Anthropic filed its third-quarter numbers on Nov. 2. They beat OpenAI's.
The two filings, read side by side, show the gap plainly. Anthropic booked $16.96 billion in revenue for the quarter that ended Sept. 30. OpenAI booked $10 billion for the same three months12. Two quarters running, Anthropic's number has topped OpenAI's.
Anthropic Opens a $7 Billion Quarterly Lead Over OpenAI
Quarterly revenue each company disclosed, first through third quarter 2026, in billions of dollars
Each line follows one company's quarterly revenue through 2026. Anthropic's line crosses above OpenAI's between the first and second quarter, then keeps widening.
Anthropic's figures come from its Nov. 2 prospectus; OpenAI's from a Nov. 10 investor briefing, so each quarter's pair was disclosed on a different schedule.
Sources: The Register [1]; Yahoo Finance [2]; SaaStr [4]; Yahoo Finance [6]; AI Weekly [7]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Period | Anthropic | OpenAI |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 2026 | $4.73B | $5.70B |
| Q2 2026 | $11.56B | $6.70B |
| Q3 2026 | $16.96B | $10.00B |
The Filing Shows the Gap in Dollars
Anthropic's own quarterly sequence tells the growth story. It made $4.73 billion in the first quarter, $11.56 billion in the second, then $16.96 billion in the third14. That third-quarter figure is up 1,127 percent from a year earlier, when the whole quarter brought in $1.38 billion.
Its own filing doubts that the pace continues, and Anthropic says so in writing. "We do not expect our revenue will continue to grow at comparable rates, and we cannot assure you that it will continue to grow at all," the filing reads.
Reaching that number cost heavily. Compute costs jumped 78 percent from the second quarter, to $9.86 billion. Anthropic has signed $895.4 billion in compute and lease deals through 2030, spread across Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Broadcom14.
More than 11,900 customers now pay Anthropic over $100,000 a year. A year ago, that number was 9504.
OpenAI Tells a Faster Growth Story
OpenAI's own sequence moves the other way. It made $5.7 billion in the first quarter, $6.7 billion in the second, then $10 billion in the third27. Its growth rate climbed into the third quarter, up to near 50 percent from 18 percent the quarter before. Anthropic's growth rate slowed at the same time4.
OpenAI's Growth Rate Overtakes Anthropic's, 50% to 47%
Quarter-over-quarter revenue growth, by company, into the second and third quarter of 2026
Each row is one company. The blue dot is its growth rate into the second quarter, the magenta dot is its rate into the third, and the rod shows how far that rate moved.
Anthropic's growth rate is falling from a much larger base; OpenAI's is rising from a smaller one, so the two percentages sit on very different sizes of dollars.
Sources: Yahoo Finance [2]; SaaStr [4]; AI Weekly [7]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Into Q2 2026 | Into Q3 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | 140% | 47% |
| OpenAI | 18% | 50% |
Enterprise revenue doubled from the second quarter, and now splits evenly with consumer revenue. Paid plans passed 100 million people, and ChatGPT reaches 1.2 billion people every week2.
Sarah Friar is OpenAI's chief financial officer. She credited one partner for the swing. "I think getting that unlocked, Anthropic showed me just the power of that model, and I think for us that can be a very big tailwind in 2027," Friar said, naming a cloud deal OpenAI signed late2.
OpenAI's loss grew too. Its operating loss widened to $10.9 billion, from $10.1 billion the quarter before2. Revenue and the cost of winning it both climbed together.
The Two Companies Already Fought Over This Number
A Reddit thread framed Anthropic's Q3 filing as a reversal four years in the making. The record tells a narrower story. Anthropic's quarterly revenue first beat OpenAI's back in the second quarter, reported in August6. Its annualized run rate had crossed OpenAI's even earlier, in April5.
OpenAI noticed that April number right away, and pushed back hard.
Denise Dresser runs revenue for OpenAI. In an April memo to staff, she argued Anthropic's reported figures run too high. "They use accounting treatment that makes revenue look bigger than it is, including grossing up rev share with Amazon and Google," Dresser wrote3.
Dresser's math knocks Anthropic's claimed $30 billion run rate down to about $22 billion. OpenAI counts its own Microsoft revenue share net of Microsoft's cut. Dresser says Anthropic counts its Amazon and Google share gross, before the cloud giants take their part3.
Anthropic has called its accounting standard. Both companies keep their full books closed, so the public gets dueling memos instead of an audited answer.
Jason Lemkin Reads the Shift as Real
SaaStr is a venture fund and an event for software founders, and Jason Lemkin runs it. He has tracked both companies' filings since spring.
Back in April, he called the run-rate crossing a turning point. "The company that most people outside of B2B circles couldn't name two years ago is now generating more run-rate revenue than the company that invented the consumer AI category," Lemkin wrote5.
By November, he read the new filing as a choice. "Anthropic could have rate-limited customers and gone into the IPO with two straight GAAP-profitable quarters," Lemkin wrote. He added that Anthropic served the demand instead, paying a premium for spare computing capacity to do it4.
Alibaba Ships Fast and Skips the Score
Half a world away, Alibaba moved just as fast, in a different direction.
