According to Axios, OpenAI’s annual revenue stands at approximately $50 billion. It has emerged that the $70 billion annualized revenue figure reported in the press in September was derived from a “grossed-up” calculation intended to make the company’s revenue comparable with Anthropic’s accounting method.
The $20 billion gap between the two companies stems from the way revenue is recognized. Anthropic books the full amount of sales made through cloud providers as revenue and records the provider’s share as an expense; OpenAI, on the other hand, recognizes only the share it retains as revenue in certain partnership sales. Both methods are reported to comply with generally accepted accounting standards.
Leaked financial data for 2025 reportedly showed that OpenAI generated approximately $13 billion in revenue but spent well above that amount. Annualized revenue is calculated by spreading the revenue of a given period over 12 months and does not reflect the company’s actual annual revenue.
Why it matters
This development shows that for investors and industry watchers comparing the size of AI companies, revenue figures rest on shakier ground than they appear. The fact that the same revenue can be presented with a $20 billion difference under two different accounting methods makes it essential to ask which calculation the data used in valuation and market share analyses is based on. The fact that both methods comply with generally accepted standards demonstrates that this is not an irregularity, but a comparability problem. The fact that annualized figures do not reflect actual annual revenue further clouds the picture. OpenAI’s spending above its approximately $13 billion in revenue in 2025 is a reminder that the cost side needs to be monitored alongside revenue; the question that remains open is which method will become the industry standard.
Background
OpenAI is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: we have published 82 stories mentioning this name in the last 90 days; the most recent is dated October 9, 2026.