The world doesn't make sense to me. I use 5.6 Luna. Deepseek v4 flash 0731. And kimi k3. Don't even need claude anymore at their insane prices for anything I do.
If you're primarily writing code yourself or meticulously reviewing the output from agents, then you're right. However, if you tried to have any of those models one-shot an app or do some highly agentic work, they would certainly fail. That's the future people are looking towards with these valuations: when its no longer economical for humans to write or even understand code, just let the models drive because they are superhuman at it. Not saying we are there today, but that's when you really start to see the benefit of more expensive models. Luna or Deepseek flash would never find any of the mathematical discoveries or security exploits that the larger models can find.
What enterprises pay for is all that matters. They pay insane amounts for a lot of things I would never do personally, but I'm not the target demographic in those cases.
200usd/mo for Claude gives me tens of thousands of dollars of value.
API prices are paid by companies getting tens of millions of dollars of value.
In normal life money is the key constraint; buy this don't buy that etc. - whereas in VC funded companies the constraint is time. If you as a founder get funding and don't spend it fast enough you put yourself at serious risk of being replaced.
When enough of the world operates on that principle it creates a highly price insensitive market and that then can support a ton of ideas and experiments, some of which turn out to be really really good. It's a wild way to do innovation but it's been working well for decades.
$200/mo of Claude may give you what would have cost tens of thousands of dollars to create in 2023, but the value of what it creates isn't there anymore. It should be compared against what it would cost to create with other tools, not against the cost of you doing it by hand.
Otherwise would be like justifying an obviously overpriced car, because "it saves me so much compared to carrying things thousands of miles by hand!"
They might raise the price, but I don't think they will ever get rid of the $20 tier. It is way too consumer friendly and likely has the highest percentage of users that aren't abusing their quota limits. A layperson will be extremely hard pressed to create an API key, know what to do with it, put money in their account. People want an easy subscription.
> "Could they (Anthropic) get a $2 trillion valuation, yeah they could and I just wonder if it would stay there over time"
Can someone explain exactly how the market can in any sense support not one but two trillion dollar valuations (referencing spacex as the first)? (I imagine openai will likely be in the same ballpark) genuinely we're reaching "elementary levels of big funny number" in the market.
With the (unknown?) blend of consumer vs enterprise customers, what do "experts" project their margins to be around?
Some notes from me researching trying to answer my own question:
> Wall Street experts and financial research firms project Anthropic’s current blended gross margins to be in the mid-40% to mid-60% range, with internal company forecasts aiming for a software-like 77% gross margin by 2028
> Anthropic’s revenue is heavily dominated by enterprise and developer customers (roughly 75% to 85% of total revenue).
> Premium Token Pricing: Enterprise and API clients generate 3 to 5 times more revenue per token than consumer users.
I love Claude but as soon as there is a viable replacement and I get around to it, I’m gone. I have zero loyalty to a chatbot and when the interface is just text the cost of switching is up to my personal whims.
I switched to codex after using Claude for a year. Faster, cheaper and smart (not sure smarter) but it likes to do things by itself without asking for clarification.
> Anthropic has projected revenue of at least $10.9 billion for the second quarter of 2026, more than double the previous quarter, on track for its first quarterly operating profit of $559 million.
API prices are paid by companies getting tens of millions of dollars of value.
In normal life money is the key constraint; buy this don't buy that etc. - whereas in VC funded companies the constraint is time. If you as a founder get funding and don't spend it fast enough you put yourself at serious risk of being replaced.
When enough of the world operates on that principle it creates a highly price insensitive market and that then can support a ton of ideas and experiments, some of which turn out to be really really good. It's a wild way to do innovation but it's been working well for decades.
$200/mo of Claude may give you what would have cost tens of thousands of dollars to create in 2023, but the value of what it creates isn't there anymore. It should be compared against what it would cost to create with other tools, not against the cost of you doing it by hand.
Otherwise would be like justifying an obviously overpriced car, because "it saves me so much compared to carrying things thousands of miles by hand!"
What insane price is that? Pro is $20 per month. Same price as a Netflix ad free sub.
Can someone explain exactly how the market can in any sense support not one but two trillion dollar valuations (referencing spacex as the first)? (I imagine openai will likely be in the same ballpark) genuinely we're reaching "elementary levels of big funny number" in the market.
Some notes from me researching trying to answer my own question:
> Wall Street experts and financial research firms project Anthropic’s current blended gross margins to be in the mid-40% to mid-60% range, with internal company forecasts aiming for a software-like 77% gross margin by 2028
> Anthropic’s revenue is heavily dominated by enterprise and developer customers (roughly 75% to 85% of total revenue).
> Premium Token Pricing: Enterprise and API clients generate 3 to 5 times more revenue per token than consumer users.
Net is estimated to be between 10% and 30%