25% of our code commits were via Claude Code last quarter," while adding that the link between that figure and shipped features was "hard to draw." Uber and ServiceNow have each exhausted their full-year 2026 AI budgets within four months, The Information reported.
Microsoft, which gave thousands of engineers access to Claude Code in December, is canceling most of those licenses by June 30 and moving staff to its in-house Copilot CLI. Sources told The Verge's Tom Warren the decision "is also a financial one," timed to the close of Microsoft's fiscal year. OpenAI has taken the opposite approach, offering new business customers two months of free Codex usage, Axios reported.
Questions about the figures
Anthropic does not publish audited financials, and the Journal noted it is "unclear what accounting methods Anthropic has used to book revenue and costs." Ed Zitron, in a May 21 essay, argued the projected profit reflects a temporary discount on Anthropic's new compute deal with Elon Musk's SpaceX. That contract costs $1.25 billion a month, or about $15 billion a year, at the full rate that begins in July, and gives Anthropic access to more than 220,000 GPUs at the Colossus 1 data center in Memphis through May 2029.
Anthropic's chief financial officer, Krishna Rao, stated in a March court filing that the company had taken in revenue "exceeding $5 billion to date." The company also buys compute through separate agreements with Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
IPO plans
Both companies are preparing for public listings. OpenAI is set to file a confidential IPO draft, and Anthropic is raising at a valuation reported near $900 billion while planning its own listing this year. Anthropic has told investors it may not remain profitable for the full year as compute spending rises.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much revenue does Anthropic expect in the second quarter?
Anthropic told investors it expects to more than double revenue to $10.9 billion, from $4.8 billion in the first quarter, and to post its first operating profit of $559 million, the Wall Street Journal reported on May 20. The figures are unaudited projections shared during a fundraising round.
Why are coding agents more profitable than ChatGPT?
Coding tools are used most heavily by professional software engineers and bill by API token consumption rather than a flat subscription. OpenAI reported 900 million weekly ChatGPT users in February, but only about 50 million, or 5.6 percent, paid. Enterprises pay far more per coding-agent user.
What changed in the pricing?
OpenAI moved Codex to metered API token pricing on April 2 and extended it to existing enterprise plans on April 23. Anthropic switched enterprise Claude seats to $20 a month plus API usage, a change The Information dated to November, which customers are encountering as annual contracts renew.
Why are some companies canceling Claude Code?
Microsoft is canceling most of its Claude Code licenses by June 30 and moving engineers to its own Copilot CLI; sources told The Verge the decision is partly financial, timed to its fiscal year-end. Uber and ServiceNow each exhausted their full-year 2026 AI budgets within four months.
Are the profit figures reliable?
They are unaudited internal projections. Critic Ed Zitron argues the profit leans on a temporary discount in Anthropic's $1.25-billion-a-month SpaceX compute deal, which reaches full rate in July. CFO Krishna Rao stated in a March court filing that Anthropic had taken in revenue exceeding $5 billion to date.
AI-generated summary, reviewed by an editor. More on our AI guidelines.
Marcus Schuler
Editor-in-Chief and founder of Implicator.ai. Former ARD correspondent and senior broadcast journalist with 10+ years covering tech. Writes daily briefings on policy and market developments. Based in San Francisco. E-mail: [email protected]
