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ChatGPT ads are sponsored placements that appear inside ChatGPT conversations, bought through OpenAI's self-serve Ads Manager at ads.openai.com. You pay by impression, by click, or toward a conversion goal, and OpenAI picks when to show your ad based on the conversation it appears next to.
We set up a ChatGPT Ads account for DidYouSEO this week to build a reporting connector on OpenAI's Ads API. This guide covers what we learned from that, plus what OpenAI's own docs say: who sees the ads, how bidding and targeting work, what they cost, and which numbers to watch.
What are ChatGPT ads?
ChatGPT ads are OpenAI's advertising product for ChatGPT. An advertiser writes a short ad (a title, a line of text, an image and a landing page), sets a budget and a maximum bid, and tells OpenAI in plain words when the ad would be useful. ChatGPT then shows the ad next to conversations where it fits.
OpenAI started testing ads in ChatGPT in the US on February 9, 2026, as TechCrunch reported. In May 2026, the self-serve Ads Manager opened to all US businesses with cost-per-click bidding, according to PPC Land. It has since opened in more countries: our own ad account is registered in India and bills in rupees.
Who sees ads in ChatGPT?
Ads show to logged-in adult users on ChatGPT's Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education subscribers don't see ads, per Search Engine Journal's coverage of the launch.
OpenAI also set rules for how ads behave:
- Ads don't change ChatGPT's answers. The ad sits next to the answer; it doesn't shape it.
- Advertisers don't see conversations. You get reporting numbers, not chat text.
- Users can turn off personalization and clear the data used to pick ads.
Availability by country changes often. OpenAI keeps the current list on its Ads Manager availability page.
How do ChatGPT ads work?
Each campaign has a goal, a budget and a bid. Inside a campaign, ad groups hold the targeting, and each ad group holds one or more ads. This is the same structure as Google Ads or Meta, so the learning curve is short.
Bidding: impressions, clicks or conversions
OpenAI's Ads API docs list three bidding types:
| Bidding type | You pay for | Your bid means |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions | Every 1,000 views (CPM) | The most you'll pay per 1,000 impressions |
| Clicks | Each click (CPC) | The most you'll pay per click |
| Conversions | Clicks, optimized toward a goal (oCPC) | The cost per conversion you're aiming for |
Conversion bidding arrived in June 2026. It needs conversion tracking first: OpenAI's measurement pixel on your site, or its Conversions API on your server.
Targeting: context first
ChatGPT ads don't use keywords the way search ads do. The main input is context hints: short descriptions or keywords of when your product would be useful. ChatGPT matches those against the conversation.
On top of that, the docs list:
- Locations: countries, regions and markets.
- Platforms: the ChatGPT apps on iOS and Android, or ChatGPT on the web (desktop, iOS and Android browsers can be targeted separately since September 2026).
- Custom audiences: upload customer lists to include, exclude or bid differently on people who match.
Ad formats
A standard ad has a title of 3 to 50 characters, a body of up to 100 characters and a landing page, usually with an image. Some accounts can run ads with 4 to 6 square images. Retailers can run ads from a product feed, and hotel feeds are in a limited beta.
Before an ad runs, OpenAI's crawler reviews the landing page, so make sure your firewall doesn't block it. OpenAI's guidance for advertisers explains which crawler to allow.
How much do ChatGPT ads cost?
There's no fixed price. ChatGPT ads run on an auction: you set a daily or lifetime budget and a maximum bid, in your account's own currency, and you pay up to that bid per impression, click or conversion.
The early pilot was different. It reportedly needed large commitments: PPC Land reported the minimum fell from $250,000 to $50,000 in April 2026. Self-serve removed that. We created our ad account with no spend commitment at all; an account only needs billing and a brand logo before ads can run.
Your real cost depends on your bid, your targeting and how often your context hints match conversations. The only reliable way to know is a small test with tracking set up from the first day.
How to run ads on ChatGPT
Create your Ads Manager account
Go to ads.openai.com and sign in with your OpenAI login. Enter your business name and website. OpenAI reviews your business details before ads can run, and the account location, currency and time zone can't be changed later.
Finish account setup
Add billing and upload a brand logo. Until both are done, Ads Manager shows a banner that says ads can't serve. You can still build campaigns while the review runs.
Set up conversion tracking
Install OpenAI's measurement pixel or send events with the Conversions API. Without it, you can't use conversion bidding and you can't tell which clicks turned into sign-ups or sales.
Build your first campaign
Pick a goal and a bidding type, set the budget, then write context hints that describe when your product helps. Write the ad: test titles with a headline analyzer to stay inside the 50-character limit.
Tag your landing page link
Add UTM parameters to the ad's link so Google Analytics shows ChatGPT Ads as its own source and doesn't mix it into other traffic. Our free UTM builder makes the link in a few seconds.
How do you measure ChatGPT ads?
Ads Manager shows results for one ad account at a time. For more detail, OpenAI's Ads API returns seven metrics: impressions, clicks, spend, CTR, CPC, CPM and conversions. You can get them by account, campaign, ad group or ad, and split them by country, device, platform or product.
When we tested every combination against the live API, three limits came up that the docs don't make obvious:
- Conversions aren't returned with the platform breakdown. Platform splits give delivery numbers only.
- Conversions aren't returned with the product breakdown or in monthly rows. Use daily rows, or one total for the period.
- Each API key works for one ad account. Anyone managing several accounts needs one key per account.
The numbers worth watching in the first weeks:
- CTR, to see whether your ad fits the conversations it lands in.
- CPC, compared with what the same offer costs you on Google or Meta.
- Conversions and cost per conversion, once tracking has a few days of data.
Track ChatGPT Ads with DidYouSEO
DidYouSEO's ChatGPT Ads reporting pulls these numbers for every ad account you connect and shows them in one place: 28-day spend, clicks and conversions per account, with the change from the previous period. Agencies can paste every client's API key at once; see ChatGPT Ads for agencies.
You can also ask about your ads in Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor through the ChatGPT Ads MCP server, for example "which ad had the best CTR this month?". DidYouSEO only reads the data. It never creates, changes or pays for ads.
FAQ
Does ChatGPT have ads now?
Yes. ChatGPT shows ads to logged-in adults on the Free and Go plans. OpenAI began testing them in the US on February 9, 2026, and opened self-serve Ads Manager to US businesses in May 2026. Paid plans such as Plus and Pro don't show ads.
How do I advertise on ChatGPT?
Create an account at ads.openai.com, add billing and a brand logo, set up conversion tracking, then build a campaign with a budget, a bid and context hints that describe when your product helps.
Do ChatGPT ads change ChatGPT's answers?
No. OpenAI says ads appear next to answers and don't influence them, and advertisers don't see users' conversations.
What do ChatGPT ads cost?
There's no fixed price. You set a budget and a maximum bid per 1,000 impressions, per click, or per conversion, in your account currency, and the auction decides what you pay up to that bid.
Can I target keywords with ChatGPT ads?
Not in the search-ads sense. You write context hints (descriptions or keywords of when your product is useful) and ChatGPT matches them to conversations. You can add location, platform and custom-audience targeting on top.
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