ChatGPT now carries ads, and since May 2026 any business can buy them self-serve in OpenAI's Ads Manager.[4] The channel is new, the rules are still moving, and most of what circulates about results is guesswork. This guide sticks to what OpenAI documents and what reputable outlets have reported, as of 21 October 2026.
What ChatGPT Ads are
A ChatGPT ad is a labelled ad shown with a ChatGPT answer, matched to what the conversation is about. An ad account holds campaigns, each campaign holds ad groups, and each ad group holds ads, a structure that will feel familiar from Google and Meta.[1]
| Level | What you set there |
|---|---|
| Ad account | Brand name and icon, currency and time zone (fixed at creation), spend limits |
| Campaign | Objective, daily or lifetime budget, schedule, locations, platforms, audiences, conversion events |
| Ad group | Bid strategy and bid, context hints, audience bid adjustments |
| Ad | Title, body, image and landing page |
Ads are reported to appear for logged-in users on ChatGPT's Free and Go tiers, not on paid tiers such as Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Edu, and not for under-18 accounts.[5]
Formats and placements
- Chat card: the standard ad. A title of 3 to 50 characters, a body of up to 100, an image of at least 640 x 640 pixels and a landing page OpenAI's crawler can reach.[1]
- Product-feed ads: catalog-driven product ads, in open beta.[1]
- Ads next to image generation: a visual format announced on 6 October 2026 as a US test starting late October.[8]
- Platforms: the ChatGPT iOS and Android apps and the web, which you can target separately.[1]
How you pay
| Objective | You pay for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions (CPM) | Impressions | Fixed bid |
| Clicks (CPC) | Valid clicks | Fixed bid or Maximize clicks |
| Conversions (optimised CPC, open beta) | Valid clicks, not conversions | Optimises toward one standard event, such as a purchase or a lead. The goal cannot be changed after the campaign is created. |
There is no total minimum for self-serve campaigns, but there is a daily minimum that depends on the account currency; a budget below it is rejected with the amount required.[1] A third-party tracker relayed OpenAI's help article in October 2026 as roughly USD 25, EUR 15 or GBP 15 a day, with similar amounts in other currencies.[6] Treat those as approximate: Ads Manager shows the exact figure when you create a campaign.
Targeting: context, not keywords
The main lever is the context hint: short descriptions of your products, the needs they meet and when people use them, up to 2,000 per ad group. OpenAI is explicit that hints are not exact-match keywords and do not replace location, platform or audience targeting.[1] “Lightweight trail running shoes for rocky terrain” helps; “shoes” does not.
- Customer lists: you can upload hashed emails or phone numbers, but including a list or raising bids for it needs at least 25,000 matched users. Excluding a list has no minimum.[3]
- Europe: customer lists are not supported for campaigns targeting the EEA or Switzerland, where personalised ads are not available; there, targeting is contextual.[3]
- Locations: countries, regions and metro areas. Which countries are open changes often, so check Ads Manager rather than a list in an article.
Measurement
OpenAI offers a browser Measurement Pixel and a server-side Conversions API, and recommends using both.[2] A few details decide whether the numbers can be trusted:
- When the Pixel and the server report the same sale, they must share the same event ID, or it is counted twice.[2]
- Server events must be no more than 7 days old, so a deal that closes weeks later cannot be sent.[2]
- Clicks carry a click ID (oppref) that should be passed back unchanged with each conversion.[2]
- Reports default to a 30-day click and 1-day view attribution window.[1] Meta's default is 7-day click and 1-day view, and Google Ads sets windows per conversion action, so the same sale can be claimed by more than one platform. Compare channels on the same basis before moving budget.
Add UTM parameters to your ad URLs (for example utm_source=openai and utm_medium=paid_ai) so paid ChatGPT visits stay separate from organic ChatGPT visits in Google Analytics.
Who can advertise
OpenAI reviews the advertiser, every ad and its landing page, and a new account needs an approved brand review, including a brand icon, before ads can run.[1] Some categories are limited:[5]
- Financial, health and legal services ads are allowed only in the US, case by case. Elsewhere they are not allowed.
- Adult content, dating, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, drugs, weapons, political ads and credit repair are not allowed anywhere.
- Approved ads are still kept away from sensitive conversations, such as health or personal finance.
Policies change, so read OpenAI's live ad policy page before you plan a budget.[9]
What early numbers say (and don't)
OpenAI has said it does not yet have performance benchmarks across advertisers, industries or campaign types.[5] The most solid public data point is about price, not results: Digiday reported CPMs of about $60 at the February launch, falling to roughly $25 to $45 by April.[7]
Other figures that circulate (click-through rates, “lower CPA” claims, vendor uplift numbers) come from small samples or the vendors themselves. Use none of them as a target; your own test is the benchmark that matters.
How to run a careful first test
- Check fit first: your category, your market, whether the daily minimum is a small share of what you spend now, and whether conversion tracking works today.
- Build it paused: one market, one campaign, a few ad groups by customer need, two or three ads each, and a landing page that says what the ad says.
- Validate tracking before you activate: a test conversion through the Pixel, and a validation call through the Conversions API.[2]
- Fund it from your test budget, at or a little above the daily minimum, not from the campaign that already works.
- Give it time: OpenAI advises reviewing enough volume before large changes and changing one thing at a time; conversions take at least a day to appear.[1]
- Judge on real outcomes: sales or leads in your store or CRM, and whether your total results moved, not only the platform's own count.
Where Lumis fits
Lumis is adding ChatGPT Ads to your cross-channel reports (in beta): you connect your own Advertiser API key from Ads Manager, or import a report file, and see ChatGPT Ads next to Google and Meta. You can check if your business is ready, track visits from ChatGPT and other AI assistants, and on Pro and Agency send confirmed sales and leads back to ChatGPT Ads from the server. Lumis reports on ChatGPT Ads; you run the campaigns in Ads Manager. See ChatGPT Ads in Lumis.
Sources
- OpenAI, Ads API documentation (Overview, Bidding & Budgets, Targeting, Reporting, Troubleshooting), read 21 Oct 2026
- OpenAI, Conversions API and Measurement Pixel documentation, read 21 Oct 2026
- OpenAI, Custom Audiences documentation, read 21 Oct 2026
- Search Engine Journal, "OpenAI launches self-serve Ads Manager for ChatGPT" (May 2026)
- Everything-PR, "Ads in ChatGPT: what advertisers can run today" (21 Oct 2026)
- Soku, minimum daily budgets by currency, relaying OpenAI’s help article (19 Oct 2026)
- Digiday, "Everything is coming down: ChatGPT ads are getting cheaper" (17 Apr 2026)
- MediaPost, OpenAI adds a visual format and measurement partners (6 Oct 2026)
- OpenAI, Ad policies (check the live page before you spend)
Lumis is not affiliated with or endorsed by OpenAI. ChatGPT is a trademark of OpenAI.