Anthropic Cloud Marketplace Revenue Hits 48% [2026]

• Marcus Chen
• October 27, 2026
• AI & Machine Learning

Anthropic now gets nearly half of its Claude business revenue through the three biggest cloud companies. Bloomberg reported on October 26 that Anthropic's filing for its planned stock market debut shows that it is becoming more dependent on Google, Amazon and Microsoft. The key number is striking: sales through these three companies' cloud marketplaces made up 48% of Anthropic's revenue in the first half of 2026, up from 11% in 2023.

That 37-percentage-point increase changes how we should understand the company's filing. We have already covered the Anthropic IPO paradox: the company has huge sales but also huge losses. This article looks at a different question: who really controls the relationship with Anthropic's customers? It also examines what revenue from cloud marketplaces means for a company that has promised to spend tens of billions of dollars on computing services from those same partners.

Below, we examine the reported figures, spending commitments, costs of using sales partners, competition and five predictions. We also explain what remains unknown. As of today, the commission rates and comments from company executives have not been confirmed in the reports we reviewed.

What the Filing Shows: 48% of Sales Through Three Clouds

The main finding is easy to explain. Customers can buy Claude through the Google, Amazon or Microsoft cloud accounts they already use. The cloud company bills the customer, keeps a fee or commission, and sends the rest of the money to Anthropic. In the first half of 2026, these marketplace sales made up 48% of Anthropic's revenue. In 2023, they made up 11%.

Yahoo Finance described the result as Anthropic depending on the three companies for nearly half of its revenue. Business Insider's Markets Insider desk called the companies Big Tech rivals. That description points to an important fact: all three companies also develop or sell competing AI products.

Two things stand out. First, Anthropic's dependence on these companies is not new, but it is growing. Second, the relationship works in both directions. Anthropic needs the cloud companies to reach customers, and it has also promised to spend heavily on their computing services. The marketplace figures show the revenue side of this relationship. We examine the costs later in the article.

How Cloud Marketplace Sales of Claude Work

Buying through a cloud marketplace is different from a typical software purchase. A company that already has an Amazon, Google or Microsoft cloud account can add Claude to that account and pay through one bill. It does not need to set up a separate supplier relationship, negotiate a new contract with Anthropic's finance team or, in many cases, go through another security review. The cloud provider may already be an approved supplier.

For Anthropic, the trade-off is clear. It gives up part of each sale but gains access to customers who already have approved budgets and purchasing processes. The cloud provider handles billing, collecting payments and distributing the product. This can help Anthropic sell Claude to large companies faster than if it had to complete the entire sales process itself.

We cannot say how much the cloud companies take from each sale. The reports we reviewed do not reveal the commission rates kept by Google, Amazon or Microsoft, and we will not guess. We can only study the costs indirectly by looking at Anthropic's reported expenses. We do that in the section about sales and marketing costs.

From 11% to 48%: The Three-Year Climb in Numbers

The filing information gives us four figures showing how much of Anthropic's revenue comes through its cloud partners. There is one important warning: the figures for 2024 and 2025 cover only Amazon and Google's parent company, Alphabet. The figure for the first half of 2026 also includes Microsoft. This means the numbers do not measure exactly the same group of companies in every period.

Period	Share of Anthropic revenue via cloud channels	Channels counted
2023	11%	Cloud marketplaces
2024	32%	Amazon and Google
2025	47% (about $2.16 billion)	Amazon and Google
First half of 2026	48%	Google, Amazon and Microsoft

The table tells us two things. From 2023 to the first half of 2026, the share rose by 37 percentage points and became about 4.4 times as large. The biggest increases happened earlier: the share rose 21 percentage points from 2023 to 2024, followed by another 15 points in 2025. It increased by only one more point in the first half of 2026, even though Microsoft was added to the count.

This slower growth could mean that cloud marketplace sales are reaching a stable level. Another possibility is that direct sales are growing at about the same speed as marketplace sales. The available figures cannot tell us which explanation is correct. They do show that cloud marketplaces are no longer a minor way to buy Claude. They have become the main route.

