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OpenAI weighs API token price cuts as Anthropic passes it in valuation

· by Pondero Newsdesk

The short version

OpenAI is considering cutting API token prices to win enterprise customers back from Anthropic, which surpassed OpenAI in valuation for the first time, the Wall Street Journal reported on June 11.

OpenAI weighs API token price cuts as Anthropic passes it in valuation

OpenAI is considering reducing its API token prices to keep enterprise customers from moving to Anthropic, the Wall Street Journal reported on June 11, 2026. The move comes as Anthropic surpassed OpenAI in valuation for the first time.

What

The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI is weighing token price cuts aimed at enterprise buyers who have begun shifting workloads toward Anthropic's models. Per The Decoder, OpenAI also expects Anthropic to respond with similar reductions.

At a recent public event, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that AI usage costs have become "a huge issue" for businesses. The pricing tension reflects a structural shift in how enterprise AI bills work: flat-rate subscriptions that once covered most usage at around $200 a month have given way to usage-based billing where agentic workloads can reach several thousand or tens of thousands of dollars a month, per The Decoder's reporting. Some enterprise customers have already started pulling back on AI spending because of the cost.

The competitive context is significant. Claude Code's rapid adoption among developers helped Anthropic pass OpenAI in valuation, according to The Decoder, making it the first time Anthropic has led on that metric. Both companies have filed IPO paperwork under confidentiality: Anthropic plans to list in 2026, and OpenAI is not expected to go public until 2027.

Why it matters

Token pricing sits at the center of every developer and enterprise decision about which API to build on. A price cut by OpenAI would lower the cost of running GPT-4 and successor models in agentic pipelines, making it harder for Anthropic to hold customers it has won on value grounds. If Anthropic matches, the broader market for API-based AI workloads becomes cheaper across the board, which accelerates adoption but deepens the already large losses each company carries.

The valuation flip matters beyond symbolism. Anthropic passing OpenAI changes the narrative that has anchored investor and enterprise perception since ChatGPT launched. Teams that standardized on GPT-4 for stability reasons now have a credible second incumbent to consider, and a price war would raise the switching cost on both sides.

For developers running agentic tools, where a single session can consume millions of tokens, even a 10 to 20 percent price reduction changes the math on per-seat cost. That is the calculation OpenAI appears to be trying to shift back in its favor.

What to watch next

Neither OpenAI nor Anthropic has announced a price change. Watch for official pricing updates on the OpenAI platform changelog and Anthropic's release notes. The more immediate signal is Anthropic's next move: if Anthropic cuts first, OpenAI's calculus changes. Both companies' IPO timelines also create pressure to demonstrate revenue growth alongside any price reduction.

Sources