ChatGPT ads: how they work and what they cost
ChatGPT ads are paid placements OpenAI shows below ChatGPT's answers to people on the Free and Go plans. Businesses buy them in OpenAI's self-serve Ads Manager and pay per view or per click in an auction. OpenAI picks the ad from the conversation, your ad copy and your landing page.
- Who sees them
- Free and Go users, 18 and over
- Minimum budget
- $25 a day in the US
- Suggested first bid
- $3 to $5 a click
What a ChatGPT ad looks like
What every ad carries
- Advertiser name and logo
- Headline
- Description
- Image
- Landing page
Example brand. The ad sits below the answer, labeled, and never inside it.
| Format | What it shows | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Single image | Name, logo, headline, description, one image and one link. | Live |
| Multiple images | Four to six square images that all open the same link. | Open beta |
| Product ads | Built from a product feed, such as a synced Shopify catalog. | Live |
| Image generation ads | Several images from one brand while ChatGPT draws a picture. | Testing |
Who sees ChatGPT ads
Ads show only on ChatGPT's Free and Go plans, and OpenAI keeps them out of chats where an ad would feel wrong.
- Free and Go plan users
- No ads on paid plans
- No ads for accounts under 18
- No ads near health or politics
- No ads in Temporary Chats
OpenAI's Help Center: paid plans and under-18 accounts never see ads, so your audience is Free and Go users.
How to set up a ChatGPT ads campaign
Open an account at ads.openai.com, add a card and verify your business, then create a campaign with a goal and at least $25 a day. Allow OpenAI's crawler on your landing page before you submit ads for review; the step-by-step setup guide walks through each screen.
What ChatGPT ads cost
You set a maximum bid and OpenAI runs an auction that weighs relevance as well as price, so a closer match can win on a lower bid.
| Goal | You pay for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Views | Each 1,000 impressions (CPM) | For reach. You set a maximum CPM bid per ad group. |
| Clicks | Each valid click (CPC) | OpenAI suggests starting at a $3 to $5 maximum bid. |
| Conversions | Each valid click | Bids toward a purchase or signup event, still billed per click. |
The US minimum is $25 a day per campaign. A day can spend up to twice the daily budget, but a week never spends more than seven times it.
Self-serve accounts pay by card, charged each time unpaid spend reaches the account's payment threshold and at month end.
One day can spend double the daily budget, but the week never goes past seven times it.
How OpenAI picks which ad to show
There are no keywords to buy. OpenAI weighs four things, and two of them are yours to improve.
The conversation
What the person is asking about right now, and their general location and language.
Your landing page
OpenAI's crawler reads the page your ad opens to judge when it fits.
Your headline and copy
Clear, specific copy about who the product is for wins more matches.
Context hints
Plain descriptions of the chats you want, set per ad group; not exact keywords.
How to write ChatGPT ads and context hints
Write context hints that describe the chats where your product helps, such as "training for a first marathon on a budget", with one ad group per kind of conversation. Then write several distinct ads per offer, each saying plainly what the product does and who it's for, as covered in how to run ads on ChatGPT.
Know which ads turn into sales
Advertisers never see chats, only totals. To tie a sale to an ad, send your own events back to OpenAI.
- The OpenAI Pixel on your site
- Conversions API from your server
- oppref click id on each ad link
- UTM tags you add to each ad link
- Google Analytics 4 connection
- ChatGPT Ads app for Shopify stores
OpenAI only counts a sale you send back, through its Pixel, its Conversions API, or both.
Send the click to a matching page
OpenAI reads your landing page to decide when your ad fits, and advises a product, collection or content page over a generic homepage. Brands running Meta ads mostly do this already.
Where live Meta ads from online brands send the click
- Product page39%
- Collection page28%
- Offer page14%
- Homepage9%
Over 375,000 live ads from over 3,000 brands. Small brands send 22% of theirs to the homepage.
Where this comes from
Our study of where online brands send ad traffic, at ad landing pages.
ChatGPT ads vs Google and Meta ads
Google Search ads match the keywords you bid on and Meta ads match the audiences you pick, while ChatGPT ads match the conversation. Bidding and tracking feel familiar, with a pixel, a server-side API and UTM tags; see ChatGPT ads vs Meta and Google for the full comparison.
ChatGPT ads guides
Run ads on ChatGPT
Set up Ads Manager, write context hints and launch a first campaign.
What ChatGPT ads cost
CPM, CPC and conversion bidding, budgets, and how billing charges your card.
Use ChatGPT Ads Manager
Campaigns, ad groups, context hints and reports in OpenAI's ad tool.
ChatGPT ads vs Meta and Google
How targeting, formats, tracking and prices differ from the ads you run now.
Pages for ChatGPT ad clicks
Match each ad group to a page that answers the chat it showed in.
Describe the ad group's chats in Replo, then click any part of the page to change it.
Want your products in ChatGPT's shopping results instead? Read how to sell on ChatGPT.
Frequently asked questions
- How much do ChatGPT ads cost?
- You set the price in an auction. Campaigns pay per 1,000 views or per click, and OpenAI suggests a $3 to $5 maximum bid for click campaigns. The US minimum budget is $25 a day per campaign. OpenAI says it has no performance benchmarks across advertisers yet.
- Can any business advertise on ChatGPT?
- Yes, if the business that pays is based in one of the nearly 90 countries where self-serve Ads Manager is open, and its ads pass review. Health and financial advertisers must meet extra rules, and political ads aren't allowed.
- Do ChatGPT ads change ChatGPT's answers?
- No. OpenAI runs ads on separate systems from the chat model, labels every ad, and says advertisers can't shape, rank or change answers. Advertisers also never see chats; they get totals such as views and clicks.
- Are there keywords in ChatGPT ads?
- No. You write context hints for each ad group, describing the conversations where your product helps. OpenAI uses them as a guide alongside the chat, your copy and your landing page, so an ad isn't tied to exact words.
- Does Replo run ChatGPT ads for me?
- No. You buy and manage ChatGPT ads in OpenAI's Ads Manager. Replo builds the pages your ads send people to, A/B tests them, and shows where visitors click, so you can see which page turns ad clicks into sales.
