OpenAI’s Q3 revenue hit $10 billion in the three months to September, the first time the company has crossed that line in a single quarter. Its adjusted operating loss hit $10.9 billion in the same period. The loss was bigger than the revenue.
That is the whole story, really. Growth is real and fast. So is the burn.
OpenAI shared the numbers with investors on Tuesday, November 10, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reviewed the investor documents. Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported the same revenue figure. Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar confirmed the $10 billion figure and the growth rate in a CNBC interview the same day, and told the network the company’s enterprise business doubled quarter over quarter.
OpenAI Q3 revenue jumped 50% in three months
Revenue rose nearly 50% from about $6.7 billion in the second quarter, and almost tripled from the same period a year earlier, Bloomberg reported. A year ago, in the third quarter of 2025, OpenAI reported $3.9 billion in sales, the Journal said.
Growth had been slowing before this quarter. Revenue grew only 18% in the second quarter compared with the first, the Journal had previously reported. The third quarter broke that pattern in a big way.
Friar’s detail about the enterprise business matters here. Companies buying ChatGPT for their staff are now a major part of the growth, not just individual subscribers. OpenAI told investors it ended September with roughly $50 billion in annualized revenue, while a separate Axios report in late September had put annual recurring revenue near $70 billion. The two figures are measured differently, and neither is an audited number, but both point in the same direction: the top line is moving fast.
The loss grew anyway
Here’s the uncomfortable part. OpenAI’s adjusted operating loss ticked up to $10.9 billion from $10.1 billion in the second quarter, based on the documents the Journal reviewed. The loss grew by about $800 million even as revenue jumped by roughly $3.3 billion.
One number did improve. OpenAI’s adjusted operating margin went from minus 150% to minus 109% between the second and third quarters. Put plainly, the company lost about $1.09 for every $1 it earned in the third quarter, down from $1.50 in the second. That’s progress. It’s also still a business that loses more than it takes in, by a wide margin.
The figures exclude stock-based compensation, which rose to $2.6 billion in the third quarter, according to a person familiar with the matter cited by the Journal. OpenAI is a private company and does not publish financial statements, so none of these numbers can be checked against a public filing. The company did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment on the loss figures.
The Anthropic comparison is now unavoidable
OpenAI shared its numbers on the same day Anthropic took its IPO roadshow on the road, and the contrast is not flattering for OpenAI. Anthropic disclosed about $17 billion in third-quarter revenue in its amended SEC filing, with an operating loss of just $567 million during the same period, the Journal reported.
Anthropic made roughly $7 billion more and lost about one-nineteenth as much. That gap is the reason investors are asking hard questions right now.
There’s a caveat, and it’s a real one. The two companies count revenue differently. Anthropic includes sales made through cloud partners in its figures, while OpenAI reports only its share of some partner-generated sales. Bloomberg and the Journal both note the comparison isn’t clean. But nobody is arguing the order has flipped back. Anthropic’s numbers come from an SEC filing, which faces strict rules and close review. OpenAI’s come from private investor documents, which don’t.
Anthropic’s filing also shows it isn’t out of the woods either. Goldman Sachs models for the listing, described to Bloomberg by a person briefed on them, show Anthropic burning cash until 2030 because of compute spending. Both companies are spending enormous sums to build and run their models. The difference is how much revenue each one is getting for it.
Why this matters
Timing explains a lot about why these numbers surfaced now. OpenAI is in the middle of raising money at a $1.25 trillion valuation, with $11 billion already closed in the first part of the round. Investors writing checks that size want to see the revenue curve bending up, and this quarter gives them that. What they also want is a credible path to the losses shrinking, and the margin improvement from minus 150% to minus 109% is the first real evidence of one.
But the math still doesn’t work without a lot more growth. At a $10.9 billion quarterly loss, OpenAI is burning through more than $40 billion a year on an adjusted operating basis. That is why the company keeps raising, and why every quarter’s revenue number now gets read as a test of whether the spending will ever pay off.
For regular users, none of this changes ChatGPT tomorrow. What it does change is the pressure on OpenAI to turn its products into money. The enterprise business doubling is a sign that push is working. The Businesses in ChatGPT hub, launched the same day, is another piece of it. Expect more of that: more ways to sell to companies, more paid features, and more urgency behind them.
The AI business has stopped being a story about who has the smartest model. It’s becoming a story about who can afford to keep building one.
FAQ
How much revenue did OpenAI make in Q3 2026?
OpenAI’s third-quarter revenue was about $10 billion, up nearly 50% from roughly $6.7 billion in the second quarter and almost triple the same period a year earlier, according to Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal.
How much money did OpenAI lose in Q3 2026?
OpenAI’s adjusted operating loss was $10.9 billion in the third quarter, up from $10.1 billion in the second quarter, according to investor documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. That means it lost about $1.09 for every $1 it earned.
How does OpenAI’s Q3 revenue compare with Anthropic’s?
Anthropic reported about $17 billion in third-quarter revenue with a $567 million operating loss, according to its SEC filing. The two companies count revenue differently, so the figures can’t be compared directly, but Anthropic is now ahead on both sales and losses.
Is OpenAI profitable?
No. OpenAI is still losing money on an operating basis, and its adjusted operating margin was minus 109% in the third quarter, though that is an improvement from minus 150% in the second quarter.
Sources: The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters, CNBC, The Information.