OpenAI Financials: September 2026 Update

OpenAI’s annualized revenue run-rate has climbed to $40 billion as of July 2026, a 60% jump from the $25 billion Sacra recorded in February. The valuation remains at $852 billion post-money, unchanged since the March 2026 round.

Key points

• Sacra pegs OpenAI’s revenue run-rate at $40B as of July 31, 2026, up from $25B in February.
• Valuation is $852B post-money, set at the March 2026 round. No new round has closed.
• The advertising unit crossed a $1B annualized run rate by end of August, per The Information, though the company may fall short of its $2.4B 2026 ad-revenue projection.
• Closest private peer Anthropic is now valued at $965B with a $65B run-rate, both per Sacra as of July 31, marking a sharp widening of the revenue gap between the two labs.
• SoftBank’s SB Energy has offered $5.5 billion to secure a data-center partnership with OpenAI, deepening the infrastructure ties from the March financing.

Where does the revenue run-rate stand?

The $40B figure is a Sacra estimate based on disclosed and inferred signals through July 31. The trajectory has accelerated meaningfully: $2B at end-2023, $6B at end-2024, $20B at end-2025, $25B in February 2026, and now $40B five months later. The advertising business is a new contributor. OpenAI launched ChatGPT ads in February, began showing them to free and Go-tier users in India in late August, and the unit hit $1B in annualized revenue by August 31. That is real incremental revenue, but the implied $2.4B full-year ad target looks ambitious given the ramp timeline.

Outcome-based pricing is also entering the picture. OpenAI is piloting pay-per-completed-task contracts with major enterprise clients, a model that shifts delivery risk onto OpenAI but could compress near-term recognized revenue per interaction while expanding the addressable market if the economics land.

How does the valuation compare to peers?

At $852B, OpenAI trades at roughly 21x its current run-rate. Anthropic, now at $965B on a $65B run-rate, implies closer to 15x, per Sacra. The gap is notable: Anthropic’s run-rate has grown faster in proportional terms, and its latest Series H round (May 2026 at $965B) reset the peer benchmark above OpenAI’s last-round price. Whether OpenAI closes that valuation gap depends partly on how quickly the $40B run-rate continues to grow and partly on whether a new financing event reprices the equity.

Among public comparables, the mega-cap AI infrastructure names all slid on September 1: Microsoft closed at $500.99 (down 1.24%), Nvidia at $219.54 (down 0.56%), Amazon at $254.78 (down 1.92%), and Alphabet at $335.63 (down 1.10%). None of those moves are large enough to shift a private valuation conversation, but a sustained public-market correction in AI-adjacent stocks would eventually apply pressure to private marks.

What else moved in August?

Three operational developments are worth tracking for their longer-term revenue and cost implications.

First, the Jalapeño inference chip. Benchmarks reported by The Information show the chip delivers higher throughput per watt and faster response times than comparable Nvidia hardware. If OpenAI can shift a meaningful share of its inference workload to in-house silicon, the gross margin story changes considerably. Compute is the single largest cost line in generative AI, and even a partial substitution at scale matters.

Second, a self-funded $400 million venture fund, announced August 26. OpenAI is the sole limited partner, giving it direct equity stakes in early-stage AI startups without co-investors diluting strategic influence. The capital is not material relative to the $852B valuation, but the fund signals a broadening of OpenAI’s platform ambitions.

Third, executive turnover. Data-center head Chris Malone departed in late August, part of a wave of senior exits that TechCrunch has described as an ongoing exodus. Leadership churn at the infrastructure level is worth watching specifically because OpenAI is simultaneously scaling compute, negotiating the SoftBank SB Energy data-center deal, and developing its own silicon. Continuity risk there is higher than it would be in a more stable period.

IPO watch

No filing date has been set. The March 2026 round terms include contingent capital tranches tied to milestones, which means the cap table is not fully settled. The revenue trajectory, now at $40B annualized, strengthens the public-market narrative, but the leadership turnover, the unresolved governance structure between the nonprofit foundation and the PBC, and the pending IPO of SoftBank-adjacent entities all add complexity to a timeline. Nothing from August’s news flow accelerates or clearly delays a listing.