Q2 Results: $11.6 Billion in Revenue, $974 Million in Operating Profit

According to the reports about the filing, Anthropic made $11.6 billion in revenue in the second quarter and earned $974 million in operating profit. Using those two figures, we calculate an operating profit margin of about 8.4%. For a company still building out its AI business, reporting an operating profit is notable.

These results also help put the 48% figure into context. If marketplace sales continue to account for nearly half of revenue, a large part of that $11.6 billion quarter would have passed through a partner's billing system first. We cannot calculate the exact dollar amount for the first half of the year because the sources we reviewed give the marketplace share but not Anthropic's total revenue for that period.

Our earlier report on the 22 banks and the Nasdaq ANT listing covered how the stock offering is being arranged. This article looks at a different issue: the quality of Anthropic's revenue. Sales through three large partners can grow quickly, but they also depend heavily on those partners. Investors will need to consider that concentration.

The Compute Bill: $269.4 Billion in Commitments to the Same Partners

The revenue figures tell only half the story. Anthropic has promised to spend at least $114.5 billion with Google through 2033, $110 billion with Amazon through 2036, and $44.9 billion with Microsoft. Citybiz connected these commitments to the revenue figures, noting that the cloud companies bring in nearly half of Anthropic's revenue while its computing spending commitments continue to grow.

Cloud partner	Minimum spend commitment	Term	Share of the $269.4B total
Google	$114.5 billion	Through 2033	42.5%
Amazon	$110 billion	Through 2036	40.8%
Microsoft	$44.9 billion	End date not in our sources	16.7%
Total	$269.4 billion	Mixed	100%

We added the reported amounts and calculated the percentage shares ourselves. The important point is how the money moves. Anthropic sells Claude through these three cloud companies, pays them fees on those sales, and also promises to buy hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of computing services from them. In other words, Anthropic pays the cloud companies in two ways: through sales fees and through spending on computing infrastructure.

Google has the largest dollar commitment, Amazon has the longest stated spending period, and Microsoft has the smallest commitment. These differences matter when the companies negotiate. A partner with a larger contract has more reason to promote Claude, but it may also have more influence if the companies negotiate new terms when a contract is renewed.

Channel Costs: Sales Expenses Jump From $120 Million to $3.2 Billion

Anthropic's reported expenses offer a useful clue about the cost of using these sales channels. Spending on sales, marketing and partner-related activities rose from $120 million in the first half of the previous year to $3.2 billion in the first half of 2026. That is an increase of about 27 times. Payments to sales partners alone rose by $2.7 billion.

The total expense category increased by about $3.08 billion. If both figures cover the same expense category, the $2.7 billion increase in partner payments would explain about 88% of the total increase. This is our own calculation, not a confirmed accounting breakdown. The reports present the figures as related, but we have not seen detailed records showing exactly how the costs are divided.

Even without knowing the commission rates, the general pattern is clear. As more sales go through marketplaces, more money goes to the partners. The benefit is that Anthropic does not have to build its own global sales team as quickly. The cloud companies also handle billing, payment collection and the first steps in helping customers.

Why Enterprises Buy Claude Through Their Cloud Accounts

For customers, the main reason is practical and does not depend on how good the AI model is. Most large companies already negotiate cloud contracts each year. Getting approval to spend money on AI can be easier when the purchase is included in an agreement the company already has.

Procurement and billing simplicity

Buying through a marketplace means one invoice, one supplier record and one set of legal terms that the customer has already agreed to. A purchasing team that might need months to approve a new software supplier can sometimes complete a marketplace purchase in days. This speed is a real benefit, even though it does not appear on a product specification sheet.

Where it shows up in pricing

Each cloud company also has its own pricing system for Claude. We explained Amazon Bedrock's Flex, Priority and Batch pricing levels and the Microsoft Foundry pricing levels in separate articles. Customers comparing Claude across the three clouds should expect different pricing levels, usage limits and billing terms, depending on where they buy it.

