Anthropic’s Claude Captures the Attention of Paid Users in ChatGPT’s Dominant Market

Recent analysis indicates that consumers are increasingly opting for Anthropic’s AI model, Claude, according to data from Indagari.

This suggests that Anthropic has a broader and healthier customer base than the limited scope it is often associated with, which primarily includes enterprise users and startups employing Claude Code.

Indagari examines billions of anonymous credit card transactions from approximately 28 million consumers in the U.S. This data, while not providing exact figures on Anthropic’s revenue or customer counts, is extensive enough to identify emerging trends.

In Anthropic’s situation, the trend indicates positive growth.

Data analyzed shows weekly transactions from 2025 through May 10, 2026, which includes payments for subscriptions and API access. The findings reveal a month-on-month growth for Claude’s paying customers and revenue, currently reflecting an increase of about 75% since January 2026.

Remarkably, this growth continued even after a notable increase in March when Anthropic declined to let its models be used by the Trump administration for mass surveillance and autonomous weaponry.

Another sign of Claude’s rising popularity among consumers comes from DataCamp, a platform focused on teaching AI skills with around 20 million active users.

Since the beginning of the year, interest in Claude has surged on DataCamp. The term “Claude” is now the most searched on the site, surpassing even the broader term “AI.” DataCamp reports that while ChatGPT courses remain far more popular among businesses, demand for Claude courses has outpaced ChatGPT by a ratio of three to one among self-directed learners, with an 18-fold increase in course requests in the last month alone.

Despite Claude’s impressive growth, ChatGPT remains the dominant AI option among consumers in all aspects.

Market insights from Sensor Tower also reveal that while Claude has seen significant growth across various platforms this year, it still lags considerably behind ChatGPT in overall popularity.

While growth for ChatGPT has been relatively modest recently, the data implies that it still commands a far larger base of paying users than Claude, according to Indagari.

Even so, there’s no denying that Claude is beginning to close the gap with ChatGPT this year in terms of both revenue from consumers and general market awareness.

As both OpenAI and Anthropic approach the prospect of going public, insights into their business dynamics are increasingly sought after.

The implications of Anthropic’s recent conflict with the U.S. government, particularly a ban on their advanced cybersecurity-focused models being used by international users, raise questions about its potential impact on the company’s growth trajectory.

Nevertheless, available data consistently indicates that Anthropic continues to expand its user base among both consumers and enterprise clients.

Anthropic has chosen not to provide comments at this time.