Claude’s paid – Credit card transaction trends analyzed from about 28 million U.S. consumers show Anthropic’s Claude gaining ground with paid users, with spending on Claude up about 75% since January 2026 in the measured segment. The shift comes as interest in Claude surged o
For people paying for AI, the shopping list is changing—quietly at first, then unmistakably.
Transaction data analyzed from about 28 million U.S. consumers suggests more of that money is now going to Anthropic’s Claude instead of the market leader. The pattern shows up in credit card spending tracked by Indagari: consumers who pay for AI have been increasingly choosing Claude. and the trend has kept climbing month after month.
The dataset can’t reveal absolute customer counts or Anthropic’s exact revenue, but it is broad enough to spot direction. Indagari’s analysis covers weekly transactions from 2025 through May 10, 2026, including payments for subscriptions and API tokens—where “paying” isn’t an abstraction.
In Anthropic’s case, the data is “up and to the right.” Claude’s paying-consumer spending in the measured segment is currently up about 75% since January 2026. And the growth didn’t wait for a single headline moment to keep going.
It continued even after a flashpoint earlier in March. when Anthropic refused to allow its models to be used by the Trump Administration for mass surveillance of Americans and autonomous weapons. That refusal triggered a growth spike from consumers in March, but the gains kept rolling forward rather than stalling.
Interest outside direct spending is rising too. DataCamp. an online education platform that teaches AI skills to consumers and business employees and says it has about 20 million users. told TechCrunch that searches for “Claude” on its site have exploded since the start of the year. “Claude” is now the most searched term on the platform—more than “AI” itself.
DataCamp’s numbers also show how quickly consumer demand can diverge from corporate training. ChatGPT courses remain far more popular with businesses doing corporate training, the company said. But among self-directed consumers, demand for Claude courses is outpacing ChatGPT by three to one. DataCamp adds that demand for courses on Claude increased 18x in the last 30 days alone.
For all of that momentum, Claude hasn’t dethroned ChatGPT yet. ChatGPT is still the most popular AI with consumers in every way, including scale and reach. Sensor Tower data shows Claude growing across all platforms this year, but still far behind ChatGPT.
Indagari’s transaction trend similarly points to a continuing gap in paying users: ChatGPT still has many more of them. Even with Claude’s stronger lift in dollars collected from consumers and rising general awareness, ChatGPT remains the center of gravity.
Underneath the competition is a bigger shift—both OpenAI and Anthropic are standing on the threshold of becoming public companies, and investors will want to see whether today’s consumer interest translates into lasting revenue.
For Anthropic, that question is sharpened by its recent conflict with the U.S. government. Earlier this month. the government banned Anthropic from allowing its most powerful. cybersecurity-focused models. Mythos 5 and Fable 5. from being used by non-Americans. Anthropic pulled those models from the market altogether for now.
Anthropic declined to comment.
Still. the transaction and consumer-interest snapshots being analyzed right now suggest Anthropic hasn’t lost momentum in the broader market—at least not yet. Indagari’s data and the early signals from education demand point to continued growth in both consumer and business/enterprise users. even as the company navigates the fallout from the government ban.
Anthropic Claude ChatGPT AI subscriptions API tokens credit card transaction analysis Indagari DataCamp Sensor Tower Mythos 5 Fable 5 cybersecurity models U.S. government ban