In self-serve Ads Manager, ChatGPT ads start at a minimum daily budget of $25 for US-dollar accounts (£15, €15) and OpenAI suggests a $3–$5 starting maximum bid per click (OpenAI help center). There is no public rate card: reported CPMs fell from $60 at launch to $25–$45 by April 2026 (trade press). Managed deals through OpenAI's sales team carried minimums of $50,000 to $250,000 during the pilot, depending on the report. An agency adds its own fee: the lowest published flat fee is $1,500 a month (LeadGulls; WebFX's percentage tier has a $975 floor) and most sit at $3,000–$9,500 a month, on top of media.
All figures checked on 13 November 2026. ChatGPT ads are in beta and prices move monthly.
Self-serve
You run Ads Manager yourself, billed to a card after ads deliver.
From $25 a day (USD accounts)
Self-serve costsTechnology partner
Adobe, Criteo, Kargo, Pacvue or StackAdapt run the buy inside their platform.
Minimums not published; $200,000 at pilot entry (trade)
Partner costsOpenAI sales or holding agency
Managed buying through OpenAI Ads Solutions, dentsu, Havas, Omnicom, Publicis or WPP.
Pilot minimums $50,000–$250,000 (trade, conflicting)
Managed costsIndependent agency
An agency runs your Ads Manager account; you pay media to OpenAI plus a fee.
Published flat fees from $1,500 a month, plus media
Agency feesKey takeaways
- The floor is per day, not per month. $25 a day is about $750 a month. Daily budget is an average over seven days, and a single day can spend up to twice it (OpenAI).
- You pay per view or per click, never per conversion. Conversion-optimised campaigns still bill per click (oCPC) or per 1,000 impressions (oCPM) (OpenAI).
- OpenAI publishes no CPM or CPC rates. Every price level below comes from trade press or agencies, and they disagree. OpenAI says the platform "does not yet have performance benchmarks" (OpenAI FAQ).
- The big minimums belonged to the pilot. Since 5 May 2026 anyone in a supported market can buy self-serve (OpenAI).
- Agency fees often exceed small media budgets. At $750 a month in media, the lowest published flat fee ($1,500, LeadGulls) is twice the media spend.
Cost by buying route
| Route | Who | Minimum | How you pay | Source, date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Self-serve Ads Manager | Any business whose legal entity is in a listed country | Minimum daily budget: $25 USD, £15, €15, C$25, A$25, ₹725 and others by currency | Card, charged after delivery when unpaid spend reaches a payment threshold, and at month end | OpenAI help center, page as of 31 Oct 2026 |
| Technology partners | Adobe, Criteo, Kargo, Pacvue, StackAdapt | Not published now. Criteo's pilot entry: $200,000 commitment | Through the partner's platform | OpenAI, 5 May 2026; PPC Land, 2 Mar 2026 (trade) |
| OpenAI Ads Solutions and holding agencies | OpenAI's sales team; dentsu, Havas Media, Omnicom Media, Publicis Groupe, WPP | Not published now. Pilot: $200,000 (PPC Land) vs $250,000 cut to $50,000 (Digiday) | Invoice on postpaid terms for "eligible sales-managed advertisers" | OpenAI, 23 Sep 2026; Digiday, 17 Apr 2026 (trade); OpenAI billing |
| Aleph (reseller) | Exclusive reseller in 44 markets: Latin America, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and Africa, part of Asia | Not published | Contract and local invoice with Aleph | Aleph release, 12 Nov 2026 (partner release; no OpenAI page found) |
| Independent agency | Agencies that run your Ads Manager account | Media floor as self-serve; some agencies recommend $5,000–$20,000 a month | Media to OpenAI, plus the agency's fee | Agency pages, checked 13 Nov 2026 (table below) |
Self-serve
OpenAI opened a self-serve Ads Manager beta to US advertisers on 5 May 2026, with CPC bidding added next to CPM (OpenAI). It is now open in 89 countries, if the legal entity that advertises and gets billed is based in one of them (availability, 31 October 2026). That list includes India, which trade press reported launched without self-serve on 29 August 2026 (PPC Land). How to sign up: can you buy ads in ChatGPT?
