OpenAI's annualized revenue near $50B, far below rumored $70B
The Financial Times reported on October 9 that OpenAI has told investors its annualized revenue is approaching $50 billion as of the end of September — notably lower than the widely circulated $70 billion figure, a gap of roughly $20 billion. Several commentators (@kimmonismus, @kmouratidis, @ChrisGPT, etc.) noted that market expectations for OpenAI's revenue growth may have been overly optimistic.
Confirmed
- According to the FT, OpenAI's annualized revenue as of the end of September is close to $50 billion, a figure proactively communicated to investors by OpenAI.
- Sources explained that the earlier $70 billion misperception stemmed from some OpenAI investors trying to draw a direct comparison between OpenAI and Anthropic's annualized revenue.
- The discrepancy boils down to different accounting approaches: Anthropic counts sales generated through cloud partners such as AWS and Google Cloud in its annualized revenue, while OpenAI treats cloud channel revenue differently.
Why it matters
- Annualized revenue is a key metric for measuring AI companies' growth and valuation negotiations, and a $20 billion accounting gap is large enough to shift market perceptions of OpenAI's commercialization progress.
- This episode also serves as a reminder that cross-company comparisons of AI vendor revenue require attention to how each firm counts cloud channel revenue — otherwise, systematic misreadings can easily arise.
2026-10-09 ~ 2026-10-09 · 15 related posts
- Episode 1: OpenAI's Annualized Revenue Nears $70 Billion as CFO Confirms 70%+ Q3 Growth(2026-09-29, 17 posts)
- Episode 2: OpenAI Revenue Nears $70B as It Seeks $30B at $1.4T Valuation(2026-10-02, 2 posts)
- Episode 3: OpenAI's annualized revenue near $50B, far below rumored $70B(2026-10-09, 15 posts)
Primary sources
- [source] OpenAI's annualized revenue neared $50B by end of September, not $70B, per FT — kimmonismus · 2026-10-09
- OpenAI Perpetual Futures Slide as FT Reports ARR $20B Below Expectations — menhguin · 2026-10-09
- [source] OpenAI's $70B ARR includes partner revenue-sharing; ex-deals it's $50B, says CNBC — firstadopter · 2026-10-09
- OpenAI tells investors annualized revenue hit $50B in September, short of reported $70B — deedydas · 2026-10-09
- OpenAI nears $50B annualized revenue, ~$20B short — but the cut matters more than the headline — inductionheads · 2026-10-09
- The $70B OpenAI figure came from investors' estimate, not the CFO, argues ChrisGPT — ChrisGPT · 2026-10-09
- OpenAI's $50B ARR Implies 225%+ y/y Growth, In Line With Prior Months — BenBajarin · 2026-10-09
8 near-duplicate retellings: kimmonismus · scaling01 · ChrisGPT · ns123abc · deedydas · rohanpaul_ai · rohanpaul_ai · ns123abc