ChatGPT ads: how they work, how to set them up and what they cost

What ChatGPT ads are and where they appear

ChatGPT ads are paid placements from businesses that show below ChatGPT responses. OpenAI announced its plan for ads on January 16, 2026, started testing them in the US on February 9, 2026, and now sells them through a beta self-serve Ads Manager and through partners such as Dentsu, Omnicom, Publicis, and WPP. ChatGPT Ads is currently in beta and in the early stages of scaling, so the rules on this page can change.

Each ad includes your brand name, logo, title, copy, landing page, and image. The illustration on OpenAI's ads site shows a conversation about building a backyard fence, followed by a relevant HarborWest Supply Co. ad for a cedar privacy panel. OpenAI's ads principles state: Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you.

Who sees ads in ChatGPT and how they are labelled

Ads may appear for users on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu accounts do not get ads, and neither do accounts identified as under 18. Free users who do not want ads can choose a free, no-ads option with additional limits.

Ads are clearly labeled as sponsored and visually separated from ChatGPT’s response. Temporary Chats will not show ads, and ads are not eligible to appear near sensitive topics such as personal health, mental health, or politics. During the test, ads do not appear in the ChatGPT Atlas browser.

Users can turn off personalization, and personalized ads are not initially available in the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland. Advertisers receive aggregated, non-identifying information about how their ads perform, such as total views or clicks. OpenAI's help center states: "We do not share your conversations with ChatGPT with advertisers, and we never sell your data to advertisers."

How ChatGPT chooses which ad to show

OpenAI says creating ads for ChatGPT requires a different approach than keyword-based platforms. The ads system weighs several signals: the context and intent of the current conversation, the ad’s landing page, title, copy, advertiser-provided context hints. When personalization is on, it can also use select signals from a user’s broader ChatGPT experience.

Context hints are short phrases on each ad group that describe the conversations where your product fits. They are not exact-match keywords and do not guarantee delivery in specific conversations. OpenAI's example of a useful hint is "cushioned everyday running shoes for beginners training for their first 5K".

When several ads are eligible, OpenAI runs a relevance-weighted, second-price auction and considers relevance and advertiser bids, so a higher bid alone does not decide which ad shows. Each campaign also has targeting settings:

• Countries. Some new self-serve accounts can initially advertise only in their home country. An account can add other countries once identity verification is approved and you reach the required advertising spend.
• Locations inside a country, where available: states or regions, cities, markets, and postal codes.
• Platforms: Android app, Android web, Desktop web, iOS app, or iOS web.
• Custom audiences. Including an audience needs at least 25,000 matched users; smaller audiences can be used as exclusions.

ChatGPT ad policies: what you can advertise

In the early phase, OpenAI focuses on a limited set of consumer categories: household and consumer goods, local services, travel and entertainment, and digital products and education. Categories disallowed at launch include dating or sexual content, health claims, alcohol and drugs, healthcare, financial or legal services, gambling, and political content. The alcohol rule covers products over 0.5% ABV. The same policy says OpenAI may approve some advertisers in financial services, healthcare & medicine, and legal services after manual review.

For a small shop, home goods fit the household and consumer goods group, while wine or supplements sold on health claims do not. Every ad must also meet these rules:

• Ads must be truthful and not misleading, including claims about pricing, results and comparisons.
• Ads must be consistent end-to-end. The rules apply to the copy, image and landing page, so an allowed product cannot link to a page that sells a disallowed one.
• Ads must be clearly distinguishable from the ChatGPT product experience. Do not design the image to look like a ChatGPT answer.
• Landing pages must use valid links and must not block OAI-AdsBot and OAI-SearchBot.

Most reviews use automated systems with human oversight and calibration. Ads that break a rule can be rejected or removed, and severe or repeated violations can lead to suspension or termination of advertiser accounts.

How to advertise on ChatGPT with OpenAI Ads Manager

OpenAI announced a beta self-serve Ads Manager on May 5, 2026 and is gradually opening Ads Manager to more businesses. These are the steps from OpenAI's help center for a self-serve account paid by card.

1. Check that your country is supported

   For self-service, the legal entity that will advertise and be billed must be based in a country listed as available. The United States is listed as Available.