Minimum daily budget by billing currency (selected; OpenAI lists 37 currencies, help center, page as of 31 October 2026):
| Currency | Minimum daily budget | About 30 days |
|---|---|---|
| USD | $25 | $750 |
| GBP | £15 | £450 |
| EUR | €15 | €450 |
| CAD / AUD / NZD | 25 | 750 |
| JPY | ¥2,500 | ¥75,000 |
| INR | ₹725 | ₹21,750 |
| BRL | R$40 | R$1,200 |
| MXN | MX$150 | MX$4,500 |
How you are charged. Billing is postpaid. Your card is charged when unpaid spend reaches the account's payment threshold, and any balance at month end. OpenAI's example starts at a $25 threshold and rises with payment history; you cannot change it yourself. Adding a card can trigger a temporary authorisation hold, which is not an ad charge (billing).
What you bid. You choose an objective: Views (pay per 1,000 impressions), Clicks (pay per valid click) or Conversions (optimised toward a conversion event, still billed per click or per 1,000 impressions). For click campaigns OpenAI recommends "starting with a maximum bid of $3–$5 USD per click". Ads compete in a "relevance-weighted, second-price auction" (the basics). On 12 November 2026 trade press reported Target CPA and Target CPC bidding, with the manual Max Bid retiring on 1 January 2027 (Search Engine Roundtable).
Things that cost money you may not expect.
- Ads can keep showing for up to 24 hours after you pause a campaign, and that spend is billable.
- Delivered spend is "generally not eligible for a refund", including when results are weaker than expected.
- Spend in reports can lag 7–8 hours, so a zero is not proof of no charges.
All three: OpenAI billing and the basics.
Some agency pages say OpenAI "removed its minimum spend requirement" (The SEO Works) or that there is "no minimum spend" (AIclicks). That is true of the pilot's large commitments, not of the daily floor, which OpenAI's help center still lists.
Reported CPM and CPC levels
OpenAI does not publish rates. These are the figures in print, newest last. Conflicting numbers are shown side by side.
| When | Figure | Who says so | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb–Mar 2026 (pilot) | $60 CPM | PPC Land, 2 Mar 2026 | trade |
| Apr 2026 | "as low as" $25 CPM; Jellyfish average about $45; $25–$35 via Criteo; Ad Age cited $15 | Digiday, 17 Apr 2026 | trade, agency anecdotes |
| May 2026 | CPC bids of $3–$5 | Search Engine Journal | trade |
| Oct 2026 | $3–$5 recommended starting max CPC | OpenAI help center, page as of 30 Oct 2026 | platform |
| Aug–Oct 2026 | about $5 average CPC across three B2B SaaS clients | InterTeam Marketing case study | agency, anonymised |
| Nov 2026 | $16 average CPM, $2.50 average CPC "across the campaigns we manage" (UK and US) | Index Lab, checked 13 Nov 2026 | agency, aggregate |
For scale, the same Digiday article quotes Gupta Media CPMs of $4.82 on Facebook, $7.63 on Instagram, $10.33 on Google Display, $3.02 on TikTok and $39.19 on LinkedIn. Click-through rates reported by Similarweb and Graphite: 0.73% in the US and 1.91% in Brazil (PPC Land, 21 Oct 2026, trade).
What a monthly budget buys
Arithmetic only, not a forecast. Assumptions: a 30-day month, the whole budget delivers, and either a $25 or $45 CPM (the April 2026 range above) or a $3 or $5 CPC (OpenAI's suggested starting bids). Actual prices depend on the auction, your market and your ads.
| Media per month | Impressions at $45 CPM | Impressions at $25 CPM | Clicks at $5 CPC | Clicks at $3 CPC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $750 (the $25/day floor) | 16,700 | 30,000 | 150 | 250 |
| $3,000 | 66,700 | 120,000 | 600 | 1,000 |
| $10,000 | 222,000 | 400,000 | 2,000 | 3,330 |
| $20,000 | 444,000 | 800,000 | 4,000 | 6,670 |
At $10,000 a month in media, the total with an agency on its published terms would be: LeadGulls $11,500 (flat $1,500), WebFX $11,500 (15% of spend, $975 floor), GPT Ads AI $15,000 ($5,000 Launch plan), Stackmatix $16,000 ($6,000 or 15%, whichever is greater). Sources in the table below.
