Anthropic took the lead in business AI spend in July, and by a wide margin. In anonymized card data from Slash, which covers the businesses paying on its corporate cards, Anthropic, the company behind Claude, took 67.86% of identified AI platform spend, up from 47.59% in June. OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, fell from 49.92% to 29.97% over the same month.
The two companies together still held 97.83% of the category, against 97.51% in June, so their combined hold on the market barely moved. The balance inside it moved by about 20 points in a single month, while total spend reached a new high.
The figures come from Slash’s AI spend report for July 2026, published on August 6. It covers card transactions from July 1 to July 30, compares them with June 1 to June 30, and identifies AI merchants from their transaction descriptors. The report publishes shares and an indexed trend rather than dollars, transaction counts or customer counts, so it shows how the money is split and how fast it is growing, and says nothing about what any one business paid.
Key Takeaways
- Anthropic’s share of identified AI platform spend in the card data rose from 47.59% in June to 67.86% in July, while OpenAI’s fell from 49.92% to 29.97%.
- The two providers held 97.83% of July spend between them, leaving just over 2% for every other AI platform combined.
- The spend index reached 990 in July against a December to April baseline of 100, more than double June’s 474.
- Among software companies and startups with meaningful spend, 15.4% paid both providers in July, down from 26.8% in June.
- A bill that can double in a month is easier to control with a virtual card for each vendor, a card limit set alongside the vendor’s own cap, and a spending category fixed per card.
What the July data shows
Spending more than doubled in a month
Slash indexes AI platform spend against its average for December through April, which it sets at 100. July reached 990, against 474 in June and a previous high of 782 in May.
The report calls the direction clear and the path volatile. A month’s total mixes recurring subscriptions, usage-based API bills and the occasional large enterprise charge, so a single month can swing a long way from the trend.
Most companies settle on one provider
The report also looks at software companies and startups with meaningful spend, defined as at least $100 a month or three or more transactions with a provider. In July, 53.8% of them paid Anthropic only, 30.8% paid OpenAI only and 15.4% paid both, down from 26.8% paying both in June.
Paying both is still common, but it dropped by more than 11 points in a month, and most of these companies appear to pick one primary provider.
Small platforms move on a few big buyers
Every AI platform outside Anthropic and OpenAI shared just over 2% of July spend. Runway made up roughly 44% of that slice, Lovable about 24% and Windsurf (Codeium) about 16%. One customer accounted for roughly 80% of Runway’s July spend, so a jump in the long tail can say more about one buyer than about the market.
What the numbers mean for paying for AI and API usage
For a finance team, the July data describes a bill that can change vendor and size from one month to the next. How the company pays for it decides how soon anyone notices.
A virtual card for each vendor
A separate virtual card for each AI vendor, plus a card for each team or product where one vendor serves several uses, gives finance the clearest view of the bill. A card that only pays Anthropic shows Anthropic spend in its own transaction list, so a shift like July’s is visible without building a report. If a card number is exposed, the business cancels that one card and every other vendor keeps billing as normal.
Two limits, set on purpose
Usage-based billing can be capped on both sides of the charge. Anthropic’s help center says API usage is billed through prepaid credits, with an optional auto-reload that buys more when the balance falls below a threshold the customer sets. Its API documentation sets monthly spend caps by usage tier, $500 on Start, $1,000 on Build and $200,000 on Scale, and lets an organization set its own lower limit, after which requests stop until the limit is raised or the month resets. The vendor’s limit controls how much a team can use, and the card’s limit controls how much can be charged for credits or invoices. Keeping the card limit a little above the approved usage means a planned month is unlikely to meet a declined top-up, and a spike past that still stops at the vendor’s cap.
Budgets that expect a jump
The index more than doubled from June to July across the dataset. A card limit sized to last month’s charges can decline this month’s if usage grows the same way, so API card limits need a monthly look, and one budget across a team’s AI cards gives finance a single number to watch.
Coding the spend when it happens
The same AI bill can belong in different places in the books. Slash’s own guide to classifying AI token spend suggests recording tokens used by a customer-facing product feature as cost of goods sold, and tokens used by engineers, marketers or the finance team as operating expenses, split into research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative. It leaves capitalization to the company and its accounting team. A card used for one purpose carries one category, so a rule that codes every charge on that card keeps the split intact through the close.
Corporate cards that support this setup
Slash, a financial technology company whose business banking and Slash Visa® Platinum Card are provided through Column N.A., Member FDIC, issues unlimited virtual cards with spend limits, per-transaction limits and merchant restrictions, plus card groups that set one budget across a department’s cards.
Card transactions are categorized on Slash and synced to QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage Intacct or NetSuite. The card earns up to 1.5% cashback on the Free plan and up to 2% on Pro, which costs $25 a month. Its limit is the lower of a risk-based maximum and the funds on deposit, so a business planning for a jump like July’s needs the balance to cover it. Slash serves US-registered LLCs, C-Corps and S-Corps, so sole proprietors are not eligible.
Ramp works in a similar way. Its virtual card page describes unlimited virtual cards that can be locked to one vendor or merchant category, with limits by transaction, day or month and cards that expire on a set date. Ramp asks applicants for at least $25,000 in cash in a linked US business bank account, according to its help center, and accepts corporations, LLCs and LPs but not sole proprietors.
What July tells a finance team
The report closes by warning against reading any one number alone, because growth, provider mix, adoption breadth and concentration mean more together. For a company paying the bills, that comes down to each vendor on its own card, with a limit someone chose and a category set before the charge arrives.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which AI provider did businesses spend the most with in July 2026?
Anthropic, with 67.86% of identified AI platform spend in Slash’s card data, against 29.97% for OpenAI. In June the order was reversed, with OpenAI at 49.92% and Anthropic at 47.59%.
Should a business use a separate card for each AI vendor?
For usage-based AI and API bills, a card per vendor lets a business see and cap each provider’s spend, and an exposed card number then affects only that vendor.
How should AI and API spend be categorized in the books?
It depends on what the tokens are used for. Slash’s guide to classifying AI token spend treats usage inside a customer-facing product as cost of goods sold and internal use as an operating expense split by the team that uses it, and leaves capitalization questions to the company’s accountant.
