ChatGPT Revenue and Usage Statistics (2025)

ChatGPT has taken the world by storm, setting a record for the fastest app to reach a 100 million users, which it hit in two months. The implications of this tool are far-reaching, universities around the world scrambled for a way to detect ChatGPT in submitted essays, entire divisions of companies shifted priority to learning how to interact with the chatbot, and all of the tech giants refocused efforts around AI.

For those unaware, ChatGPT is a chatbot launched by OpenAI, a research laboratory founded by some of the biggest names in tech such as Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, and Sam Altman. It has created a lot of press due to its breadth of capabilities, from answering questions and following up on secondary queries, to writing essays, to being a coding buddy.

ChatGPT is built on top of OpenAI’s GPT large language model, which is still considered the most sophisticated model available for general use. It is also a foundational model, as it is the framework for all three of OpenAI’s consumer AI apps: ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Codex.

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Even though ChatGPT is far from a complete product, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman saying on Twitter that it is “incredibly limited” and “a mistake to rely on it for anything important”, many have used it as a tool to automate emails, essays and a few news sites have even used the tool to write content for them (Business of Apps is not one of those).

Demand for ChatGPT has been far greater than OpenAI expected. To monetize that demand, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month, which provides subscribers with access to ChatGPT even at peak times, faster response time, and priority access to new features.

Running an AI chatbot at this scale is not cheap, with some estimating the cost to be over $15 million per day for OpenAI. This may be partly why the company allied itself with Microsoft, which alongside investing over $10 billion in the company also gives either preferential rates to Microsoft Azure.

In return, Microsoft embedded ChatGPT into a lot of its services, including Azure, which has an OpenAI service that includes integrations with GPT, ChatGPT, DALLE and Codex. Microsoft also launched a new version of its Bing search engine in 2023 with ChatGPT included.

The hope, at least for Microsoft, is that ChatGPT is the next version of search. Microsoft, alongside Amazon, Apple, and Google, all perceived the next step in search to be voice assistants, but these services have not taken over in the way some expected in the mid-2010s. Microsoft has all but abandoned Cortana, its own voice assistant.

We have collected data and statistics on ChatGPT. Read on below to find out more. Want to dig deeper? Check out our AI app report.

ChatGPT Key Statistics 

• ChatGPT generated $2.7 billion for OpenAI in 2024, a 285% increase on the previous year
• ChatGPT has 400 million active users, who access the app once a week
• ChatGPT set a record as the fastest app to reach 100 million active users, reaching that milestone in two months
• ChatGPT was downloaded 280 million times in 2024, a 171% increase on 2023 figures
• OpenAI has been most recently valued at $300 billion, in a $40 billion funding round led by SoftBank

AI App Report 2024

Want to learn more about the AI app industry? In our AI App report, we cover financials, forecasts, usage, downloads, demographics and benchmarking data.

ChatGPT Overview

ChatGPT Revenue

ChatGPT made OpenAI $2.7 billion revenue in 2024, accounting for about 75% of the company’s total revenues.

ChatGPT revenue 2022 to 2024 ($mm)

Sources: Reuters, The Information

ChatGPT Users 

ChatGPT reached 100 million users in two months and reached 400 million by the start of 2025.

ChatGPT active users 2022 to 2025 (mm)

Sources: Bloomberg, CBS, Reuters

ChatGPT Downloads 

ChatGPT quickly became one of the most popular apps on both app stores, regularly hitting the top ten most downloaded apps in the world charts.

ChatGPT downloads 2023 to 2024 (mm)

Sources: Appfigures, AppMagic

OpenAI Valuation

OpenAI has seen its valuation rapidly increase over the past two years, with the most recent funding round in March valuing the startup at $300 billion.

OpenAI valuation 2022 to 2025 ($bn)

Source: CNBC

OpenAI Funding Rounds

OpenAI has had 10 funding rounds, although the latest was a debt financing round rather than the typical investment round. It has received over $22 billion from these funding rounds, and probably a few million more from the undisclosed ones.

OpenAI funding rounds 2016 to 2025

Source: Crunchbase

AI App Users

Over 300 million people use AI apps worldwide, with ChatGPT being the most widely used.

AI app users 2021 to 2024 (mm)

Want to learn more about AI apps? Check out the AI App Report

ChatGPT FAQ

How much does it cost to run ChatGPT?

Some have estimated it would cost $3 million per month for OpenAI to run ChatGPT, although that was in December when there was far less traffic (Tom Goldstein)

How much of a stake does Elon Musk have in OpenAI?

Elon Musk sold his entire stake of OpenAI to Microsoft in 2018 and is not affiliated with the company (Bisma Farrukh)

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