OpenAI makes ChatGPT, used by more than a billion people a week. It is the most valuable private company in AI and is raising money at about $1.4 trillion, but it also expects to burn hundreds of billions of dollars before it turns a profit. An IPO is planned for 2027.
Company values in billions: the scenario model’s range, the probability-weighted value, the March round and the round now being discussed. The copper line marks the base case.
Written on October 21, 2026. Figures are from company statements and news reports, as linked; they are not audited. Not investment advice. This company is private, so there is no share price; values are for the whole company. The author holds no shares.
OpenAI sells ChatGPT subscriptions to consumers and businesses, API access to developers, and since 2026 advertising inside ChatGPT. It converted from a capped-profit structure into a public benefit corporation, OpenAI Group PBC, in October 2025. The nonprofit OpenAI Foundation controls it and owns about a quarter; Microsoft owns about 27%.
OpenAI says its annual revenue pace reached $50 billion after the launch of its newest model and expects $70 billion by year-end. It books revenue net of the share paid to partners such as Microsoft, which makes its figures look smaller than Anthropic’s on a like-for-like basis. Growth stalled for several months in early 2026 before picking up again.
| Figure | Status | |
|---|---|---|
| Operating loss, 2025 | About $21B | Leaked financials |
| Expected cash burn, 2026–2030 | About $278B in total | Leaked plan |
| Compute plans | About $856B through 2030 (Azure, Oracle, Stargate) | Reported |
| Profit | Not expected before 2029–2030 | Reported plans |
OpenAI spends far more on computing than it earns. Its plan relies on partners (Microsoft, Oracle, SoftBank’s Stargate venture) financing much of the infrastructure, and on raising new money roughly every year until revenue catches up.
In March 2026 OpenAI closed a $122 billion round at $852 billion, anchored by Amazon ($50 billion), Nvidia ($30 billion) and SoftBank ($30 billion). In October it was reported to be raising about $30 billion more at a valuation above $1.4 trillion, before Anthropic’s IPO. Sam Altman has said listing in 2026 would be ill-advised; the IPO is expected in 2027.
Valued on 2030 earning power and discounted at 15% a year, before the new shares OpenAI will issue to cover its cash burn, which would lower each existing share’s value.
| Bear | Base | Bull | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue in 2030 | $150B | $280B | $450B |
| Operating margin | 10% | 25% | 35% |
| Exit multiple | 20× | 25× | 25× |
| Company value today | $136B | $790B | $1.78T |
| Probability | 25% | 50% | 25% |
Weighted 25/50/25: about $870 billion, close to the March round.
The values above are for the whole company in 2030. A private company that is still burning cash pays for it by selling new shares, and the money those buyers put in is theirs, not today’s owners’. So the value of a stake bought today is the whole-company value less the present value of the capital still to be raised. The table shows that for several amounts raised evenly over the next four years, discounted at the model’s 15%. “Share sold” is how much of the company those raises would buy at the last valuation of $852B; at a lower price, the share sold would be larger.
| Capital raised before 2030 | Share sold at the last valuation | Value to today’s owners (base case) | Against the last valuation |
|---|---|---|---|
| None | 0% | $790B | −7% |
| $50B | 6% | $752B | −12% |
| $100B | 11% | $713B | −16% |
| $200B | 19% | $637B | −25% |
Every figure in this valuation comes from one model script, rerun and checked against this page each time the site is built. The XLSX model rebuilds it in live formulas: change any blue input and every year’s cash flow, the bridge to the value, the scenarios and the sensitivity table recalculate.
| To justify the price, you need | Against |
|---|---|
| $852B: about $300B of revenue in 2030 at a 25% margin | About $50B annualised today |
| $1.4T: about $500B | Above the base case |
| Risk | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Cash burn | Hundreds of billions to fund before profit; each round dilutes. |
| Competition | Anthropic leads in business and coding; Google bundles AI free. |
| Partners | Microsoft is an investor, supplier and competitor at once. |
| Governance | The nonprofit foundation controls the company. |
Upside: the largest consumer AI audience, advertising, devices and agents could make ChatGPT the main way people use the internet.
There is no way to buy OpenAI directly before its expected 2027 IPO. The base case supports roughly the March valuation; the $1.4 trillion round prices in more than that, before the dilution its cash burn will require.
What would change the value: Revenue growth against the $50 billion annual pace, progress on advertising, and the size of future funding rounds are the inputs to watch.
Private companies are not rated: there is no price at which to buy them. The values above are for the whole company, before the dilution that future funding rounds would bring. How ratings work
Its value depends on turning a billion users into profit before the money runs out.
| What | Figures | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Discount rate inputs | 10-year Treasury 5.15%, equity risk premium 4.5% | Fixed for every report so they can be compared; How ratings work |
| Valuation | Every value, case and sensitivity | This site’s model: XLSX, CSV |
| Checked by hand | Not yet | Reports are added to the audit log as they are revised |
| Input | Bear (10th percentile) | Base (median) | Bull (90th percentile) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue, target year | $150B | $280B | $450B |
| Margin, target year | 10.0% | 25.0% | 35.0% |
| Exit multiple | 20× | 25× | 25× |
| Simulation result | |
|---|---|
| Expected value (average of 4,000 runs) | $835B |
| Likely range, 10th to 90th percentile | $165B to $1,628B |
| Median | $729B |
Each input is drawn from a split normal: its bear and bull values are the 10th and 90th percentiles, so the two sides can differ. Business inputs share a common factor (correlation 0.6); the discount rate is the same in every case, so it is not drawn. Inputs not listed are held at their base value. How the simulation works.