OpenAI researchers might be spending >$4m/day on tokens (at API prices)
Based on this quote from the GPT6 announcement: “Valued at API prices, daily token usage has exceeded $600 for the median researcher and $7,000 for researchers at the 90th percentile”.
An estimate for 1,125 researchers, assuming 25% of 4,500 employees are researchers. This values token usage at API prices; it does not estimate OpenAI’s internal costs.
1Assumptions
OpenAI reports daily token usage above $600 for the median researcher and above $7,000 at the 90th percentile, valued at API prices.[1] The Financial Times reported about 4,500 employees in March 2026, as relayed by Reuters.[2]
Assume 25% are researchers, and their daily usage follows a lognormal distribution. Treat $600 and $7,000 as exact quantiles for this calculation. Neither the 25% share nor the distribution is reported by OpenAI.
(1)
2Calculation
Let X be a researcher’s daily usage value, measured in USD. For a lognormal distribution:[3]
(2)
(3)
Here, Φ⁻¹ is the inverse standard normal cumulative distribution; Φ⁻¹(0.90) ≈ 1.281552.
The mean—not the median—is the quantity to multiply by headcount:
(4)
(5)
The estimate excludes non-researchers’ usage and training compute. It is an expected daily value under the assumptions, not a measured company total.
3Usage and concentration
Limits. The source says “exceeded,” not “equal to.” Its two thresholds do not establish the mean or the upper tail, so $4.24M is not a proven lower bound. The March headcount and later usage observations are from different dates. All three charts are calculations, not employee data.