r/stocks
OpenAI Considers Drastic Price Cuts, Anticipating War for Users With Anthropic
OpenAI plans drastic price cuts to compete with Anthropic, raising concerns over eroding margins and AI ROI.
- Drastic price cuts could erode profit margins for AI companies already losing billions on computing costs.
- Corporate executives are balking at high AI usage costs and seeking to rein in spending.
- Debate over 'tokenmaxxing' highlights doubts about linking AI productivity improvements to actual ROI.
OpenAI is considering drastically lowering the prices it charges users as it seeks to win customers from its rival Anthropic.
The company is weighing significant cuts to what it charges for tokens, the unit of measurement artificial-intelligence firms use to bill for their products, according to people familiar with the matter. The move would be in anticipation of similar cuts the company expects at Anthropic, the people said.
Business executives have begun to balk at the high prices for AI usage. OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said at a recent event that costs had become “a huge issue.”
“I think we’ll have a lot of ways we can help people get more value for less spend,” he said.
Drastic price cuts could potentially erode the profit margins of both companies, which already lose billions of dollars because of the enormous cost for computing resources needed for AI systems to process queries and carry out tasks.
OpenAI is trying to catch up with its younger rival in the race to win enterprise customers that are paying large amounts of money for AI tools that can improve workplace productivity. Anthropic’s revenue recently surged after its coding tool Claude Code went viral among software engineers, and the five-year-old startup surpassed OpenAI’s valuation for the first time. OpenAI has since made its own coding tool Codex a focus of the company.
Some corporations poured so much money into Anthropic’s products that their leaders are now seeking to rein in spending. Earlier this year, an Uber executive said the company had maxed out its 2026 budget for agentic, or autonomous, AI use, and another company leader said last month that it was difficult to link AI coding productivity improvements to new customer features.
Such comments from many executives have triggered a debate within Silicon Valley about tokenmaxxing, or the practice of using as many tokens as possible to boost productivity, including in ways that don’t generate returns on investment.
Read More
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-considers-drastic-price-cuts-anticipating-war-for-users-with-anthropic-9b8c178e?mod=mhp
Yeah and Sam Altman the Temu Steve Jobs is like at least 10 of their problems lol. I know tech CEOs in general aren’t like all the personable most of the time, but that guy is even more unlikable than Elon
that guy is even more unlikable than Elon
that's a stretch
Yeah gimme some reasons why he sucks more dog shit than the cringe father
He SA'd his sister when they were younger. His AI was told to deny it lol
Chat, make me an image of Altman sucking dog shit
Lol please. Not that Altman isnt an absolute twat but Elon taking being irredeemable cringelord to another level.
Sam Altman is orders of magnitude more likable than Elon musk
Thats not true. I dont trust Peter Molyneux anymore.
AI agents literally just started actually working at the level of reliability needed for ROI, in 2025 they barely worked at all. Things like Claude Code and Cowork are just starting to actually be able to do real work, and soon will be delivering massive value. So while the chatbot layer is probably starting to see diminishing returns, the assistant/agent layer that does work for you is just starting to take off
Does the work it do at the cost it entails benefit the company though? This shit os mad expensove and Jr devs arent
And to do so they cost more than a human, but without out persistent knowledge.
This is why I find it pretty funny how some people thought Google were stupid for treating AI as a winner takes all thing. Sooner or later the competitors will run out of steam whilst the leader will continue to build their lead.
Their issue is that the 200 dollar plan is also losing them money.
You have to be willing to forego any semblance of data privacy to use Fable. Mandatory data sharing and retention will be wildly unpopular with large enterprises.
They got 99 problems
So it's going to get widespread adoption despite being so expensive you have to carefully consider every single query so you don't blow out your usage? They better make this wayyyyy cheaper if they want it to be more than a toy.
I got routed to Opus for asking some lawn maintenance questions, apparently "Biology" is considered a security sensitive topic, they're afraid I'll turn my lawn into a biological weapon.
Even geniuses make stupid mistakes. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be useful.
But they need to though. It's either getting left behind or jumps ball deep. Both are stupid decision, so they'll get shit on either way.
Yeah it's always the next model that's going to take off. Except the same fundamental problems are still there, no continual learning, etc.
How is image gen going to make any money? Maybe they can take over the entire market cap of the stock photo industry which is absolutely nothing.
What he’s saying is not that you \_could\_ do these things.
It’s that using AI to write software is very different from using AI to give you legal advice or create your marketing materials.
Software you can immediately see for yourself if it works or not. You can also have automated tests and say if it passes then it’s done.
You can’t do that in many industries, there’s no way for you to look at a legal advice and say “it works!”, there’s no “automated testing” for legal advice. Same with Marketing, or writing etc.
There’s no automated testing for writing a good book.
That’s where the software example wildly differs from a lot of other industries.
It's not a ridiculous assertion, just look at your coder friends/coworkers whoever is spending money on tokens. It's always going to be overwhelmingly in favour for whatever is the best
Yup. Best case for the AI companies is that they end up like airlines: sure, they offer a valuable service, but it’s highly commoditized and requires heavy capital spending. And they will be priced similarly to airlines. The market just hasn’t realized it yet.
Seems like a nightmare for thei payment responsibilities
As just a retail customer, I think my $13/ month ChatGPT subscription is well worth it. There will be volatility during these IPOs ,certainly.
My play is to accumulate MSFT now. Check the chart…approaching support, quick bounce ?
You too!
doubt it
Coding agents are one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life. If you haven't used one, do it right now.
But... The competition is cut throat. There are like 30+ different companies with models and you could use an open source model with a $5000 rig at home and run it through VS or Cursor (I think).
It's like search, but the customers pay the bill. Price competition is going to be fierce.
I don't remember if you have a question.
Just make a better product. I literally cannot go back after going to Claude code
That is true. But they don’t really matter
Enterprise market penetration is largely measured via “what percent of F500 is locked in”
I’ve heard this phrase verbatim when ppl talking about ServiceNows success
VC startups funneling money back into the labs from their portfolio companies already happens. And that’s not enough revenue to make a difference empirically
Well, it could signal they're playing for a different part of the market because they don't think they can compete on enterprise delivery. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out anyway.