What ChatGPT ads cost
You set a daily or total budget and pay per click or per 1,000 views. Even a campaign that aims for bookings is billed by clicks or views, not by bookings (OpenAI: Creating campaigns).
| Item | What OpenAI says |
|---|---|
| Ways to pay | Views (per 1,000 views), Clicks (per click), or Conversions (still billed per click or per 1,000 views) (OpenAI) |
| Minimum daily budget | US $25; Canada CAD $25 (OpenAI) |
| Starting bid | OpenAI suggests a $3–$5 USD maximum bid per click (OpenAI) |
| One day's spend | Up to 2× your daily budget; no more than 7× over the Sunday–Saturday week (OpenAI) |
| When your card is charged | Each time unpaid spend reaches your payment threshold, for example $25, and at month end (OpenAI) |
| Refunds | Fewer leads than you hoped is not, by itself, grounds for a refund (OpenAI) |
Bidding is changing. Since November 9, 2026, new click campaigns can use Target CPC, an average you aim for rather than a cap, and the old Max CPC retires on January 1, 2027 (OpenAI: Bidding strategies).
No one can tell you a typical cost per lead yet:
"As an early platform, ChatGPT Ads does not yet have performance benchmarks across advertisers, industries, or campaign types." (OpenAI Help: ChatGPT Ads FAQ)
Who sees ChatGPT ads
Only users on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro and business plans never see your ad.
"Ads may appear for users on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu accounts will not have ads." (OpenAI Help: Ads in ChatGPT)
- No ads for accounts identified as under 18, and none in Temporary Chats (OpenAI).
- No ads near sensitive topics such as personal health, mental health or politics (OpenAI).
- Free users can switch ads off in exchange for lower message limits (OpenAI).
- Ads started in the US on February 9, 2026 and began rolling out in Canada on April 16, 2026 (OpenAI release notes).
Is it still a beta?
Yes. Self-serve Ads Manager opened as a beta on May 5, 2026 (OpenAI), and OpenAI expects delivery, formats and buying options to keep changing:
"ChatGPT Ads is currently in beta and in the early stages of scaling." (OpenAI Help: ChatGPT Ads FAQ)
What a ChatGPT ad looks like
One ad unit sits below ChatGPT's answer. It shows your business name, logo, a headline, a description, an image and a link to your page (OpenAI: The basics). A multi-image format opened as a beta on October 26, 2026 (OpenAI: Creating ads).
Paying does not get you into the answer itself:
"Ads do not influence ChatGPT's answers." (OpenAI Help: Ads in ChatGPT)
Being named in the answer is a separate, unpaid job: see how to get ChatGPT to recommend your business.
ChatGPT Ads Manager: how setup works
There are no keywords. You describe when your service helps, and ChatGPT matches that to the conversation.
- Sign up at ads.openai.com and add a billing profile and card (OpenAI: Billing).
- Create a campaign: goal (Views, Clicks or Conversions), budget, dates and countries. You can narrow to states, cities or postal codes where available. To target only one country, include it explicitly (OpenAI: Creating campaigns).
- Add an ad group with context hints: plain sentences about what you offer, who it helps and when (OpenAI: Writing context hints).
- Write several ads, each with a different angle, and link each to the most relevant page, not your home page (OpenAI: Creating ads).
- Don't block OpenAI's crawlers (OAI-AdsBot, OAI-SearchBot) on that page, or the ad can't run (OpenAI: Creating ads).
"These hints help guide ad matching, but they are not exact-match keywords and do not guarantee delivery in specific conversations." (OpenAI Help: Ads in ChatGPT, the basics)
OpenAI's own example of a good hint for a local plumber: "After-hours residential plumbing in [city], with an $89 service-call fee for urgent repairs" (OpenAI: Writing context hints). A hint can't enforce a city limit; use location targeting for that.
ChatGPT ads in Canada
Self-serve Ads Manager is open to businesses based in Canada, and the minimum daily budget is CAD $25 (OpenAI: Availability, Creating campaigns). The business that is billed must be based in an available country, and an ad account's country and currency can't be changed later (OpenAI: Billing). Some new accounts can advertise only in their home country at first (OpenAI: Creating campaigns).
What happened when one firm tried them
An accounting firm we run marketing for ran ChatGPT ads for three days in October: $428, 166 clicks, 0 bookings. That is too few clicks to call it a verdict. ChatGPT visitors left faster than Google visitors and reached the booking calendar a quarter as often (2% vs 8%). Meanwhile ChatGPT's unpaid answers sent the firm's best clients: 2 of its first 5 bookers from ChatGPT referrals paid. Being recommended by ChatGPT worked; paying ChatGPT for clicks didn't.
Example
A plumber testing at the minimum
- Budget: $25 a day for 4 weeks, so about $700.
- At about $4 a click, that buys roughly 175 clicks.
- Judge it on booked jobs from those clicks, tracked with OpenAI's pixel, not on click rate.
A clinic
ChatGPT won't place ads near personal health conversations, so a clinic's ads may rarely show where patients describe symptoms. Health advertisers must also meet OpenAI's stricter eligibility rules (OpenAI).
Different for you?
- Choosing between ChatGPT and Google for the next dollar: ChatGPT ads vs Google Ads.
- You want ChatGPT to name you for free: how to get ChatGPT to recommend your business.
- You don't know if it names you now: the ChatGPT recommendation test.
- Setting the overall budget: how much to spend on marketing.
- You want someone to run and track the ads: Paid Ads Agent.