OpenAI revenue, losses and cash burn: what has been reported

OpenAI is private and has published no audited accounts. Reporting says it booked about $13.07 billion of revenue in 2025 with an operating loss near $20.92 billion, and that its annualized run rate was roughly $50 billion at the end of September 2026. Most forward figures are unaudited projections.

This guide puts the numbers in one place and says where each one comes from. It is a map of reporting, not a financial statement, and it is not investment advice. Every figure below is as of 19 October 2026 unless a different date is given. Most figures are second-hand, because the underlying documents are leaked, shown to investors, or seen by a newspaper and not published.

Key numbers at a glance

• 2024 booked revenue: $3.7 billion (leaked 2025 audited accounts, reported by Fortune and others in June 2026).
• 2025 booked revenue: $13.07 billion (same leaked accounts).
• 2025 operating loss: $20.92 billion, on total costs of roughly $34 billion (same leaked accounts, as relayed by Fortune).
• 2025 net loss attributable to OpenAI: about $38.5 billion, including a large non-cash charge tied to its corporate restructuring (leaked accounts, via secondary coverage).
• Q1 2026 revenue: $5.7 billion; Q2 2026 revenue: $6.7 billion (Wall Street Journal, August 2026).
• Operating loss including stock-based pay: $9.3 billion in Q1 2026 and $12.3 billion in Q2 2026 (Wall Street Journal).
• Q1 2026 cash burn: $3.7 billion (Wall Street Journal, as summarized by a third-party tracker).
• Annualized run rate: about $50 billion at end of September 2026 (reported by the Financial Times and CNBC on 8 October 2026); an earlier figure near $70 billion was corrected.
• 2026 revenue plan: about $36 billion (Financial Times, September 2026, from a company presentation).
• 2026 to 2030 negative free cash flow plan: $278 billion (Financial Times, 18 September 2026).
• 2030 revenue plan: $350 billion (same presentation).
• Funding: $122 billion round closed 31 March 2026 at an $852 billion post-money valuation (company announcement as reported by several outlets).
• Revenue mix: enterprise 40% of revenue, up from 30% a year earlier (company statement, 31 March 2026, via SiliconANGLE).
• Valuation talks: about $1.2 trillion (Financial Times) or about $1.4 trillion before new money (Bloomberg, 29 September 2026). Neither is a completed deal.

Revenue: booked, annualized and planned

There are three different kinds of revenue number in circulation, and mixing them is the most common mistake.

Booked revenue is what a company has actually recognized in its accounts for a period. For OpenAI, the only full years available come from leaked audited statements. Fortune reported in June 2026 that revenue rose from $3.7 billion in 2024 to $13.07 billion in 2025, more than triple. Other outlets say the Financial Times separately checked the documents. OpenAI has not commented on them publicly.

Quarterly booked revenue for 2026 comes from the Wall Street Journal: $5.7 billion in the first quarter and $6.7 billion in the second, which one tracker calculates as growth of 18% quarter over quarter and about $12.4 billion for the first half. As of today OpenAI has not reported third quarter results.

Annualized run rate is a different animal. It takes a recent period, usually one month, and multiplies it up to a full year. It tells you the pace, not the result. The reported path for OpenAI is: about $6 billion at the end of 2024 (Reuters), $10 billion in June 2025 (CNBC), above $20 billion at the end of 2025 (Reuters, quoting the CFO), above $25 billion at the end of February 2026 (The Information), above $40 billion in August 2026 (Bloomberg, 13 August), and about $50 billion in early October 2026 (Axios, 8 October).

Sources disagree on one point inside that path. A third-party tracker lists about $21.4 billion as the exit run rate for 2025, while another summary lists "above $20 billion." These are consistent. A bigger disagreement is the July figure. Bloomberg's August report put the run rate above $40 billion, while the Financial Times, as relayed by Channel Insider on 9 October, said July annualized revenue was closer to $30 billion. The reports do not explain the gap, so both are shown here.

Planned revenue is the third type. The Financial Times reported in September 2026, from a company presentation it saw, that OpenAI expects about $36 billion of revenue in 2026 and $350 billion in 2030, with roughly $840 billion cumulative across 2026 to 2030. A plan is a hope with a spreadsheet behind it. Treat it that way.

What the company itself has said

Against all this reporting, OpenAI's own statements are few, and they describe pace and mix rather than profit.

