Anthropic’s Sales and Partnership Costs Rose 26x to $3.2B

Anthropic’s sales, marketing and partnerships expense rose to $3,168 million in the first half of 2026 from $120 million a year earlier, according to the Form S-1 it filed with the SEC on 26 October 2026. That is about 26 times the earlier figure, by our arithmetic, and 19% of revenue, up from 10%.

The filing says the increase “was primarily driven by a $2.7 billion increase in fees paid to channel partners, reflecting the growth of our business”. The Information headlined its own report on the filing “Anthropic S-1 Highlights Rising Payment Costs”; we have read only that headline.

What the Filing Says Drove the Costs

The S-1 says sales, marketing and partnerships expenses “primarily consist of fees paid to channel partners and marketing and advertising costs, including media and public relations spend”. Alongside the $2.7 billion rise in channel-partner fees, it reports a $273 million increase in marketing and advertising expenses, “reflecting higher media spend to support product launches”.

The rise is recent. In 2025 the same line increased by $525 million, of which $341 million came from fees paid to channel partners, the filing says. By quarter, the expense went from $24 million in the three months to 31 March 2025 to $2,135 million in the three months to 30 June 2026, and the S-1 says the most significant increases came in the first two quarters of 2026.

Source: Anthropic, PBC Form S-1, filed with the SEC on 26 October 2026, Quarterly Results of Operations and the same table as a percentage of revenue (unaudited).

The Payment Costs

Payment processing sits in a different line. Other operating and administrative expenses rose to $1,714 million in the first half of 2026 from $306 million, and the filing lists “a $222 million increase in payment processing fees” among the drivers, after data-quality vendor costs and IT and cloud software costs.

Its risk factors say some customers pay for subscriptions by credit card through third-party processors. It has experienced fraudulent activity that “has resulted, and may in the future result, in losses, including payment processing fees, chargeback fees, and fines and penalties imposed by our payment processors or card networks”.

Connecting the Coverage

Our cloud piece reported that about 48% of first-half revenue came through cloud marketplaces, which the S-1 says bill customers and remit payments “net of applicable platform and other fees”, while Anthropic books those sales as principal. Our compute piece covered the fall in compute to 48% of revenue, and our pool piece covered how that compute is run. What is new here is the other cost that grew with revenue: the fees paid to channel partners.

The Structural Read

As we read it, the jump came in the same two quarters in which revenue passed the compute bill, which suggests the channel that brought the revenue also carries its own cost.

The filing itself ties the line to the terms of its channel partner distribution arrangements, which it says can make these expenses fluctuate as a percentage of revenue.

As we read it, the payment-processing rise is smaller but comes with the fraud and chargeback risks the S-1 describes for card-paid subscriptions.

Three Implications

FOR THE CLOUDS The S-1 says cloud marketplaces remit payments net of applicable platform and other fees, and names them as distribution and billing channels.

FOR INVESTORS The filing reports sales, marketing and partnerships expense at 19% of first-half revenue, up from 10%, and says it may fluctuate with the terms of its channel partner arrangements.

FOR COMPETITORS The S-1 shows that selling through partners at this scale carried a $2.7 billion increase in fees in a single half-year.

The Business Engineer Lens

This story maps onto the Business Engineer framework The AI Embedding Business Model.

The analysis argues: “In the embedding era, value comes from what the software connects to.”

As we read it, the S-1 puts a price on those connections: fees paid to channel partners were the main driver of a $3.0 billion rise in sales, marketing and partnerships expense. The analysis was published in December 2025 and does not discuss this filing.

What Is Not Established

We found no breakdown of the channel-partner fees by partner in the S-1, and no fee rate. It does not say how much of the $2.7 billion went to the cloud marketplaces, which it describes as distribution and billing channels.

The filing says it expects these expenses to “fluctuate as a percentage of revenue depending on the timing of and spend on marketing campaigns and changes in the terms of our channel partner distribution arrangements”.

The Bottom Line

Anthropic’s S-1 shows sales, marketing and partnerships expense rising to $3.2 billion in the first half of 2026, about 26 times a year earlier by our arithmetic, which it says was driven primarily by fees paid to channel partners. Payment processing fees rose $222 million in the same period, in a separate expense line.