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Anthropic has increased its reported advertising expenses from 33 million US dollars (2024) to 147 million dollars (2025). In the first half of 2026, the more broadly defined marketing and advertising costs grew by a further 273 million dollars compared with the same period in the previous year. This is according to the 26 October 2026 IPO prospectus (Form S-) filed with the US regulator SEC1 and published . For advertising agencies, the interesting point is not only the demand for media: the Claude provider is building brand awareness without itself offering ad placements in its assistant.
What the figures actually cover
| Metric | Period | Value | | --- | --- | --- | | Reported advertising expenses | 2024 | 33 million US dollars | | Reported advertising expenses | 2025 | 147 million US dollars | | Increase in marketing and advertising costs | first half of 2026 compared with prior year | 273 million US dollars | | Total sales, marketing and partner costs | first half of 2026 | 3,168 billion US dollars |
The distinction matters. 147 million dollars is an annual figure for advertising, while the additional 273 million dollars represents a change in a broader cost category – not the complete advertising calculation for 2026. Likewise, the 3,168 billion dollars in total must not be described as a media budget: according to the prospectus, by far the largest part of the increase comes from about 2,7 billion dollars higher fees to sales partners, for example for sales through cloud channels.
For 2025, Anthropic attributes the higher marketing costs to media relations, PR and product launches. This makes the figures a solid indication of the importance of brand management, not proof of which individual campaigns generated revenue. Digiday first drew attention to the advertising expenses on 27 October; the figures can be checked directly in the SEC document.
Growth does not automatically mean advertising ROI
The Claude provider's business is growing considerably: in the first half of 2026, Anthropic generated 16,286 billion dollars in revenue according to the prospectus, compared with 1,163 billion dollars a year earlier. The main revenue stream comes from usage-based fees for models and APIs. However, to evaluate the advertising spend, public information on channel mix, customer acquisition costs, organic demand and incremental conversions is missing. The revenue jump is not a controlled measurement of advertising impact.
For German B2B marketers in particular, there is a lesson here: for high-priced software and AI products, brand campaigns, partner sales and product usage should be evaluated separately. A growing sales budget could otherwise be wrongly seen as the performance of a paid media campaign. How AI providers also test direct creator sales is shown in our article on Perplexity's creator marketing with more than 100 creators.
Two business models for AI – only one sells ad placements
Anthropic focuses on the use of Claude via subscriptions and usage-based API billing. This must be distinguished from the advertising model of competitor OpenAI: according to OpenAI's announcement of 21 October 2026, ChatGPT ads are available in 89 countries; more than 100.000 advertisers have already run campaigns there. Germany has been one of the markets since August. Details are in our overview of ChatGPT Ads in Germany.
This contrast makes Anthropic interesting as an advertising customer: the company must build its awareness outside its own application, while OpenAI additionally markets its own advertising inventory. However, no reliable conclusion can be drawn from this about long-term monetisation or user trust. For ChatGPT Ads too, there are open questions about attribution and measuring success.
What German agencies can take from this
What matters is a clean separation of brand lift, product-driven demand, partner commissions and paid acquisition. Anyone promoting AI products should check campaign and channel KPIs against actual usage, activation and customer retention. In the prospectus, Anthropic explicitly names brand awareness as a competitive factor, but does not provide a detailed channel list or an independent marketing ROI study.
The company confirmed its planned IPO on 26 October on its own website. The intended Nasdaq ticker is ANT; the number of shares and the price range had not yet been set at the time of the announcement. The prospectus is therefore a snapshot, not a final market price.
Sources: Anthropic S-1 filed with the SEC, Anthropic company announcement, Digiday, OpenAI on ChatGPT Ads.