In a blog post published on 18 January 2026, chief financial officer Sarah Friar said annualized revenue had passed $20 billion in 2025, up from $6 billion in 2024, and that the growth was "closely tracking an expansion in computing capacity", according to Reuters. She put that capacity at 1.9 gigawatts in 2025, up from 0.6 gigawatts in 2024. The same post said OpenAI was keeping a "light" balance sheet by partnering rather than owning data centres, with contracts structured for flexibility across providers and hardware. No cost, margin or profit figure was given.

When it closed the $122 billion round on 31 March 2026, the company said, as reported by SiliconANGLE, that it was generating more than $2 billion in revenue a month. It also said enterprise sales were 40% of revenue, up from 30% a year earlier, and that it expected enterprise revenue to reach parity with consumer revenue by the end of 2026. Its advertising business, launched about six weeks earlier, was said to be above $100 million in annual recurring revenue, and it reported more than 900 million weekly active users and more than 50 million subscribers.

These are company statements, not audited figures, but they are the only numbers in this post that OpenAI has put its own name to. They also show the shape of the business: most users do not pay, so revenue depends on converting a small share of a very large audience and on selling to companies.

The $50 billion versus $70 billion correction

In September 2026, figures near $68 to $70 billion for OpenAI's run rate circulated. On 8 October, the Financial Times and CNBC reported that OpenAI's run rate was nearer $50 billion at the end of September, after the earlier figure had reportedly counted gross revenue from partner companies.

The reason is a difference in bookkeeping, not a sales collapse. When a customer buys access to a model through a cloud provider, one company can record the full payment as its own revenue and treat the cloud provider's cut as a cost. Another can record only its own share. Reporting from The Information, relayed by Semafor in April 2026, said OpenAI counts its share (the example given was 20 cents of a dollar) while Anthropic counts the whole dollar. Channel Insider says both approaches comply with US accounting rules. The investor "gross up" of OpenAI's figures to compare it with Anthropic produced the $70 billion number.

That is why you should always ask whether a run rate is gross or net before you compare two companies. This and other traps are covered in the guide to reading AI lab financial reports. For the Anthropic side of the numbers, see Anthropic's revenue, losses and margins.

Losses: three different numbers for 2025

The leaked 2025 statements produce more than one "loss," and each is correct for what it measures.

The operating loss is revenue minus operating costs. Reported costs were about $34 billion in 2025, including research and development of $19.18 billion (up from $7.81 billion in 2024) and sales and marketing of $5.73 billion. Against $13.07 billion of revenue, that gives the $20.92 billion operating loss that several outlets repeat. One tracker also reports 2024 operating loss of $8.78 billion, meaning OpenAI spent about $2.37 for each dollar of revenue in 2024 and $1.60 in 2025 (attributed to Fortune).

The net loss attributable to OpenAI was far larger, about $38.5 billion, because of a non-cash charge of roughly $41.55 billion tied to the move from a nonprofit-controlled structure to a for-profit one. The secondary coverage does not explain how those figures reconcile, and one summary noted that simple addition does not bridge them, so the exact line items remain unclear until the statements are published. What is clear is that a non-cash accounting charge is not money leaving the bank.

An adjusted loss near $8 billion for 2025 has been attributed to a Financial Times source and repeated by other outlets. It excludes non-cash items such as stock-based pay and Microsoft computing credits, according to secondary coverage. Treat it as the closest thing to a cash-like view, but it is not a cash flow statement.

For 2026, the Wall Street Journal reported operating losses, including stock-based compensation, of $9.3 billion in Q1 and $12.3 billion in Q2, which together are already larger than the full 2025 operating loss, while revenue for the same half was about $12.4 billion.

Cash burn: the forward plan

A loss and a burn are not the same thing. Burn is cash going out net of cash coming in, usually measured as free cash flow. The only historical burn figure in public reporting is the Wall Street Journal's $3.7 billion for Q1 2026, available only as summarized by a third party at the time of writing.

