Key points
- AI token use rose faster than spending in Ramp's data
- Anthropic gained a larger share of token spending
- Anthropic's IPO filing shows how price cuts affected revenue
Businesses in Ramp's token-spending sample used 37.1% more AI tokens in the week ending Oct. 23 than in the same week a month earlier. Their spending rose 8.9%, Ramp's data shows.
The gap matters for companies such as Anthropic (ANT) and OpenAI, which charge for API use partly by the number of tokens their models process. Tokens are units of text that models read and generate.
Ramp, a corporate card and bill pay platform, collected the figures from businesses using its Token Spend Management product. The company says that group isn't representative of its total AI spending volume, though the results are directionally similar.
The latest gain followed a flat stretch. Token spend grew 42% in July, then Ramp recorded two straight months of "virtually no growth" in August and September, even as token volume rose. Ramp lead economist Ara Kharazian says the slowdown isn't a demand problem and points to competition among AI companies. "You can use more AI, but use it for less. That's great for the customers...but it's not necessarily great for the model companies," he said.
Anthropic gained on OpenAI in dollars
Anthropic took a larger share of the money Ramp customers spent on tokens. Its share rose to 60.5% from 51.3% between the weeks ending Sept. 25 and Oct. 23, while OpenAI's fell to 35.1% from 44.2%.
Total token spending rose 8.9% over those weeks. Combining that increase with the change in shares, we calculate that spending on Anthropic tokens rose about 28%, while spending on OpenAI tokens fell about 14%.
OpenAI's blended price per million tokens fell 42.4% to $0.46; Anthropic's fell 15.7% to $0.61. OpenAI cut API prices in half for GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna on Sept. 22. Blended prices can also change when customers switch models or change how they use them.
OpenAI's share of token volume slipped less than its share of spending, falling to 37.2% from 40.2%. These are single-week readings from one group of Ramp customers, so they don't measure either company's total revenue.
Anthropic's filing puts a number on price cuts
Anthropic's amended IPO filing says price reductions for new model versions and contractual discounts reduced third-quarter revenue growth by about $600 million compared with the second quarter. Higher usage more than offset that effect: revenue rose $5.4 billion to $17.0 billion.
The filing describes another effect of lower prices: customers have generally expanded their use after earlier launches that paired more capability with a lower cost per task. Anthropic says Opus 5.5 reduced customers' cost per task by about 40% compared with Opus 5, and that it made its recent improvements "while preserving our margins."
That doesn't settle the cost question. Anthropic's computing costs rose to 58% of revenue from 48% in the third quarter. The filing ties the increase partly to new capacity, including short-term deals.
Ramp's top spenders remain below their July high
A small group accounts for much of the spending in Ramp's broader index. Ramp has said 1% of firms drive 80% of spending on OpenAI and Anthropic.
Among firms paying for AI, the top 1% spent a median $9,568 per employee per month in September. That was up 11.7% from August but 3.1% below July's high of $9,873. The median firm paying for AI spent $15.70 per employee per month. Ramp cautions that the top 1% estimate is more volatile because the group is small.
Anthropic's filing shows its own concentration. No single customer accounted for more than 10% of revenue in the first nine months of 2026, but about 21% of third-quarter revenue came from its top five customers, by our calculations. The filing warns that customers, "particularly early-stage and high-growth companies," may cut spending if outside funding is delayed or costs more.
The next company figure to watch is the one Anthropic left blank. Its amended filing omits run-rate revenue as of Oct. 31. That figure would cover the latest week in Ramp's data. Our Anthropic IPO tracker will add it when it's filed.
