Claude Captures Paid Users, Pressuring ChatGPT's Dominance

Analysis of credit card transaction data from Indagari reveals a growing preference among paying consumers for Anthropic’s AI model, Claude.

This trend indicates that the AI laboratory is cultivating a broader and more robust customer base, extending beyond the perceived niche of enterprise and startup developers who primarily utilize Claude Code.

Indagari's methodology involves scrutinizing billions of anonymized credit card transactions from approximately 28 million U.S. consumers. While this data does not provide absolute figures for Anthropic’s total revenue or customer count, it offers a sufficiently large sample size to accurately identify significant market trends.

For Anthropic, the observed trend unequivocally points upwards.

The analyzed data, encompassing weekly transactions from 2025 up to May 10, 2026, includes payments for services such as subscriptions and API tokens. It demonstrates consistent month-over-month growth in Claude’s paying consumer base and associated revenue, currently showing an approximate 75% increase within this segment since January 2026.

Remarkably, these gains persisted even following a significant surge in consumer interest during March, a period coinciding with the company's public refusal to permit its models for use by the Trump Administration in mass surveillance of Americans or the development of autonomous weapons.

Further evidence of Claude's burgeoning consumer appeal emerges from DataCamp, an online educational platform reportedly serving approximately 20 million users by teaching AI skills to both individuals and business professionals.

Since the beginning of the year, consumer interest in Claude on DataCamp has seen an explosive rise. According to DataCamp, "Claude" has surpassed "AI" itself to become the most frequently searched term on their platform, as reported to TechCrunch.

Although ChatGPT courses maintain significantly higher popularity within corporate training programs, DataCamp highlights that among self-directed consumers, demand for Claude courses is now three times greater than that for ChatGPT. The company also notes an extraordinary eighteen-fold increase in demand for Claude courses within just the last 30 days.

Nevertheless, despite Claude’s impressive growth trajectory, ChatGPT undeniably retains its position as the overwhelmingly dominant AI choice among consumers across all metrics.

For example, recent findings from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower indicate healthy growth for Claude across various platforms this year, yet it remains considerably behind ChatGPT in overall adoption.

While ChatGPT’s recent growth may appear more subdued, a probable consequence of its already immense market penetration, Indagari’s data confirms that it continues to boast a significantly larger base of paying users.

Despite this, Claude has undeniably begun to close the gap on ChatGPT this year, both in terms of consumer spending and broader public awareness and engagement.

With both OpenAI and Anthropic reportedly on the cusp of transitioning into public companies, there is considerable anticipation to understand the fundamental strengths underpinning their respective business models.

The potential ramifications of Anthropic’s recent dispute with the U.S. government on its business operations remain particularly ambiguous. Earlier this month, the government prohibited Anthropic from making its most potent, cybersecurity-centric models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5, available for use by non-Americans, leading the AI lab to temporarily withdraw them entirely from the market.

However, thus far, all available data points indicate Anthropic’s continued expansion across both its consumer and business/enterprise user segments.

Anthropic chose not to provide a comment on the matter.