Frenemies: Partners, Suppliers and Rivals at Once

One news report captured the tension well. Futunn described the three companies as both friends and rivals because they control important ways for Anthropic to reach customers. Google sells its own Gemini models, while Amazon and Microsoft also promote their own AI products alongside Claude. Each company offers AI products that compete with the product Anthropic is trying to sell through its marketplace.

An exclusive report from US News dated September 29 had already described Anthropic's stock market filing as showing how strongly the company depends on its Big Tech partners. Reports published on October 26 added the 48% revenue figure and the computing spending commitments, making the situation clearer.

The main risk is not that a cloud company will suddenly stop offering Claude tomorrow. Doing so would also hurt its own business customers. The risk is less obvious. A partner could make Claude less visible in its marketplace, offer discounts that favor its own AI model, or demand less favorable terms when a contract is renewed. Any of these changes could affect the 48% of Anthropic's revenue that passes through these companies.

Claude Enterprise Sales and the Model Cadence

A sales channel is only useful if the product being sold stays competitive. According to Anthropic's release notes, the company launched its Claude 5.5 model family in autumn, including the Opus, Sonnet and Haiku levels. Selling through marketplaces means each new release can reach enterprise customers through three online stores at once, rather than relying only on Anthropic's direct API sales.

This gives the cloud companies another role. They do more than handle billing; they also help new models reach customers. When a new Claude model appears in a customer's existing cloud console, moving from the previous version may require only a change in settings. Readers who want to compare the models can see our comparison of GPT-6.1 Sol, Sonnet 5.5 and Gemini 4 Argon, which looks at their prices and abilities side by side.

Competitive Comparison: Direct Sales vs Cloud Marketplace

The table below compares the two ways to buy Claude, focusing on what matters to customers and Anthropic. It is a general comparison based on how the reported marketplace system works, not a list of officially published contract terms.

Factor	Direct from Anthropic	Via Google, Amazon or Microsoft
Who bills the customer	Anthropic	The cloud provider
Who keeps a fee	No intermediary	The cloud provider (rate not disclosed)
Procurement path	New vendor contract	Existing cloud agreement
Customer relationship	Anthropic owns it	Shared with the provider
Speed to first purchase	Slower for large firms	Faster for existing cloud buyers
Share of H1 2026 revenue	Remainder after 48%	48%

The trade-off is between keeping more money from each sale and reaching more customers. A direct sale lets Anthropic keep the full price without paying an intermediary and gives it more control over the customer relationship. But direct sales require a larger sales team and can take longer to complete. Marketplace sales mean giving up a fee and sharing control of the customer relationship in return for faster purchases and wider reach. With 48% of its revenue coming through marketplaces, Anthropic has clearly chosen to prioritize reach.

Historical Context: Three Years of Growing Channel Dependence

In 2023, cloud marketplaces were a relatively small extra sales channel, accounting for 11% of revenue. The share rose to 32% in 2024 and then to 47% in 2025 for sales through Amazon and Google together. The earlier filing figures put that 2025 amount at about $2.16 billion.

This pattern fits a wider trend in business software. Customers often prefer to manage purchases through one of a small number of cloud accounts. AI model makers have followed their customers. To earn substantial revenue from large companies, they need to sell where those companies already manage their budgets.

What changed in 2026 is the size of the related spending commitments. Promises to spend $114.5 billion with Google, $110 billion with Amazon and $44.9 billion with Microsoft show that these relationships are no longer just about selling products. Anthropic now depends on these companies for both a large part of its revenue and a large part of its computing infrastructure.

Market Impact: What It Means for Investors, Clouds and Rivals

For people considering buying shares in Anthropic's planned IPO, the 48% figure shows that a large part of its revenue depends on a small number of partners. Investors are also taking a risk on the strength of these business relationships. If a partner changes its prices, gives another product better placement or develops a closer competitor, a large share of Anthropic's revenue could be affected. Investors will likely want to see how quickly direct sales and other sales channels grow in the coming quarters.

