ChatGPT ads cost: CPM vs. CPC, budgets and what to expect

Short answer: OpenAI publishes no price list for ChatGPT ads. You bid in an auction and pay per 1,000 impressions (CPM) or per click (CPC). Conversion-optimized campaigns are also billed per click or impression, not per conversion. In the self-serve Ads Manager the only fixed number is the minimum daily budget of 25 USD. Everything else you read about ChatGPT ad prices comes from trade press, not from OpenAI.

All facts were checked on October 3, 2026. Where a number comes from press reports rather than OpenAI, we say so.

How ChatGPT ads are priced (official)

Objective	You pay for	Source
Views	1,000 impressions (CPM)	OpenAI Help Center
Clicks	each valid click (CPC)	OpenAI, May 5, 2026
Conversions	click (oCPC) or 1,000 impressions (oCPM) – “You do not pay per conversion.”	OpenAI Help Center

CPC bidding arrived with the self-serve Ads Manager on May 5, 2026; before that, ChatGPT ads were bought on CPM (OpenAI). By August 31, 2026, OpenAI said “CPC and outcome-optimized bidding now account for the majority of campaigns” (OpenAI).

Bid strategies are a fixed bid, maximize clicks and maximize conversions. OpenAI currently gives no recommended bid: “There is no recommended bid amount at this time” (OpenAI Help Center). If your bid is too low to win auctions, the API reports a bid_too_low delivery hint.

Minimum budget and billing

• Minimum daily budget: 25 USD, 25 CAD, 25 AUD, 15 EUR, 15 GBP or 20 CHF, among other currencies. There is no spend commitment in self-serve.
• Pacing: a daily budget is averaged over a Sunday-to-Saturday week. A single day can spend up to twice the daily budget, the week up to seven times.
• Billing: self-serve accounts pay by credit card with automatic threshold billing. In OpenAI’s example the threshold rises from $25 to $50, $100 and $200 after successful payments; support cannot change it manually.
• Pausing: charges can continue for up to 24 hours after you pause a campaign.

For an illustrative 30-day test, 25 USD × 30 days gives a nominal budget of 750 USD. This arithmetic is not a required minimum test duration or a monthly spend commitment; actual spend follows delivery and pacing.

What has been reported about prices

OpenAI does not publish CPMs, CPCs or benchmarks – its FAQ says there are “no performance benchmarks across advertisers, industries, or campaign types” yet. These figures come from the press:

• Minimum commitment at launch: “OpenAI is asking select advertisers to commit at least $200,000,” which OpenAI confirmed to Adweek (January 31, 2026). That applied to the early, sales-led beta, not to today’s self-serve accounts.
• CPMs: PPC Land, citing Digiday, reported that CPMs fell “from $60 at launch nine weeks ago to as low as $25”, and that the minimum spend was cut from $250,000 to $50,000 in April 2026 (PPC Land, April 17, 2026). We could not read the Digiday original.
• Starting CPC: PPC Land reported that an OpenAI document recommended “a starting maximum bid of $3 to $5 USD per click” at the self-serve launch (PPC Land, May 5, 2026). We did not find this in OpenAI’s current documentation.
• Click-through rate: Search Engine Roundtable reported Similarweb data with an average CTR of 0.68% and 1.57% for the best brands (Search Engine Roundtable, May 5, 2026). The method and period were not stated.

Treat these as orientation, not as a forecast for your account. Prices in an auction follow demand, and demand has grown quickly: OpenAI reported a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate and “tens of thousands of advertisers” within 200 days (August 31, 2026).

How to plan a first test budget

Plan from your target, not from someone else’s CPM. Three numbers decide whether ChatGPT ads can work for you:

• Cost per click (CPC) – what you pay per visitor.
• Conversion rate (CVR) – share of those visitors who buy.
• Target cost per acquisition (CPA) – what a new customer may cost you.

Since CPA = CPC ÷ CVR, the CPC you can afford is your target CPA × your conversion rate.

Illustration with made-up numbers: if a new customer may cost $60 and 2% of ChatGPT visitors buy, you can afford up to $1.20 per click ($60 × 0.02). If you choose 30 purchases as an example learning target, you need about 1,500 clicks (30 ÷ 0.02), or about $1,800 at that CPC. Thirty purchases is an illustrative planning assumption, not an OpenAI requirement or a universal statistical threshold.

Use your own conversion rate from comparable traffic, not these example numbers. Then:

1. Start with a Clicks (CPC) campaign if you have little conversion data – you only pay for visitors.
2. Switch to Conversions once the pixel and Conversions API report purchases reliably; OpenAI optimizes toward the event you choose.
3. Run at least two to four weeks. Conversions need at least a day of processing, and the default attribution window is 30 days after a click.
4. Compare against your other channels on the same metric – see ChatGPT ads vs. Google Ads.

What drives your actual cost

• Bid and competition in the auction for the conversations you target.
• Relevance: OpenAI ranks ads on relevance as well as bid – your landing page, title, copy and context hints matter.
• Targeting: narrow locations, platforms and audiences reduce the auctions you can win.
• Tracking quality: conversion-optimized bidding can only work with clean conversion data. Our guide to ChatGPT ads tracking explains the setup.

FAQ

How much do ChatGPT ads cost?

OpenAI does not publish prices. ChatGPT ads are sold in an auction on a CPM or CPC basis, and the self-serve Ads Manager requires at least 25 USD per day. Trade press reported CPMs of around $60 at launch in early 2026 and as low as $25 by April 2026; these figures are not confirmed by OpenAI.

Are ChatGPT ads CPM or CPC?

Both. Views campaigns are billed per 1,000 impressions (CPM), Clicks campaigns per click (CPC). Conversion-optimized campaigns are billed per click or per 1,000 impressions – not per conversion.

Is there still a minimum commitment for ChatGPT ads?

Not in self-serve. Early advertisers were asked to commit at least $200,000, which OpenAI confirmed to Adweek in January 2026. In the self-serve Ads Manager there is no commitment, only a minimum daily budget.

Sources

Facts checked on 2026-10-03. Ads in AI assistants change quickly – if something here is out of date, email analytics@webwombats.com.

1. New ways to buy ChatGPT ads · OpenAI · 2026-05-05 · accessed 2026-10-03
2. A milestone in expanding access to AI · OpenAI · 2026-08-31 · accessed 2026-10-03
3. Create Campaigns for ChatGPT Ads · OpenAI Help Center · accessed 2026-10-03
4. Conversion-optimized Campaigns · OpenAI Help Center · accessed 2026-10-03
5. Billing & Payment · OpenAI Help Center · accessed 2026-10-03
6. Frequently asked questions · OpenAI Help Center · accessed 2026-10-03
7. Bidding and budgets · OpenAI · accessed 2026-10-03
8. EXCLUSIVE: OpenAI Confirms $200,000 Minimum Commitment for ChatGPT Ads · Adweek · 2026-01-31 · accessed 2026-10-03
9. ChatGPT ad CPMs drop to $25 as OpenAI races toward global auction · PPC Land · 2026-04-17 · accessed 2026-10-03
10. OpenAI opens ChatGPT Ads Manager to all US businesses with CPC bidding · PPC Land · 2026-05-05 · accessed 2026-10-03
11. Similarweb Data: ChatGPT Ads Click-Through Rates · Search Engine Roundtable · 2026-05-05 · accessed 2026-10-03