Technology partners
OpenAI named Adobe, Criteo, Kargo, Pacvue and StackAdapt as technology partners on 5 May 2026. They "help support campaign budgeting, bidding and advertising creative, while OpenAI's ads system controls all delivery decisions" (OpenAI). In the 26 countries added on 21 October 2026, OpenAI names only two routes: technology partners or self-serve (OpenAI).
No partner publishes a current ChatGPT minimum. When Criteo joined the pilot, trade press reported a $60 CPM and a $200,000 minimum commitment (PPC Land, 2 March 2026). Criteo reported more than 2,000 brands live across 7 countries in its Q2 2026 results (Criteo filing). A partner is usually worth it only if you already buy media through that platform.
Managed: OpenAI sales and holding agencies
During the pilot (February–April 2026) ChatGPT ads were sold only through OpenAI and partners. The minimum is reported two ways:
- $200,000 minimum commitment (PPC Land, 2 March 2026, trade).
- $250,000 at launch, lowered to $50,000 (Digiday, 17 April 2026, trade).
No current minimum for managed buying is published. OpenAI's help center says "larger advertisers with more complex needs can contact the OpenAI Ads team" (availability), and sales-managed advertisers can be billed on invoice terms (billing).
OpenAI's agency partners are dentsu, Havas Media, Omnicom Media, Publicis Groupe and WPP (OpenAI, 23 September 2026). None of the five publishes a ChatGPT ads price or service page on its own site (checked 13 November 2026). Their fees are part of a holding-company media contract.
In 44 markets, Aleph says it is OpenAI's exclusive reseller: brands and agencies contract with Aleph and are invoiced locally (release, 12 November 2026). No price is published, and we found no OpenAI page confirming the deal.
What agencies charge
Published monthly fees: 10 of 27 agencies
Agency management fee per month, log scale; media spend is paid to OpenAI on top. Arrow = no upper bound (“from”, “+”, or a % of spend that can be higher)
16 of the 27 agencies we track publish a fee, a media-spend floor or a recommended starting budget for ChatGPT ads; the other 11 publish neither. The table shows groups A and B, so it also includes InterTeam Marketing, which publishes a result but no price. Order and groups follow the main list: group A publishes a ChatGPT ads campaign result with a figure, group B publishes a price or minimum; within a group, by how often AI assistants name the agency, then by the date it started selling ChatGPT ads (methodology).
| Agency | Group | Agency fee (published) | Fee model | Media spend they set or recommend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 InterTeam Marketing |
A | not published | not published | not published; case reports ~$5 average CPC |
 LeadGulls |
A | $1,500 USD a month (US); $1,500 CAD (Canada) | Flat, "zero percentage-of-spend markups" | OpenAI floor, $25/day per campaign |
 GPT Ads AI |
A | $5,000 (up to $40k managed spend); $9,500 (up to $150k); custom | Fixed retainer, 0% of spend | "at least $10,000 a month in media" |
 Index Lab |
A | not published ("we share on the call") | not published | €450 a month (OpenAI's €15/day floor) |
 Single Grain |
B | not published | not published | Enterprise campaigns "typically start at $25,000-$50,000 per month" (not stated whether fee, media or both) |
 WebFX |
B | from $3,000 a month (FAQ); or $975 or 15% of spend for $5k–$30k spend; $4,500 or 12% above $30k | Flat or % of spend with a floor (page shows both) | "$5K minimum recommended ad spend per month" |
 Top Growth Marketing |
B | $2,000–$10,000 a month (whole program, not ChatGPT alone) | Monthly by revenue tier and scope | not published; client floor $100k a year in AI-channel revenue |
 Uproer |
B | from $5,000 a month; $10,000 with SEO/GEO | Retainer, 12-month commitment, after a one-month strategy project | not published |
 The SEO Works |
B | not published | Management fee on top of CPM/CPC media | "no floor" (their wording) |
 LYFE Marketing |
B | "$1,500 and $5,000+" (generic FAQ for any ChatGPT ads agency) | not published | OpenAI floor, $25/day |
 AIclicks |
B | $2K–$15K+ a month (whole AI-visibility retainer) | Retainer | "no minimum spend" (their wording) |
 Admiral Media |
B | not published | Flat retainer or % of media, separate from media | "no budget minimums" |
 Rankings.io |
B | not published | not published | $1,500–$6,000 a month test (law firms) |
 M+C Saatchi Performance |
B | not published | not published | "around $20K over one month" test, "not a platform minimum" |
 PipeRocket Digital |
B | from $5,000 a month | Flat, no setup fee, no markup on spend | not published |
 Stackmatix |
B | $6,000 or 15% of media, whichever is greater (all paid platforms) | Greater of flat or % | not published |
 TripleDart |
B | from $5,000 a month (whole paid program) | Flat, "no percentage of ad spend" | clients from ~$10k a month across all paid media |
Read the fine print before comparing:
- Whole-program prices. Top Growth Marketing, AIclicks, Stackmatix and TripleDart quote one fee for several channels. You may not be able to buy ChatGPT ads alone at that price.
