OpenAI considers steep price cuts to win enterprise customers, following Anthropic

OpenAI is considering a significant reduction in usage fees to attract enterprise customers.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that OpenAI is weighing a sharp cut to the price of tokens — the units used to measure and bill AI usage. The move appears aimed at countering Anthropic, which has been aggressively competing for enterprise clients. Reports that Anthropic was planning its own price cuts appear to have prompted OpenAI to consider following suit.

OpenAI has long been aware of customer complaints about high token costs. CEO Sam Altman said at a recent event that cost had become a "massive problem," adding that he believed "there are going to be a lot of ways we can help people get more value for less money."

The Journal said that if OpenAI and Anthropic race to cut prices, it could further undermine the already-questioned profit model for AI companies. Both firms are already losing billions of dollars, having poured vast sums into the computing resources needed to run their AI systems.

Some companies have concluded that AI usage costs are excessive and have introduced measures allowing executives to cap employee token spending. There are also concerns that token consumption among enterprise customers has ballooned because some in the software industry have begun treating high token usage as a proxy for employee productivity.