Anthropic’s Q3 revenue hit $17B as growth slowed to 47%

Anthropic reported $17 billion in third-quarter revenue in an amended IPO prospectus posted on the SEC website on November 2. Revenue growth slowed to about 47%, down from roughly 144% the quarter before. The $17 billion is the company’s filed figure, a little above the $16.8 billion that, according to Bloomberg’s sources, investors heard in October. The $567 million operating loss is the reported line. Anthropic was still profitable on an adjusted basis that excludes stock-based pay and $2 billion in non-cash charges from an employee donation matching program.

The original S-1, filed on October 26 to list Class A shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker ANT, did not include the third quarter. The amendment adds it, Fortune reported. Revenue for the three months ended September 30 compares with $11.6 billion in the second quarter and $1.4 billion a year earlier. That is a rise of more than 1,000% year over year.

Before the amendment, the quarter was known only secondhand. Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that Anthropic gave investors the $16.8 billion figure at an October 14 presentation. Reuters described that as a 45% jump and said some investors were disappointed, because second-quarter revenue had more than doubled. In October, valuation talk slipped toward $1.5 trillion, down from the roughly $2 trillion the November share sale had been expected to fetch.

Where the loss came from

Total operating expenses rose to $17.5 billion from $10.6 billion in the second quarter. That turned a $974 million operating profit into the $567 million loss. Anthropic blames most of it on compute bought under short-term commitments, which the filing says “currently costs significantly more” than compute secured under its multi-year deals. The other item it names is the $2 billion donation-matching charge.

On the adjusted measure, profit in dollars edged up only slightly from the second quarter, and the margin shrank. The adjusted operating margin was 15%, down from 19%, largely because of the pricier short-term compute.

The quarter’s net loss was $23.3 billion. Most of it came from an accounting charge tied to the rising value of Anthropic’s convertible notes. The S-1 shows the first half of 2026 followed the same pattern. Of an $80.7 billion net loss, $72.4 billion was a fair-value change on convertible notes and SAFEs, while the operating loss for those six months was $693 million.

A $600 million price effect

Higher usage pushed revenue up. But the filing says the gain was partly offset by “a decrease of approximately $600 million from price reductions introduced as part of new model versions and contractual discounts” between the second and third quarters. Most of Anthropic’s revenue follows usage. According to the S-1, consumption-based revenue, which is metered in tokens, was $13.064 billion of the $16.286 billion total in the first half, about 80%, and subscriptions made up the rest. Fortune suggests the pricing pressure may come from competitors slashing model prices to win customers.

Locking in compute

The amended filing discloses about $895.4 billion in committed spending, most of it for compute and infrastructure. Much of that relates to Anthropic Direct, the company’s own dedicated infrastructure. Anthropic says it will be able to replace short-term compute with cheaper long-term capacity as that infrastructure comes online. In Fortune’s reading, the cost of short-term compute may also help explain why Anthropic is locking in data center capacity at that scale.

As of September 30, Anthropic had $146.6 billion in liquidity, counting cash, short-term investments and an available credit line.