Forward burn comes from plans. The Financial Times reported on 18 September 2026 that OpenAI projects negative free cash flow of $278 billion from 2026 through 2030, alongside about $856 billion of spending on computing power and infrastructure. TheNextWeb says an earlier May version of the plan showed about $305 billion of negative free cash flow, and that in February OpenAI told investors its compute bill would be around $600 billion. TheNextWeb puts the July figure roughly 43% above February's, though it notes the February number covered compute while the July number covers computing power and infrastructure, so the two may not count the same categories. It also explains why projected burn fell while planned spending rose: much of the build is financed by partners rather than by OpenAI itself.

The July presentation was reportedly prepared to help win a computing deal, and it is not audited. That context matters: a document written to secure financing is not neutral.

Plans also change after the fact. Fortune reported in November 2025, from documents the Wall Street Journal obtained, that OpenAI expected $13 billion in 2025 sales and a $9 billion net loss for that year. The leaked audited accounts later showed a $20.92 billion operating loss. Those measures are not identical, but the gap is a useful reminder not to treat a projection as a result. The same documents expected a 2028 operating loss around $74 billion and meaningful profit by 2030.

Funding and how long it lasts

OpenAI closed a $122 billion round on 31 March 2026 at an $852 billion post-money valuation, according to a research page that cites the company. The Financial Times reported that, at the planned spending pace, that cash is on track to be used up by 2028. A roughly $7 billion employee share sale in August 2026 was reported at the same $852 billion price.

Newer talks are unconfirmed. Bloomberg reported on 29 September 2026 about a raise of at least $30 billion at around $1.4 trillion before new money, while the Financial Times described talks at about $1.2 trillion. Reuters also reported that OpenAI filed confidentially for a possible listing in June, while chief executive Sam Altman said the company would not go public in 2026. A confidential filing is not public, so its contents are not known.

A separate note on Microsoft: Sacra reports that revenue share to Microsoft is capped at $38 billion through 2030 under terms renegotiated in May 2026, and the leaked 2025 accounts reportedly show OpenAI paid Microsoft about $17.2 billion that year, mostly for compute and research. No primary document for these has been published, so treat them as reported.

What is firm and what is uncertain

Firmer, because several outlets agree and the source is documents rather than guesses:

• 2024 and 2025 booked revenue and the 2025 operating loss, though all rest on leaked statements OpenAI has not published.
• The direction of the 2026 quarterly numbers, with revenue growing and operating losses growing faster.

Uncertain:

• Any run rate. It depends on whether partner sales are counted gross or net, and on which month is annualized.
• The bridge from operating loss to net loss, and the adjusted loss.
• All five year plans. They have already been revised at least twice this year.
• Valuation talks, which are not transactions.
• Third party trackers that repeat figures without naming a source. Some circulating figures, such as a first quarter gross margin or 2026 Azure spending, have no named origin and are left out here.

What to watch next

• Whether OpenAI publishes its third quarter results or a public prospectus, which would replace leaks with audited statements.
• Whether the run rate is restated on a consistent gross or net basis.
• Whether the 2026 revenue plan of about $36 billion is met, given $12.4 billion booked in the first half.
• Whether the compute plan moves again from the July figure.
• Any announced funding at a valuation above $852 billion.

Quick check

Sources

• OpenAI revenue and valuation statistics (October 2026), Exploding Topics, updated 12 October 2026, relaying Fortune, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Axios, Bloomberg and the Financial Times.
• OpenAI revenue 2026: ARR reportedly nears $70B, Value Add VC, updated 15 October 2026.
• OpenAI revenue, valuation and funding, Sacra, data through about October 2026 (figures are Sacra estimates unless attributed).
• OpenAI reports rapid revenue growth, larger losses, Let's Data Science, 16 June 2026, relaying Ars Technica, Fortune and others.
• OpenAI's September annualized revenue run rate, Channel Insider, 9 October 2026.
• OpenAI forecasts cash burn near $280 billion by 2030, FT reports, Reuters via The Star, 19 September 2026.
• OpenAI's $856bn compute plan versus the $600bn reset, TheNextWeb, 19 September 2026.
• Anthropic is gaining on OpenAI's revenue but has not yet eclipsed it, Semafor, 10 April 2026.
• OpenAI CFO says annualized revenue crosses $20 billion in 2025, Reuters via Yahoo Finance, 19 January 2026.
• OpenAI just closed a record breaking $122B funding round, SiliconANGLE, 31 March 2026.
• OpenAI says it plans to report stunning annual losses through 2028, Fortune, 12 November 2025, from Wall Street Journal documents.

Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.