AI feels cheap right now—but that may be tech's biggest illusion.

From ChatGPT to Claude, users pay about $20 a month for tools that rank among the most expensive software ever built. Yet newly surfaced financials, reported by the WSJ ahead of potential IPOs, suggest that pricing may be unsustainably low.

The Math Isn't Working, Yet

OpenAI is projected to spend roughly $121 billion on compute by 2028, with losses remaining steep despite rising revenue. Anthropic is smaller, but on a similar path. Crucially, inference—the cost of serving users—already eats up more than half of revenue at both firms. The more usage grows, the more costs scale.

For now, profitability ...