OpenAI's revenue was approaching $50 billion on an annualized basis at the end of September, according to financial documents shared with investors described by the Financial Times. That is about $20 billion below the roughly $70 billion pace reported late last month. The difference calls for a closer look at how the figures were constructed before treating it as a change in sales.

Neither number is OpenAI's revenue for a completed year. An annualized pace extends sales from a recent period across twelve months. It describes the rate at that point in time; the company would have to sustain it for a year to record that amount as revenue over a year. The underlying period and detailed calculation behind the two OpenAI figures are not public in the reporting reviewed here.

The big change

  • What changed: Investor documents reported by the Financial Times put OpenAI's annualized revenue pace near $50 billion at September's end. Axios says the earlier roughly $70 billion comparison adjusted for a different way of counting some partner sales.
  • Why it matters: The two reported paces use different accounting bases, so their difference does not establish lost revenue. Neither is revenue for a completed year.
  • What to watch: The reporting provides no public audited period revenue or detailed bridge between the figures. Those records would be needed to check the comparison more closely.

Why the comparison changed

The Financial Times reported that the earlier $70 billion comparison came from an attempt by investors to put OpenAI's sales on a basis comparable with Anthropic's. Axios reported on October 8 that sources described the earlier figure as an effort to gross up OpenAI's number toward Anthropic's method. Axios itself had reported a pace nearing $70 billion on September 29, citing people familiar with the financials.

Some sales through cloud partners sit at the center of this comparison. In Axios' explanation of the companies' methods, Anthropic records the full customer sale as revenue and the partner's cut as an expense. OpenAI records only its share of certain partner sales. The gross approach therefore produces a larger top-line figure for the same transaction than the net approach. Which treatment is appropriate depends on the contractual role of each company; Axios quoted accounting professor Francine McKenna explaining that the principal-versus-agent judgment turns in part on control of the customer relationship and responsibility for delivering the product.

That accounting explanation is attributed reporting, not a published reconciliation of OpenAI's books. The available accounts do not provide a transaction-level bridge from $50 billion to $70 billion, or show how much of the roughly $20 billion difference comes from each category of partner sales. It would be misleading to subtract one figure from the other and call the result lost revenue.

What the reported figures establish

The Financial Times says it relied on documents shared with investors for the newer pace. Reuters, relaying the FT account, said it could not independently verify the report. The documents have not been published as an audited filing, and the reporting does not establish OpenAI's revenue for the quarter or year, its profit, or a public correction issued by the company.

For comparisons with Anthropic, readers need the same time period and the same treatment of partner transactions. The reported $50 billion and $70 billion paces do not by themselves supply either a comparable company-to-company result or an audited measure of OpenAI's performance. They do show how much the headline can move when the accounting basis changes.

Sources & further reading