OpenAI is earning over $1 billion from something that isn’t ChatGPT — and it’s quietly changing everything
OpenAI is making serious money from something most people barely talk about — and it’s not ChatGPT.
The company has crossed more than $1 billion in revenue from a different part of its business, and the number is still climbing. According to CEO Sam Altman, that money is coming entirely from OpenAI’s API, a side of the company many users don’t even realize exists.
As OpenAI deals with massive computing costs and growing ambitions, this lesser-known revenue stream is starting to feel like a lifeline.
OpenAI recently pulled in a billion-dollar month without relying on ChatGPT subscriptions at all.
In a post on X on Thursday, Sam Altman shared that OpenAI added over $1 billion in annual recurring revenue in just the past month, driven purely by its API business.
“People usually think of us as just ChatGPT,” Altman wrote, “but the API team is doing incredible work.”
You could almost feel the pride in his words.
OpenAI’s API allows companies and developers to plug its AI models directly into their own products. That means OpenAI’s technology is quietly working behind the scenes — helping teams write code faster, analyze data, answer questions, and build smarter tools.
Some of Silicon Valley’s most talked-about startups rely on this foundation. Perplexity uses OpenAI models to power parts of its AI search engine. Harvey, one of the fastest-growing legal tech companies, depends on OpenAI’s models to help lawyers research cases and draft documents.
These companies may have different logos, but deep down, OpenAI’s tech is doing a lot of the heavy lifting.
Altman’s comments highlight something important: OpenAI isn’t just a consumer app company anymore. Its infrastructure business is becoming a major growth engine, even as it struggles with enormous costs tied to data centers and computing power.
Those financial pressures are real — and they’re pushing OpenAI to think differently about how it makes money.
That’s why the company is now looking beyond subscriptions.
Just last week, OpenAI revealed plans to experiment with ads inside ChatGPT, a move that would have been unthinkable not long ago. The shift comes as the company faces around $1.4 trillion in long-term spending commitments.
For OpenAI, this isn’t an easy decision.
Not even two years ago, Altman openly described advertising as a “last resort.”
“Ads plus AI feels uniquely unsettling to me,” he said at a Harvard University event in May 2024. “I really think of ads as a last option for our business model.”
That discomfort hasn’t fully disappeared — but reality has softened his stance.
By June, Altman sounded more open, saying on OpenAI’s podcast that he wasn’t “totally against” ads, as long as they were handled carefully and thoughtfully.
Around the same time, OpenAI’s chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, floated another idea: licensing OpenAI’s models in a way that lets the company share in future success.
She gave a powerful example.
Imagine OpenAI licenses its technology for drug discovery. A customer uses it, makes a breakthrough, and creates a life-changing medicine. If that drug succeeds, OpenAI would receive a portion of the sales.
“If the drug takes off,” Friar explained on The OpenAI Podcast, “we get a licensed share of all its revenue.”
It’s a model built on partnership — and patience.
Together, these moves show a company at a turning point. OpenAI is no longer just chasing innovation. It’s balancing ambition with survival, ideals with economics, and excitement with hard choices — all while quietly building a business far bigger than ChatGPT alone.
