Biggest threat to the AI trade: per-million-token prices fell 27% in a month

lilyraynyc · x · 2026-08-25

The biggest threat to the AI trade is deteriorating prices. Revenue is price times quantity: quantities look fine—despite open-source and Chinese competition, OpenAI and Anthropic keep adding businesses and token usage. But average cost per million tokens fell 27% over the past month, and OpenAI cut frontier model prices another 20% this week. Model companies must now drive volume even faster as prices fall to support their valuations.

Related event: AI Trade's Biggest Threat: Token Prices Fall 27% in a Month(3 posts)→

Original post →

More from Venture

Venture channel →