- WebFX shows three prices on one page: "PPC Management Starting at $750/month", "$3,000 per month" in the FAQ, and a table where ChatGPT ads are only in the $975+/15% and $4,500+/12% tiers.
- Commitment. Uproer requires 12 months. PipeRocket offers a three-month pilot with "Full refund if we miss" agreed milestones (pricing).
- Results backing the price. Only the four group A agencies publish a ChatGPT ads result with a number, and all four are anonymised. GPT Ads AI's named-client results and partner badges belong to its sister agency Conversion.is (case studies).
Full profiles, proof and flags: best ChatGPT ads agencies. How to judge an agency's quote: how to choose a ChatGPT ads agency.
When you don't need an agency
- Your test budget is under about $3,000 a month. The lowest flat agency fee is $1,500 a month, so at $750–$3,000 in media the fee is half to twice your spend. GPT Ads AI itself says: "Below roughly $3,000 a month, run it yourself as a learning exercise" (gptadsai.com).
- You already run search or social ads in-house. Ads Manager has a guided setup that drafts your first ad from your website URL (OpenAI).
- You want to own the account. With self-serve the account is yours. Agencies like Index Lab and WebFX also run ads in the client's own account; ask before you sign.
An agency is easier to justify when you spend $10,000+ a month, need creative and conversion tracking built, are in a regulated US category (finance, health, legal need manual approval, OpenAI ad policies), or are in a market where you cannot buy self-serve.
How ChatGPT ads cost compares
ChatGPT CPMs next to other channels
Cost per 1,000 impressions, US dollars; OpenAI publishes no rate card
ChatGPT is the only AI assistant that sells its own ad placements as a separate platform (13 November 2026). Ads in Google AI Overviews and AI Mode are bought through existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns at Search auction prices (Google); Microsoft Copilot ads come through Microsoft Advertising campaigns. Perplexity stopped taking new advertisers in October 2025, so there is no Perplexity price today (Perplexity ads). Platform overview: ChatGPT ads and ads in AI search.
FAQ
How much do ChatGPT ads cost per month?
At least about $750 a month in media for a US-dollar account, because the minimum daily budget is $25 (OpenAI). Agencies recommend more for a readable test: WebFX $5,000 a month, GPT Ads AI $10,000 a month, M+C Saatchi Performance about $20,000 over one month.
What is the CPM for ChatGPT ads?
OpenAI does not publish one. Trade press reported $60 at launch in February 2026 and $25–$45 by April 2026, with Ad Age citing $15 (Digiday). Index Lab reports a $16 average across the campaigns it manages (November 2026).
What is the CPC for ChatGPT ads?
OpenAI recommends starting with a $3–$5 maximum bid per click (OpenAI). Agencies report about $5 (InterTeam Marketing, B2B SaaS) and $2.50 (Index Lab, UK and US).
Is there a minimum spend for ChatGPT ads?
Yes, per day: $25 for USD accounts, £15, €15 and other amounts by currency. The pilot's $50,000–$250,000 commitments do not apply to self-serve. Managed and partner minimums are not published.
Do you pay for conversions on ChatGPT ads?
No. Even conversion-optimised campaigns bill per click or per 1,000 impressions (OpenAI).
How much does a ChatGPT ads agency charge?
Published fees run from $1,500 a month flat (LeadGulls) to $9,500 a month (GPT Ads AI Scale plan), or a share of spend: WebFX 15% (floor $975), Stackmatix 15% (floor $6,000). Media is paid to OpenAI on top. 17 of 27 agencies publish no fee.