Anthropic becomes the 'Apple of AI' as it grabs most revenue despite being
the most expensive

Date:
Sat, 15 Aug 2026 17:05:00 +0000

Description:
Vercel analysis reveals Anthropic is dominating both token volume and spend, despite being more expensive than competitors.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Volume and spend on tokens for Anthropics AI solutions made it more revenue than any of its competitors in July 2026, cementing its position as the top LLM provider This success is despite Anthropics tokens being more expensive than its competitors The data was collated by Vercels AI Gateway, an API service that routes LLMs for easy AI provider swapping Monthly analysis of the AI industry has revealed a
number of surprises for July 2026, not least the continued growth of
Anthropic both in terms of revenue and token use.

This is despite the company charging a higher rate for tokens, AIs computational data currency. The data was compiled by agentic infrastructure company Vercel, whose AI Gateway is used by many major companies and developers, and found the price-per-token average across all analysed platforms fell following two months of growth in May and June. Despite the overall 37% increase in spend across the industry, the cost per token rate dropped. Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here: Anthropic growth Vercels analysis of transactions through its APIs has repeatedly demonstrated a dominance for Anthropic. Its reporting on gateway spend started in December 2025 and in every month since, Anthropic has had over 60% of the spend share, and in July that figure sat at 65.1% with 30% of the total volume (of all tokens sent through the Vercel AI Gateway).

Yet the average price per token was on 4.4 times higher than the overall average across all AI labs. Token prices have rarely proved to be steady,
with Vercels data reporting an average price drop of 13.6% after a 20% rise
in May and little change in June. You may like "Either you betray your
values, or you become irrelevant": Quote of the day by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Beyond Tokenmaxxing: the rising token tax on enterprise AI Beware the token trap: Why saving on inference might put your ADLC at risk

(For reference, the reports definition of the price per token is the total spend divided by the total volume.)

Despite a higher price per token, however, Anthropics price per token was lower in July, a change attributed to the return to public access of Claude Fable 5 after its temporary suspension. Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Contact me
with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Monthly data collection Vercels monthly look at the data that flows through its API paints a fascinating picture not just of Anthropics growth, but of the performance (or otherwise) of its competitors.

For example, it charts Chinese AI company DeepSeeks surprise growth from May, through June; the report notes that we said an open-weight lab would soon be second by volume. In July, DeepSeek surpassed Google to take that place.

DeepSeeks growth over Google has proved to be a surprise, one that puts it in second place on volume. The real story is Anthropics gradual cementing of its strong position over the rest of the LLM makers. Its larger revenue pull despite higher token price indicates that the recent iterations of Claude and anticipation over the gradual release of Mythos 5 are giving the company a strong reputation much like Apple . Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/anthropic-becomes-the-apple-of-ai-as-it-grabs-mo st-revenue-despite-being-the-most-expensive


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