OpenAI Quarterly Revenue $10 Billion in Q3 2026

OpenAI’s revenue for the three months ending in September was about $10 billion, up nearly 50% from the quarter before. That number has an on-the-record source. In an interview on Tuesday, November 10, CFO Sarah Friar told Deirdre Bosa that Q3 revenue rose nearly 50% quarter over quarter to $10 billion, with an annual run rate of roughly $50 billion, Yahoo Finance reported. She called the quarter a “blockbuster.”

The “first time” claim is a different matter. It comes from Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified. TechCrunch repeated it with “reportedly” in its headline. In the coverage I read, no executive said on the record that $10 billion was a first, so treat that part as Bloomberg’s claim.

Who said what

Claim	Reported by	Basis
Q3 revenue about $10 billion, up nearly 50% from Q2	Sarah Friar, via Yahoo Finance	On the record
Annual run rate about $50 billion	Friar via Yahoo Finance; Bloomberg via TechCrunch	On the record, and anonymous sources
Revenue crossed $10 billion for the first time	Bloomberg, via TechCrunch	Anonymous sources
Adjusted operating margin -109%, up from -150%	Wall Street Journal, via Reuters	Documents the WSJ reviewed
Operating loss $10.9 billion, up from $10.1 billion	Wall Street Journal, via Reuters	Same documents
Q2 revenue about $6.7 billion	TechCrunch	Reported, not confirmed by OpenAI

The margin improved, but the loss still grew

The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI told investors its adjusted operating margin improved to -109% from -150% in the second quarter. I could not read the WSJ story because it is paywalled, so those figures come from Reuters’ write-up of it, reprinted by The Star. Operating losses rose to $10.9 billion from $10.1 billion, according to the same report.

The two sets of numbers fit together. A -109% margin on $10 billion of revenue is a loss of about $10.9 billion, and -150% on $6.7 billion is about $10.05 billion. That check is my arithmetic, not a figure from the WSJ.

My read: the margin is the better sign for anyone asking whether the business is getting more efficient. Dollar losses are the better measure of how much OpenAI spends beyond what it earns. Revenue grew by about $3.3 billion from Q2, while the loss grew by about $0.8 billion, so sales rose faster in dollars than the loss did. That is a real improvement. It still leaves OpenAI losing more than a dollar for every dollar it earns on that measure, and nothing I read says when that changes.

Why $10 billion is not the $50 billion figure

Friar and Bloomberg both put the annualized run rate at about $50 billion. That is a different metric from quarterly revenue. The run rate is a recent month’s revenue multiplied by twelve, and that is where the gross-versus-net accounting question comes in. Our October post on the $68 billion and $50 billion figures covers that history. This post is only about the quarter.

The two measures also do not line up neatly. If Q3 repeated four times, the total would be $40 billion, below the $50 billion run rate. My read is that revenue was climbing through the quarter, so the latest month ran above the quarterly average. That is an inference from the two numbers, not something OpenAI said.

Anthropic comparison, with a caveat

TechCrunch reports that Anthropic recently disclosed Q3 revenue of about $17 billion and an annual run rate of $81 billion as of the end of October. TechCrunch also says the two companies calculate annualized revenue differently. Anthropic counts sales made through its cloud partners, while OpenAI reports only its share of some partner sales.

My read: putting the two headline numbers side by side invites a comparison the accounting does not yet support. I could not check how either company counts quarterly revenue.

My read

The $10 billion figure looks solid, because the CFO put the growth rate on the record. The “first time” framing is the weaker part, since it depends on anonymous sources. The number to watch is the fourth quarter. Friar tied OpenAI’s next stage to distribution through third-party cloud providers, which she said an Azure contract had held up, and she called that “a very big tailwind in 2027.” She gave no fourth-quarter figure, so the evidence so far is one quarter.

Note on sources

I read the TechCrunch article and the Yahoo Finance write-up in full. Bloomberg’s article is paywalled after its summary, so I read only the summary, which says the figures came from people familiar with the matter. The WSJ report is also paywalled, so the margin and loss figures come from Reuters’ summary of it. The $10 billion and 50% figures are on the record only through Friar’s interview as Yahoo Finance reported it. The $6.7 billion second-quarter base is reported, not confirmed by OpenAI. The Anthropic figures come from TechCrunch’s summary of Anthropic’s disclosure, which I did not read directly.

OpenAI's quarterly revenue reportedly topped $10 billion. The 'first time' part rests on anonymous sources.