source: simon willison: i think anthropic and openai have found product-market fit
level: business
anthropic and openai have both moved their enterprise plans to api-based pricing, ending heavy discounts for heavy users of coding agents like claude code and codex. anthropic switched in late 2025, while openai followed in april 2026. this means companies now pay per token at rates matching public api prices, which can be thousands of dollars per month per power user. the author's own usage would cost over $2,000 monthly at api rates, compared to $200 in consumer subscriptions.
the shift reflects genuine product-market fit for coding agents, which burn far more tokens than chatbots and are becoming essential tools for well-paid professionals. openai and anthropic are ramping up enterprise sales teams, with roughly 30% of their open job listings focused on sales and support. stories of budget overruns at companies like uber and microsoft's cancellation of claude code licenses suggest customers are feeling the cost but still see value, a classic sign of effective pricing.
revenue from enterprise agents is growing fast, with anthropic rumored to hit $10.9 billion in quarterly revenue and possibly turn a profit for the first time. api revenue from third-party platforms like cursor is becoming less important as the labs sell directly to businesses. a new $1.25 billion monthly compute deal between anthropic and spacex hints at massive inference spending. april 2026 marks an inflection point where agent revenue starts to materially impact both ai labs and enterprise budgets.
why it matters: the pricing shift shows coding agents are now core enterprise tools, directly affecting how data science and ai teams budget for and adopt ai assistants.
source: simon willison: i think anthropic and openai have found product-market fit