--- title: "Anthropic's 85.4% first-half gross margin versus Zhipu's 26.4%: compute, not discounting, explains the gap" description: "Anthropic's IPO prospectus is the first document to price the frontier-lab business, and it puts Z.AI's 26.4% gross margin next to Anthropic's 85.4%. The leak is not the discounting the press describes; it is who owns the compute." publisher: "The Inference" section: "Model" published: 2026-11-03T15:21:23.654Z modified: 2026-11-03T15:21:23.654Z canonical: https://theinference.org/article/anthropic-s-85-4-first-half-gross-margin-versus-zhipu-s-26-4-compute-not-discounting-explains-the-gap language: en keywords: "Anthropic, Z.ai, AI Labs, Gross Margin, China, IPO" --- # Anthropic's 85.4% first-half gross margin versus Zhipu's 26.4%: compute, not discounting, explains the gap > Anthropic's IPO prospectus is the first document to price the frontier-lab business, and it puts Z.AI's 26.4% gross margin next to Anthropic's 85.4%. The leak is not the discounting the press describes; it is who owns the compute. On Sunday night, China's most famous livestreamer sold a product no shopper can hold. Li Jiaqi, the "Lipstick King" who once moved 15,000 lipsticks in five minutes, moved nearly 100,000 monthly subscriptions to QwenWork, [Alibaba](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/alibaba)'s AI office platform, at 0.01 yuan each on his Double 11 stream: [roughly 2 trillion tokens, the unit of model usage, sold in 30 minutes for less than 1,000 yuan of revenue](https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202611/1373520.shtml) [2][3]. Tokens have become a retail category on Tmall and [JD.com](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/jingdong-mall) this shopping festival, with [Zhipu](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/z-ai), MiniMax and Moonshot selling on the same shelves [2][3]. ## The prospectus priced the other end of the trade Five days earlier, [Anthropic's S-1 filing, the first public document to price a frontier-lab business](https://venturebeat.com/technology/anthropic-files-to-go-public-on-nasdaq-as-ant-with-16-3b-in-revenue-for-first-six-months-of-2026), put hard numbers on both sides of the Pacific [1]. The Claude developer booked $16.3 billion of first-half 2026 revenue at an 85.4% gross margin [1]. Z.ai, the Tsinghua spin-out behind GLM and China's first listed AI lab, booked $141 million at 26.4% [1]. MiniMax booked $116.6 million at 17.9% [1]. *Chart: **Anthropic keeps 85 cents of each revenue dollar; Z.ai keeps 26** Bars comparing first-half 2026 gross margins: Anthropic 85.4%, Z.ai 26.4%, MiniMax 17.9%, with Anthropic highlighted in gilt.* *Gross margin, first half of 2026, per Anthropic's S-1 prospectus and the two Hong Kong-listed labs' financial disclosures, as compiled by the South China Morning Post with HSBC research. [1]* *Chart: **Six months of revenue: the frontier lab versus China's listed labs** Columns comparing first-half 2026 revenue: Anthropic $16.3B, Z.ai $0.141B, MiniMax $0.117B, with Anthropic highlighted.* *Revenue for the six months to June 30, 2026, US dollars, converted to billions; Anthropic per its S-1, Z.ai and MiniMax per their Hong Kong disclosures. [1]* ## Discounts are not the leak, compute is The consensus says Chinese labs buy users with discounts. The ministry-affiliated China Academy of Information and Communications Technology [reported on October 23 that API prices for new 2026 models from the five big Chinese developers averaged 13.46 yuan per million tokens](https://jingdaily.com/posts/alibaba-enlists-lipstick-king-li-jiaqi-to-sell-ai-tokens-on-double-11-livestream), up 98% from 6.8 yuan in late 2025 [3]. Prices are rising, not collapsing [3]. What differs is the machine bill. [HSBC calculates Anthropic generated $2.08 of revenue per dollar of computing resources in the second quarter against Z.ai's 46 cents](https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3373124/why-chinese-ai-stars-zai-minimax-struggle-match-anthropics-profit-margin), because [Anthropic](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/anthropic) locks in capacity 12 to 18 months ahead while the Chinese labs rent compute as a service [1][5]. Every token Z.ai serves pays a cloud vendor first. The receipts follow. Anthropic's gross profit covered its R&D spending about 1.4 times in the first half; Zhipu's covered about one-eighth, MiniMax's about one-fourteenth [1]. "Low prices can win usage, but at today's margins they cannot fund research," tech analyst Poe Zhao said. "For now, the capital market pays for the gap" [1]. ## The bull case is the 23x Z.ai's revenue per compute dollar rose 23-fold in a year, the fastest improvement of any lab in the HSBC note, and GLM now helps train its own successor [1]. Renting preserves flexibility Anthropic does not have: [the S-1 discloses about $417 billion in future compute obligations and revenue that is mostly consumption-based](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/anthropics-gross-margin-rocketed-to-85-from-12-in-a-year-but-the-s-1-warns-it-wont-last/ar-AA2gtBxz), and Anthropic itself swung to a $567 million operating loss in the third quarter [1][4]. Z.ai's shares still fell about 13% after the prospectus landed, against MiniMax's 2% [1]. ## Two dates tell the story Watch whether a Chinese lab launches its next top model at a higher price and customers pay it, which Zhao calls the real test [1], and whether 0.01-yuan bargain hunters renew at the 28-yuan list price [3]. [Anthropic begins formally marketing its IPO the week of November 9 and expects to trade before Thanksgiving](https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2026/anthropic-narrows-revenue-gap-with-openai-before-ipo/), at a valuation institutional investors have marked down toward $1.5 trillion to $1.6 trillion [1][6]. The landlord collects rent in both stories. The question is who ever gets to own the land. ## Takeaway Anthropic's S-1 puts its 85.4% first-half gross margin beside Z.ai's 26.4% and MiniMax's 17.9%, and the gap traces to compute: Anthropic locks capacity 12 to 18 months ahead while Chinese labs rent, so every token pays a cloud vendor first. Chinese API prices are rising, not collapsing, so discounting is not the leak. Watch whether a Chinese lab raises its next flagship's price and holds the users. ## Sources 1. [South China Morning Post, Why Chinese AI stars like Z.ai, MiniMax struggle to match Anthropic's profit margin, 3 November 2026](https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3373124/why-chinese-ai-stars-zai-minimax-struggle-match-anthropics-profit-margin) 2. [Global Times, Not buying lipsticks but tokens? A top Chinese commercial livestreamer sells 2 trillion AI units in 30 minutes on Monday, 3 November 2026](https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202611/1373520.shtml) 3. [Jing Daily, Alibaba enlists 'Lipstick King' Li Jiaqi to sell AI tokens on Double 11 livestream, 3 November 2026](https://jingdaily.com/posts/alibaba-enlists-lipstick-king-li-jiaqi-to-sell-ai-tokens-on-double-11-livestream) 4. [VentureBeat, Anthropic files to go public on Nasdaq as $ANT with $16.3B in revenue for first six months of 2026, 26 October 2026](https://venturebeat.com/technology/anthropic-files-to-go-public-on-nasdaq-as-ant-with-16-3b-in-revenue-for-first-six-months-of-2026) 5. [The Motley Fool, Anthropic's gross margin rocketed to 85% from 12% in a year, but the S-1 warns it won't last, 31 October 2026](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/anthropics-gross-margin-rocketed-to-85-from-12-in-a-year-but-the-s-1-warns-it-wont-last/ar-AA2gtBxz) 6. [PYMNTS, Anthropic Narrows Revenue Gap With OpenAI Ahead of Its IPO, 15 October 2026](https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2026/anthropic-narrows-revenue-gap-with-openai-before-ipo/) --- Anthropic's 85.4% first-half gross margin versus Zhipu's 26.4%: compute, not discounting, explains the gap — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/anthropic-s-85-4-first-half-gross-margin-versus-zhipu-s-26-4-compute-not-discounting-explains-the-gap