Qwen, Alibaba's AI unit, put Qwen4-Max into preview on Nov. 11. "Qwen4 is coming. Deeper knowledge. Richer world understanding. Stronger coding and agentic capabilities," the account posted, pointing users to early access on its Token Plan, QwenWork, Qoder and Qwen App9.
Qwen@Alibaba_QwenQwen4 is coming.
Deeper knowledge. Richer world understanding. Stronger coding and agentic capabilities.
Built for real-world tasks — from complex coding and knowledge work to front-end builds and professional software workflows.
Qwen4-Max is now in preview on Alibaba’s Token… pic.twitter.com/3itCIgVAeE
The post skipped any benchmark. Qwen4-Max's own documentation skipped one too. AlphaSignal reviewed the release and found an empty model card and an unpublished parameter count. A score against any rival stayed missing too8.
Qwen4-Max does ship real features. It carries a default 1 million token context window and coding support inside Cursor and Claude Code. A developer can dial its reasoning level up or down too8.
Proof is the one thing it skips. A buyer gets the pitch this week. The scorecard, if Alibaba ever publishes one, arrives some other week.
What to do
Check which quarter a "first time" claim is about before you repeat it. Anthropic's lead showed up on run rate in April and on quarterly revenue in August. November marks its second confirmed quarter ahead.
Ask which method sits behind any revenue figure you compare across two firms. Counting the same cloud deal gross versus net made an $8 billion gap between Anthropic's and OpenAI's own math this spring.
Read a model preview that skips its benchmark as a pitch. It earns the word "result" only once Alibaba publishes a score. Wait for that card before you chart a Qwen4-Max figure next to a rival's.
By the numbers
- Anthropic's third-quarter revenue reached $16.96 billion, up 1,127 percent from a year earlier1.
- OpenAI's third-quarter revenue reached $10 billion, up near 50 percent from the second quarter2.
- Dresser, OpenAI's revenue chief, says Anthropic's stated run rate runs $8 billion high3.
- Anthropic's revenue growth into the third quarter slowed to 47 percent, down from 140 percent into the second4.
- OpenAI's revenue growth into the third quarter rose to 50 percent, up from 18 percent into the second27.
- Compute and lease deals Anthropic signed through 2030 total $895.4 billion1.
- OpenAI's third-quarter operating loss widened to $10.9 billion, from $10.1 billion the quarter before2.
- Aug. 21, 2026 is when Anthropic's quarterly revenue first topped OpenAI's, a quarter ahead of this one6.
What to watch
Watch OpenAI's fourth-quarter filing for whether its growth rate keeps climbing past Anthropic's. A faster rate from a smaller base can close a dollar gap within a year or two, if it holds.
Either company could open its books enough to settle the gross-versus-net fight on the public record. An audited answer would mark real progress over dueling memos.
A published Qwen4-Max model card would let buyers check Alibaba's own claims against a rival's score for the first time.
Sources
- Tobias Mann, "Anthropic's compute tab could top $1T as Q3 revenue nears $17B," The Register, Nov. 2, 2026, https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/11/02/anthropics-compute-tab-could-top-1t-as-q3-revenue-nears-17b/5307089
- Daniel Howley, "OpenAI Q3 revenue jumped 50% to $10 billion," Yahoo Finance, Nov. 10, 2026, https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/openai-q3-revenue-jumped-50-to-10-billion-215223357.html
- Ashley Capoot, "OpenAI touts Amazon alliance in memo, says Microsoft has 'limited our ability' to reach clients," CNBC, April 13, 2026, https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/13/openai-touts-amazon-alliance-in-memo-microsoft-limited-our-ability.html
- Jason Lemkin, "5 Interesting Learnings from Anthropic at $17 Billion in Quarterly Revenue," SaaStr, Nov. 3, 2026, https://www.saastr.com/5-interesting-learnings-from-anthropic-at-17-billion-in-quarterly-revenue-47-q-q-growth-900-nrr-and-895-billion-in-compute-commitments/
- Jason Lemkin, "Anthropic Just Passed OpenAI in Revenue. While Spending 4x Less to Train Their Models," SaaStr, April 7, 2026, https://www.saastr.com/anthropic-just-passed-openai-in-revenue-while-spending-4x-less-to-train-their-models/
- Lena Park, "Anthropic's Q2 Revenue Overtook OpenAI for the First Time," Yahoo Finance, Aug. 21, 2026, https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/anthropic-q2-revenue-overtook-openai-015716271.html
- Alexis Dufresne, "OpenAI Triples to $5.7B Revenue as Q1 Costs Triple to $3.7B," AI Weekly, June 18, 2026, https://aiweekly.co/alerts/openai-triples-to-57b-revenue-as-q1-costs-triple-to-37b
- AlphaSignal Newsroom, "Alibaba Launches Qwen4-Max With Agent-First Coding and 1M Token Support," AlphaSignal, Nov. 11, 2026, https://alphasignal.ai/news/alibaba-launches-qwen4-max-with-agent-first-coding-and-1m-token-support
- Qwen (@Alibaba_Qwen), "Qwen4 is coming.", X, Nov. 11, 2026, https://x.com/Alibaba_Qwen/status/2120335993643684315
