Short answer: ChatGPT ads are paid placements that may appear below ChatGPT’s answers for users on the Free and Go plans. OpenAI says they don’t influence the answers. A business based in the United States can buy them in Ads Manager, a self-serve beta, or through partners. It pays per 1,000 views or per click in an auction, and some health, financial and legal services face limits.
Before you read: This guide is based on OpenAI’s own announcements, ad policies and help pages, read on November 10, 2026. Ads Manager is still a beta, OpenAI says, so the countries, prices and formats below are the ones its pages gave on that date. It is general information, not legal advice.
Where ChatGPT ads appear and who sees them
OpenAI began testing ads in ChatGPT in the United States on February 9, 2026. Its help center says ads may appear below a ChatGPT response, as one ad unit with one or more images.
OpenAI is also testing a multi-image ad that shows while ChatGPT generates an image. Ads are clearly labeled and kept separate from the response or the image being created.
Ads may appear for eligible users on the Free and Go plans, in the regions where OpenAI is rolling them out gradually. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts don’t get them.
In our view, that makes these ads a weaker fit for a company that sells mainly to other businesses.
OpenAI keeps ads away from accounts it identifies as belonging to people under 18, using the age on the account and age prediction where available. Temporary Chats have no ads either.
Ads aren’t eligible to appear near sensitive topics, including personal health, mental health and politics. A Free user who prefers no ads can switch to an Ads-Free mode with lower usage limits and fewer features.
How ChatGPT picks which ad to show
OpenAI’s help center lists the signals its ads system considers. They include the context and intent of the current conversation, and the landing page, title and copy of the ad.
The advertiser’s context hints and targeting count too. When ad personalization and the past chats and memory setting are on, past chats and memory can add to the relevance of an ad.
When several ads are eligible, OpenAI weighs a combination of factors, including relevance and the advertisers’ bids, to pick the one shown first.
Context hints describe the conversations, topics or keywords where your offer may be relevant. OpenAI says they aren’t exact-match keywords, and they don’t guarantee delivery in specific conversations.
In our view, that is the biggest change from Google Ads: you describe the moments that fit your offer, and the system decides when to show the ad.
A user can turn off personalization and still see ads based on the current chat. Advertisers get aggregated, non-identifying reports, such as total views or clicks.
They never receive users’ chats, chat history, memories, names, emails, precise location, IP address or sensitive information, according to OpenAI’s help center.
Who can buy ChatGPT ads
Since May 5, 2026, advertisers can buy ChatGPT ads through partners or a self-serve Ads Manager in beta, OpenAI says. OpenAI is opening Ads Manager to more businesses gradually.
In Ads Manager, a business registers as an advertiser, adds payment information and sets budgets, bids and pacing. It then uploads ads, launches campaigns and reads their results.
OpenAI’s availability page lists the United States as available for self-service. The legal entity that advertises and is billed has to be based in a listed country, the page says.
On October 21, 2026, OpenAI said ChatGPT ads were available in 89 countries.
Since September 16, 2026, businesses can connect a ChatGPT Ads account in HubSpot, and US-based Shopify merchants can use a ChatGPT Ads app.
You sign up at ads.openai.com with the OpenAI account you use for ChatGPT, or create one. The country or region, currency and time zone can’t be changed after the account is created.
Ads Manager uses a brand name, shown next to your ads, and a legal name, used for billing and business verification. Billing takes a credit card, and campaigns don’t deliver until it is set up.
Some new self-serve accounts can advertise only in their home country at first. An account may start delivering before additional business verification, which OpenAI may require after a spending threshold.
That review may take up to 7 business days, OpenAI’s troubleshooting page says.
In our view, settle the brand name, the legal name, the country, the currency and the time zone before you sign up.
Categories with limits: health, money and legal services
OpenAI’s ad policies, updated on September 10, 2026, say that during the initial test period ads are primarily limited to consumer categories. They give lifestyle and household goods, local services, travel and experiences, and digital products or education as examples.
Financial services, healthcare and legal services are being rolled out gradually, the policies add, with approvals reviewed manually case by case.
For health, the policy lists the categories OpenAI may allow in the US from approved advertisers, case by case. Dental services, vision products and services, and minimally invasive cosmetic procedures are among them.
OpenAI’s troubleshooting page has its own eligibility table, which marks minimally invasive cosmetic procedures as allowed in the US. The same page says OpenAI isn’t accepting applications for approval in certain categories for now.
OpenAI doesn’t allow ads for invasive or high-risk medical procedures, unsupported treatment claims or health products that exploit body-image concerns, among others. Health services outside the US are generally prohibited, and advertisers may be required to provide proof of licensure.
Financial ads have their own case-by-case list in the US, and ads for credit repair and debt settlement aren’t allowed. Legal services are permitted in the US only when the advertiser is licensed to practice law in the jurisdiction where the ad is shown.
The policies also prohibit ads for individual job listings and for housing rentals or sales. A registered or licensed business isn’t automatically eligible for every category or market, OpenAI’s help center adds.
The policies ask every ad to be truthful, not misleading and clearly distinguishable from ChatGPT itself. Those standards cover the copy, images and landing page, and an approved ad can’t link to a page with disallowed content.
In our view, a clinic or a legal practice is better off reading the line for its own category before it builds a campaign.
How you pay for ChatGPT ads
Each campaign has an objective that sets how you pay. With Views you pay per 1,000 impressions, and with Clicks you pay per valid click.
Conversions campaigns optimize toward a conversion event you select, and bill per valid click or per 1,000 impressions. You don’t pay per conversion, OpenAI notes.
If you need a different objective, OpenAI says to create a new campaign rather than edit the old one.