2. Create the account at ads.openai.com

   If you enter your website URL, Ads Manager uses your website to help create your first ad. Check your country or region, currency, and time zone before you submit, because they cannot be changed later.

3. Set up billing and verification

   Add a billing profile and a card. OpenAI's setup guide says billing must be set up before your campaigns can deliver, and its FAQ says ads may not serve if your account has not been verified. Your bank may show a temporary authorization hold when you add the card.

4. Create a campaign and pick an objective

   Choose Views (CPM), Clicks (CPC), or Conversions, then set a daily or campaign-total budget, dates and countries. The objective cannot be edited later: to switch, you create a new campaign with the objective you want.

5. Create ad groups with bids and context hints

   Set the maximum bid at the ad-group level: a maximum CPM bid on Views campaigns or a maximum CPC bid on Clicks campaigns. Add context hints that say what you sell, who it is for and when it helps.

6. Write the ads

   Each ad needs a title, copy, a square image and a landing page. OpenAI recommends multiple title/copy variations per offering, each with a different angle, so the system can match more conversations.

7. Add conversion tracking

   Set up Conversions API and pixel-based measurement so purchases and sign-ups show in reports, and add static tracking parameters (e.g. UTM parameters) to landing page URLs. Reports cover impressions, clicks, spend, click-through rate (CTR), average CPC, average CPM, and conversions.

8. Submit for review

   OpenAI's FAQ says ads must be reviewed before they can serve. If an ad is marked Not serving, hover over the status for more detail.

ChatGPT ad creative specs

The brand name and logo are set once for the account, under Settings → General in Ads Manager. The title, copy, image and landing page are set on each ad.

Example: a candle shop could use the title "Amber jar soy candles" (21 characters) and the copy "Hand-poured soy wax, cotton wick, gift boxed" (44 characters), linking to its candle collection page. OpenAI recommends landing on product pages, collections, or content pages rather than defaulting to a generic homepage.

ChatGPT ads cost and pricing

ChatGPT ads have no fixed price. You set a maximum bid, the auction sets what you pay, and the objective decides what you are billed for.

Minimum spend is a daily budget floor that varies by your ad account’s billing currency: 25 USD for a US dollar account, 15 EUR for a euro account and 15 GBP for a pound account.

A daily budget is the average amount you want the campaign to spend per day over a seven day period. On a single day spend can reach twice your selected daily budget, and over the budget week, which runs from Sunday through Saturday, it will not exceed seven times your selected daily budget. A campaign-total budget is the stricter control for total spend.

ChatGPT Ads uses a postpay billing model that charges advertisers after ads have been delivered. For card accounts, the card is charged when your account reaches its assigned payment threshold. In OpenAI's example, with a $25 payment threshold, your card will be charged once your account accrues $25 in unpaid spend. Any smaller balance is charged at the end of the month even if you have not yet reached your payment threshold. You cannot manually change your payment threshold.

Spend in reports can lag by 7–8 hours, and after you pause a campaign, ads can keep showing for up to 24 hours. Costs from that period remain billable.

Example: a small-budget ChatGPT ads test

Example inputs, not results: a US shop sells candles at $32 each. It runs a Clicks campaign for 14 days on the minimum daily budget of 25 USD, with a $4 maximum bid inside OpenAI's suggested $3–$5 USD per click. Assume an average cost of $3.50 a click and that 2% of visitors buy.

1. Work out the spend

   Example: 14 days at $25 a day is $350. If the campaign starts on a Sunday it covers two budget weeks, each capped at seven times your selected daily budget, so spend stays at or under $350 even on days that spend more than $25.

2. Estimate the clicks

   Example: if the full $350 is spent at an assumed $3.50 a click, it buys about 100 clicks.

3. Estimate the orders

   Example: 2% of 100 visitors is about 2 orders, or about $175 of ad spend for each $32 order. At these assumptions the first orders cost more than they earn, so the test pays off only if real click costs or conversion rates are better, or buyers come back.

4. Read the results

   OpenAI says ChatGPT Ads does not yet have performance benchmarks, so compare your cost per order with what you pay on other ad channels.

Where Nation fits

Questions about ChatGPT ads