Anthropic’s Claude popularity with paying consumers is skyrocketing

Whatever the ultimate outcome for Anthropic from its feud with the Department of Defense, the attention it has generated – coupled with the company’s funny Super Bowl ads targeting OpenAI and the rising popularity of Claude Code – has made Anthropic more popular with consumers than ever.

A study of billions of anonymized credit card transactions from approximately 28 million US consumers, conducted for TechCrunch by Indagaria company that analyzes consumer transactions shows that Claude is gaining paid subscribers in record numbers.

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

It is striking that consumers opened their wallets for Claude in record numbers between January and February. Also of interest: Previous users also returned to Claude in record numbers in February, Indagari told TechCrunch.

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

Data through early March confirms that subscriber growth continues. (Data is available with a two-week lag.)

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

But the bigger buzz started in late January when multiple media sites, including the Wall Street Journal and Axios, began reporting on a deepening feud between Anthropic and the DoD. At its core, the dispute was over what the military could and couldn’t do with Anthropic’s AI.

Anthropic refused to allow the Department of Defense to use its AI models for lethal autonomous operations (AI could potentially kill people) or mass surveillance of US citizens. That beef has become increasingly public, with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei making a strong public statement on February 26 amid the Department of Defense’s threats to damage Anthropic’s business by labeling the company a supply risk. What the DoD did. Lawsuits are now underway, although a federal judge this week temporarily blocked the department’s designation.

The growth of new users has increased significantly during this period. The increase is especially pronounced between the media reports at the end of January and Amodei’s statement on February 26.

Adding to the drama, Claude Code and Claude Cowork – developer and productivity tools released in January – have been drivers of subscriptions. The Computer use feature, released this week, has also created a wave, Anthropic tells TechCrunch. Thanks to this function, Claude can navigate independently through a computer: clicking, scrolling and taking actions independently. It works with Dispatch, which allows users to assign tasks from their phone. These features are not available to free-tier users.

For all of Anthropic’s growth among US consumers willing to pay for AI, Claude lags far behind ChatGPT.

Although OpenAI’s uninstalls spiked immediately after it announced a deal with the Department of Defense — a move that contrasted with Anthropic’s security stance — 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.