Anthropic Claude gains on ChatGPT: paid users up 75%

Anthropic’s Claude has been winning more paying consumers this year: Indagari’s analysis shows Claude’s paying consumers and revenue among its sampled segment are up about 75% since January 2026. Indagari’s dataset covers weekly transactions from 2025 through May 10, 2026 and draws on billions of anonymized credit card transactions from about 28 million U.S. consumers.

How much has Claude grown among paying consumers?

Claude’s consumer payments and revenue in Indagari’s sample rose about 75% since January 2026, a clear month-by-month increase across the dataset. The Indagari data includes payments such as subscriptions and API tokens, and while it cannot provide absolute company revenue or total customer counts, the sample is large enough to reveal this trend.

Indagari’s timeline runs from 2025 through May 10, 2026. The article notes the gains continued even after a March spike tied to Anthropic’s refusal to allow its models to be used by the Trump administration for mass surveillance of Americans and autonomous weapons. Anthropic declined to comment.

How does Claude compare to ChatGPT among consumers?

Claude is growing strongly, but ChatGPT remains far and away the market leader with many more paying users, according to the same sources. Sensor Tower data referenced in the piece shows Claude growing across platforms this year, yet still a long way behind ChatGPT; Indagari’s data similarly indicates ChatGPT still has many more paying users.

Consumer interest data from DataCamp adds another angle. DataCamp says, “Claude” is now the most searched term on its site, and among self-directed consumers demand for Claude courses is outpacing ChatGPT by three to one. DataCamp also says demand for courses on Claude has increased 18x in the last 30 days alone. The article notes ChatGPT courses remain more popular with businesses doing corporate training.

Why it matters

The shift shows consumer dollars are not locked to a single brand. Indagari’s card-transaction sampling and DataCamp’s search and course metrics together suggest Anthropic is winning broader consumer attention and payments, not just enterprise usage. That matters for revenue diversification as both Anthropic and OpenAI position themselves ahead of potential public offerings.

Policy and product moves matter too. The story cites two moments that tested Anthropic’s market footing: the March refusal to provide models for certain government uses, which coincided with a growth spike, and an unspecified recent government action that led Anthropic to pull its most powerful cybersecurity-focused models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5, from the market after a ban on non-American users.

What to watch

Look for published financials or official user counts from Anthropic and OpenAI when they file for public markets, which will confirm whether these payment and search trends scale into company revenue. Short of filings, the next concrete signals are sustained card-transaction growth past May 10, 2026, and whether DataCamp’s Claude search and course demand hold after the 18x surge.

Specific source-attributed facts in this piece: Indagari analyzes billions of anonymized credit card transactions from about 28 million U.S. consumers; its weekly transaction dataset runs from 2025 through May 10, 2026; Claude’s paying consumers and revenue are up about 75% since January 2026 in that sample. DataCamp says “Claude” is now the most searched term on its site, course demand for Claude outpaces ChatGPT by three to one among self-directed consumers, and demand for Claude courses increased 18x in the last 30 days.