An auction decides which eligible ads show, and the final winning bid sets the price you pay. For Clicks campaigns, OpenAI recommends starting with a maximum bid of $3.00 to $5.00 per click.
A campaign gets a total budget or a daily one. The daily budget is an average over a 7-day period, and spend on a single day won’t exceed twice that amount.
For an account billed in US dollars, the minimum daily budget is $25.00. OpenAI recommends that new advertisers start with a daily budget.
Spend can show up 7 to 8 hours late, so a zero doesn’t necessarily mean nothing was charged.
In our view, a small business learns more from a Clicks campaign on a daily budget than from paying for views.
What a ChatGPT ad needs
Each ad shows the advertiser name, a favicon, a title, a description, an image and a link to the landing page. Since October 26, 2026, Ads Manager also offers a multi-image format in open beta, with 4 to 6 square images.
OpenAI’s advice for the copy is to make it clear, specific and focused on benefits. It suggests several title and description variations, each with a different angle.
OpenAI’s help center says the landing page has to be valid and reachable, and that it can’t block OpenAI’s user agents OAI-AdsBot and OAI-SearchBot.
OAI-AdsBot visits pages submitted as ads to check them against OpenAI’s policies. OpenAI may also use the page’s content to decide when to show the ad, and it doesn’t use that data to train its foundation models.
Our guide to AI crawlers explains how robots.txt lets each OpenAI bot in or keeps it out.
Campaigns target countries and, where available, states or regions, cities, markets or postal codes. To target only the United States, OpenAI says to include it on purpose: excluding other countries isn’t enough.
To include a custom audience in a campaign, the audience needs at least 25,000 matched users, OpenAI says.
Measuring what the ads bring
Ads Manager reports impressions, clicks, spend, click-through rate, average CPC, average CPM and conversions. OpenAI also offers a pixel and a Conversions API to see what happens after someone engages with an ad.
You can add UTM parameters to the landing page address, and they stay on ad clicks. Our guide to UTM parameters shows how to build them.
OpenAI warns that its ad-review crawlers may visit the landing page with those parameters. Analytics tools may count those visits as paid traffic, but they aren’t billable clicks.
Ads and the answers ChatGPT gives
OpenAI says ads run on separate systems from its chat model, and advertisers have no ability to shape, rank or alter ChatGPT’s responses. Seeing an ad doesn’t mean OpenAI endorses the advertiser, its help center adds.
In our view, an ad buys a spot under the answer, while the answer itself depends on what ChatGPT can read about you.
Our guide to ChatGPT search shows how ChatGPT finds websites and how to check yours.
On November 10, 2026, OpenAI opened Businesses in ChatGPT in beta. In Business Hub, an eligible company can claim its business in ChatGPT, manage its information and see insights on how people engage with it.
A Business Agent, open to eligible ecommerce and online service businesses in the US, can also be the destination of an ad.
Google shows AI answers too. Our guide to Google AI Overviews explains how to appear in them.
Our AI search optimization service works on those answers. It lets Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT and Perplexity reach your pages, understand them and quote them, in English and Spanish.
Before you launch a ChatGPT ad
- Your category is one OpenAI accepts in the US, and you have any license it may ask for.
- The country, currency and time zone are right before you create the account.
- The landing page matches the ad and lets OAI-AdsBot and OAI-SearchBot in.
- The campaign includes the United States as a location, not only exclusions.
- The objective is the one you want, since a different one means a new campaign.
- The landing page address carries UTM parameters, and review visits are expected.
RememberChatGPT ads may appear below answers for Free and Go users, and OpenAI says they don’t change the answers. In the US, Ads Manager is a self-serve beta, and health, financial and legal services face extra limits.
Questions about ChatGPT ads
How much do ChatGPT ads cost?
There is no fixed price: an auction sets it. You pay per 1,000 views or per valid click. For an account billed in US dollars, the minimum daily budget is $25.00, and OpenAI recommends starting with a maximum bid of $3.00 to $5.00 per click.
Who sees ads in ChatGPT?
Eligible users on the Free and Go plans, in the regions where OpenAI is rolling ads out, its help center says. Logged-out users can see ads too, limited to ones suitable for all audiences. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts don’t get ads. OpenAI also keeps them away from accounts it identifies as belonging to people under 18, and from Temporary Chats.
Can a small business advertise on ChatGPT?
Yes, if its category is allowed. A business based in a listed country, the United States included, can sign up for the self-serve Ads Manager at ads.openai.com. OpenAI calls it a beta, and some new accounts can advertise only in their home country at first.
Do ChatGPT ads change ChatGPT’s answers?
OpenAI says they don’t. Ads run on separate systems from its chat model, and advertisers have no ability to shape, rank or alter the responses. Each ad is clearly labeled and kept separate from the answer.
Can a clinic advertise on ChatGPT?
In the US, OpenAI’s ad policies list dental services and minimally invasive cosmetic procedures among the health categories it may allow from approved advertisers, case by case. Invasive or high-risk procedures aren’t allowed, and OpenAI may ask for proof of licensure.
Sources
All read on November 10, 2026. OpenAI’s announcements: New ways to buy ChatGPT ads, Reimagining advertising with AI and Introducing Businesses in ChatGPT. Also ChatGPT Ads expands to 26 new countries as over 100,000 advertisers have used the platform. Its policies: Ad policies. From the OpenAI Help Center: Ads in ChatGPT, Ads in ChatGPT: The Basics, Ads Manager Availability and Ads Manager Account Setup. Also Creating campaigns for ChatGPT Ads, Creating ads for ChatGPT Ads and Troubleshooting Common Onboarding and Policy Issues. From OpenAI’s developer documentation: Overview of OpenAI Crawlers.