Anthropic’s Claude’s popularity with paying consumers is skyrocketing

Whatever the final outcome for Anthropic from its dispute with the Department of Defense, the attention it attracted — combined with the company’s funny Super Bowl ads targeting OpenAI and the growing popularity of Claude Code — has made Anthropic more popular with consumers than ever.

An examination of billions of anonymous credit card transactions from approximately 28 million US consumers, conducted for TechCrunch by Intagaria consumer transaction analytics firm, shows that Claude is gaining paid subscribers in record numbers.

Now, as with all big data analysis, there are caveats. Although this data is meaningful, it does not include every consumer. This means that Indagari cannot calculate the total current or new user numbers of Anthropic. It also doesn’t include Claude’s business (which is the bread and butter) or the free tier users (those who don’t pay Anthropic at all). Estimates of total Claude consumer users are all over the map (we’ve seen numbers ranging from 18 million to 30 million), but Anthropic hasn’t disclosed that data. A spokesperson told TechCrunch, however, that Claude’s paid subscriptions have more than doubled this year.

What’s remarkable is that consumers pulled out their wallets in record numbers for Claude between January and February. Also interesting, previous users returned to Claude in record numbers in February as well, Indagari told TechCrunch.

Indagari tells us that the majority of new subscribers are at the lowest tier, “Pro” users ($20 a month, compared to $100 or $200 a month).

Figures up to early March confirm that subscriber growth continues. (Data is available with a two-week lag.)

To recap why consumers may have become much more aware of Claude since January: Anthropic released several Super Bowl ads mocking ChatGPT’s decision to serve ads to its users — and promised that Claude would never do the same. The points were funny and effective (and got under the skin of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman).

But the biggest mess began in late January, when multiple media sites, including the Wall Street Journal and Axios, began reporting on a deeper feud between Anthropic and the DoD. At its core, the controversy was about what the military could and couldn’t do with Anthropic’s AI.

Anthropic has refused to allow the Department of Defense to use its AI models for lethal autonomous operations (AI that can kill people) or for mass surveillance of American citizens. That beef became increasingly public, with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei issuing a strong public statement on February 26, amid threats by the Defense Department to harm Anthropic’s business by labeling the company a supply risk. Which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did. Lawsuits are now underway, although a federal judge this week temporarily blocked the department’s designation.

The growth of new users increased sharply during this period. The increase is particularly sharp between those releases in late January and Amodei’s February 26 statement.

Drama aside, Claude Code and Claude Cowork — developer and productivity tools launched in January — have been subscription drivers. THE Computing The feature, which launched this week, has also sparked a wave, Anthropic tells TechCrunch. This feature allows Claude to independently navigate a computer — clicking, scrolling, and performing actions on his own. It works with Dispatch, which allows users to delegate tasks from their phones. These features are not available to free level users.

However, despite Anthropic’s growth among US consumers willing to pay for AI, Claude lags far behind ChatGPT.

While OpenAI installs spiked immediately after announcing a deal with the Department of Defense—a move that was at odds with Anthropic’s security stand—Indagari’s data shows that OpenAI is still gaining new paid subscribers at a rapid pace and remains the largest consumer AI platform of all.