Anthropic Ends Discounts Once Tokens Run Out, The Information Reports
Anthropic ends enterprise customers' discounts once they use up the tokens covered by their contracts, The Information reported on Monday. OpenAI takes a more flexible approach, according to the report.
Kevin McLaughlin of The Information spoke to software company managers who buy from both AI companies. When Anthropic customers hit their contracted token volume, they must renegotiate or pay standard rates, the managers said. Tokens are the units AI companies use to bill for text their models read and write.
The managers estimated Anthropic’s discounts at about 15% off list price. TNW has not independently verified the report.
OpenAI gives customers extra time
A software licensing adviser familiar with both companies told The Information that OpenAI is more lenient, offering customers the rest of the current month plus an additional month to agree a new contract. After that, list prices apply.
Jeff Muscarella, chief innovation officer at NPIFinancial, explained to The Information that cloud providers typically allow customers to keep their discount on usage above their commitment for the remainder of their contract.
Frederick Philipson, co-founder of Redress Compliance, told The Information that OpenAI has become more aggressive on discounts as it focuses on enterprise sales. OpenAI recently hired its first worldwide sales chief.
One customer switched
CodeRabbit CEO Harjot Gill shared with The Information that OpenAI is now his company’s main AI supplier, a switch from Anthropic six months ago. The three-year-old company spends tens of millions of dollars annually on AI.
Gill and another manager noted both companies have started adding “share of wallet” clauses to discount deals, requiring large customers to allocate most of their AI budget to one platform.
More than 100 companies spent over $10 million annually with Anthropic in the 12 months ending June, and more than 1,000 spent over $1 million, according to the report. Major customers include Meta and Cursor.
Anthropic’s revenue passed OpenAI’s for the first time last quarter. Both companies have also cut list prices recently, with a cheaper Opus model from Anthropic and halved GPT-6 prices from OpenAI.
Cristian Dina, CRO at The Next Web, contributed to this report. He has interviewed over 300 industry leaders and authored the book King of Networking. At 23, Cristian was recognized on Forbes 30 Under 30 list for 2025.