For the cloud providers, the news is mostly positive. Selling Claude through their marketplaces brings more business customers' AI spending onto their platforms. The computing commitments also give them a reason to expect demand for years to come. Anthropic's stated commitments to Google through 2033 and Amazon through 2036 cover long periods for customer contracts.

For competing AI model makers, the lesson is that distribution matters. A very capable model sold only through the maker's own sales channel may lose business to a model available in the cloud system a customer already uses. This is one reason governments and large organizations are also reviewing which AI tools they allow. For example, see our report on Sweden blocking ChatGPT, Claude and Copilot. Rules about purchasing and approved tools can affect adoption just as much as performance test results.

Five Predictions for Anthropic's Channel Strategy

These are our own predictions based on the reported figures. They are not statements from Anthropic or its partners.

1. The marketplace share stays near half through 2026. The increase from 47% to 48% suggests that the rapid growth may be slowing. We think the next reported figure is most likely to fall between about 45% and 55%.
2. Direct enterprise sales get more investment. A company paying partners billions of dollars to help sell its products has a clear reason to increase the share of sales it handles directly and keeps more revenue from.
3. Investors ask for commission details. When a public company has large costs for using sales partners, financial analysts often ask how much commission it pays, or at least ask for an estimated range.
4. Committed spending becomes a negotiating tool. With $269.4 billion in commitments across three partners, future contract renewals and product placement deals may link the share of revenue earned through each partner to the price of computing services.
5. Availability across multiple clouds remains a selling point. Customers want to avoid being tied to a single provider. Offering Claude through all three major cloud companies will therefore remain an important part of Anthropic's enterprise sales strategy.

What Remains Unconfirmed

Several details are still unknown. The reports we reviewed do not reveal the commission rates kept by Google, Amazon and Microsoft. They also do not show how the 48% share is divided among the three companies. We found no direct quotation, clearly attributed to an executive at Anthropic, Google, Amazon or Microsoft, about this dependence. For that reason, this article does not quote any of their executives on the subject.

We also avoid converting percentages into dollar amounts when the sources do not provide the total revenue needed for the calculation. For more reporting on AI platforms, see our AI and machine learning section, where we follow new details from the filing as they become available.

FAQ: Anthropic, Cloud Marketplaces and the Big Three

What share of Anthropic's revenue comes from Google, Amazon and Microsoft?

Sales through the three companies' cloud marketplaces made up 48% of Anthropic's revenue in the first half of 2026, compared with 11% in 2023, according to reporting by Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance about the filing.

How do customers buy Claude through these clouds?

Customers buy Claude through cloud accounts they already have with Google, Amazon or Microsoft. The cloud company bills the customer, keeps a fee or commission, and sends the remaining money to Anthropic.

How much commission do the cloud providers take?

This has not been confirmed. The sources we reviewed do not give any commission rates. They report that spending on sales, marketing and partners rose from $120 million to $3.2 billion in the first half of 2026, while payments to sales partners increased by $2.7 billion.

How much has Anthropic committed to spend on cloud computing?

Anthropic has committed to spend at least $114.5 billion with Google through 2033, $110 billion with Amazon through 2036 and $44.9 billion with Microsoft. Adding these figures gives a total of $269.4 billion.

Is Anthropic profitable?

The reported second-quarter figures show $11.6 billion in revenue and $974 million in operating profit. Our calculation puts the operating profit margin at about 8.4% for that quarter. Our earlier reporting on the IPO filing discusses the company's broader losses.

Why is dependence on cloud partners a risk?

The same companies provide a large share of Anthropic's sales channels and receive a large share of its spending on computing infrastructure. They also sell competing AI products. If they change how they display Claude, adjust prices or demand different contract terms, a large part of Anthropic's revenue could be affected.

Did any executive comment on the 48% figure?

We found no direct quotation attributed to an executive at Anthropic, Google, Amazon or Microsoft in the reports we reviewed for this article. We therefore do not quote any executive on this issue.