OpenAI’s $200B Revenue Target for 2030: The Path and the Pressure

OpenAI’s financial projections show a trajectory from $4B in 2024 to $200B by 2030—a 50x increase in six years. Understanding what this requires reveals why the company’s strategic choices are becoming increasingly constrained.

The Revenue Trajectory

The Revenue Composition Challenge

Current revenue sources:

• ChatGPT subscriptions: Majority of current revenue
• API sales: Growing share ($1B annualized added in January 2026 alone)
• Enterprise: CFO Sarah Friar noted will reach 50% of revenue by end of 2025

But the “new products including free user monetization” category—which includes advertising—doesn’t become material until 2027-2028.

The Pressure Points

• 800M weekly users who cost money to serve
• Agent revenue cut by 50% to $1.4B for 2025
• Massive compute costs that continue to grow
• Competition intensifying from Anthropic, Google, and others

Why It Matters

Google generates more advertising revenue in a single quarter ($74B) than OpenAI projects in total revenue for all of 2025 ($13B). This financial asymmetry explains everything about the protocol strategies being deployed.

OpenAI must find sustainable economics before the capital runs out. Google can afford to experiment indefinitely.

Read the full analysis: The OpenAI’s Three Souls Problem