Anthropic’s Claude is quietly gaining paying users, but OpenAI’s ChatGPT still owns the bigger prize: scale. Fresh analysis of card transactions and consumer interest suggests Claude is expanding beyond its developer-heavy reputation, while ChatGPT remains the default subscription choice for most people willing to pay for AI.
That split matters. Anthropic has long been seen as the safer, more technical option, especially for enterprises and startups using Claude Code. The new data points to something broader: ordinary consumers are increasingly buying in too, and that makes Claude look less like a niche tool and more like a serious subscription business.
Card spending points to faster Claude growth
Indagari, which analyzes credit-card transactions, examined billions of anonymized purchases from about 28 million US consumers. Its data covers weekly transactions from 2025 through 10 May 2026, including subscriptions and API token payments. That does not reveal Anthropic’s exact revenue or user count, but it is large enough to show the direction of travel – and Claude is moving up fast.
According to the analysis, Claude’s paying users and revenue have risen month after month, increasing by roughly 75% since January 2026. The growth continued even after Anthropic drew a burst of consumer attention in March, when it refused to let the Trump administration use its models for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons. In AI, refusing the wrong customer can sometimes attract the right ones.
DataCamp sees consumer demand surge for Claude
Another signal comes from DataCamp, the online learning platform with about 20 million users. It says interest in Claude has jumped sharply since the start of the year, to the point that ”Claude” is now its most searched term, even ahead of ”AI.” Among self-directed learners, demand for Claude courses is three times higher than for ChatGPT courses, and over the past 30 days that demand has risen 18-fold.
- Claude’s paying users and revenue: up roughly 75% since January 2026
- DataCamp search interest: ”Claude” now outranks ”AI”
- Consumer course demand: Claude is 3 times higher than ChatGPT
ChatGPT still has the bigger base
None of this changes the leaderboard. Sensor Tower’s latest data shows Claude growing well across platforms, but still far behind ChatGPT. Indagari’s spending data tells the same story: ChatGPT’s growth has slowed mainly because it is already enormous, yet it still has many more paying users. That’s the classic incumbent problem – not much room to sprint when you already own the track.
The bigger picture is that Anthropic appears to be building two businesses at once: one with developers and enterprises, and another with consumers who are increasingly willing to pay for a polished chatbot. The catch is regulation. Earlier this month, the US government blocked Anthropic from letting non-Americans use its most powerful cybersecurity-focused models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5, forcing the company to pull them from the market. More users are nice; fewer available products are not.
The next question is whether Claude’s momentum can keep pulling in mainstream users faster than OpenAI can defend its lead. Right now, the answer looks like ”maybe” for growth and ”no” for the crown.