AI startup Lindy ditches Claude entirely for Deepseek to slash inference costs, amid Anthropic margin pressure.

Anthropic faces mounting pressure from cost-conscious competitors. OpenAI reportedly missed its optimal IPO window and postponed, and now even Anthropic's explosive growth could come under pressure as companies tighten AI spending and turn to cheaper Chinese alternatives.

AI startup Lindy exemplifies this trend. CEO Flo Crivello has ditched Claude entirely in favor of Deepseek, hosted by a US company on US soil. The cost curve "crashed to the ground," saving millions, he told CNBC. AI costs for the 25-person startup had become "unsustainable," exceeding personnel costs. Crivello said he would switch back if Anthropic cut prices: "It's a matter of survival for the business."

A recent analysis by Snowflake's CTO showed that affordable Chinese models like GLM-5.2 don't quite match Claude but are competitive and easily win on price-performance ratio depending on the task. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently acknowledged that AI cost became a "huge issue" for companies adopting agentic systems, which burn through tokens at unprecedented rates.