ChatGPT Ads: how ads in ChatGPT work, what they cost and whether they are worth testing

What ads in ChatGPT are

An ad in ChatGPT is a sponsored card with a logo, headline, short description and link (in product formats also with an image and price), shown below the chatbot’s answer when the topic of the conversation matches the advertiser’s offer. OpenAI announced its advertising principles on 16 January 2026. Ads are always to be labelled and kept separate from answers, and ChatGPT’s answers must not depend on who is paying.

Only adult users of the Free and Go plans see ads; the paid plans (Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise) are ad-free. OpenAI states that conversations remain private from advertisers, who receive aggregated campaign results, not the content of chats. Users can switch off ad personalisation and clear the data used to select ads.

The scale is impressive. At the end of February 2026, OpenAI reported that 900 million people use ChatGPT every week, although it is not known how many of them are free users in Poland, because OpenAI does not publish that data. Advertising in a chatbot is just one of the channels in which AI is changing marketing; you will find the rest of the map in our guide to artificial intelligence in business.

How ChatGPT Ads went from a test to Poland

In eight months, ads went from announcement to self-serve in Europe. The dates in the table come from OpenAI’s announcements. The availability of Ads Manager for businesses from Poland is confirmed by OpenAI’s help centre, and Polish trade media are reporting the launch of ads in Poland.

How ChatGPT Ads Manager works

ChatGPT Ads Manager (OpenAI Ads Manager) is a platform where a business sets up its own account, sets a budget, uploads creative, launches campaigns and tracks results, much like the ad platforms of Google or Meta. Until May 2026, ads could only be bought through OpenAI’s sales team and large agencies.

There are three billing models to choose from. CPM is the cost per thousand impressions. With CPC, or cost per click, you only pay when someone clicks, and with conversion optimisation the system itself looks for the clicks most likely to end in a purchase or an enquiry. Targeting includes location and your own audience lists, among other things, but the ad is chosen above all by the context of the conversation.

Measurement is handled by the OpenAI pixel (a snippet of code on your website that counts actions after a click), the Conversions API (sending conversions from the company’s server) and integrations with third-party tools. Check the options available for a given country directly in Ads Manager. They change from month to month.

What you cannot advertise in ChatGPT

OpenAI’s advertising policy (updated on 10 September 2026) prohibits, among other things, ads for: adult content and dating; alcohol and tobacco; gambling and betting; drugs; counterfeits; scams; political content. Ads also do not appear in conversations on sensitive topics such as mental health, violence or self-harm.

For Polish businesses, the second list matters more. Financial services (loans, cards, insurance, investments, payments), selected medical services and legal services are allowed only in the USA and only after verification. Outside the USA they are prohibited. Every ad must be truthful, and the landing page must be clearly linked to the advertiser and the offer.

Who ChatGPT ads are for and when they make sense

Advertising in ChatGPT makes sense for businesses where people use the chatbot to compare and choose, asking for example “which invoicing system for a small business”, “best office coffee machine under 3,000” or “webinar platform in Polish”. A question about a specific solution is the moment when a sponsored card can meet a real need.

Good candidates for a test are online shops selling products people compare, business software and B2B services with a simple entry offer, such as training, an audit or a trial period. Brands without a clear offer to click on, and very narrow niches where nobody asks the chatbot, will do worse. A business without working conversion tracking should not start at all. It will never know whether the test achieved anything.

ChatGPT Ads, Google Ads or organic visibility in AI

Advertising in ChatGPT replaces neither Google Ads nor the work on what the model says about the company of its own accord. These are three different channels that answer different questions.

How to advertise in ChatGPT, step by step

The test should answer a business question. Simply spending the budget settles nothing, which is why six steps give structure to a first ChatGPT campaign.

1. STEP 01Check availability and category

   Set up an account in Ads Manager and make sure your sector is not on the prohibited list or on the list allowed only in the USA.

2. STEP 02Name the goal and the success threshold

   For example, enquiries at a cost no higher than in Google Ads. Without a threshold, any result can be called “promising”.

3. STEP 03Set up measurement before launch

   Pixel or Conversions API, UTM tags (additions to the link that tell analytics where a visit came from) and a separate landing page or a variant of one.

4. STEP 04Prepare creatives for a conversation

   The headline and description should answer the question someone asked the chatbot, so be specific, for example with a price or a benefit. We describe how to prepare variants with the help of AI in the article on AI advertising, and on writing copy that doesn’t sound machine-generated, in AI copywriting.

5. STEP 05Start with a small budget and CPC

   Paying per click limits the risk in a first test. For the first few weeks, gather data and don’t tweak the campaign every day.

6. STEP 06Compare with a control group

   Compare the result with other channels over the same period or with a region without the campaign, and only then decide on scale.

How much advertising in ChatGPT costs

OpenAI does not publish a price list. Rates are set by the auction, and the price depends on competition in the category. Polish trade media (including interaktywnie.com, 31 August 2026) report starting rates of around 3–5 dollars per click recommended to new advertisers; OpenAI does not give such figures in its official materials, so treat them purely as a rough guide, not as the price for your sector in Poland. The table shows the factors that determine the test budget.

When to test ChatGPT Ads and when to wait

Test now if you have working conversion tracking, an offer that people compare in conversations with AI, and a budget you can put towards learning without pressure for an immediate return. Entering a new channel early often means less competition. It also means fewer tools and less data, plus rules that are still changing.

Wait if your analytics are not in order, your core channels (search, Google campaigns) are not yet fine-tuned, or you operate in a sector on the prohibited list. A better investment then is what the model says about your company without you paying: publications, offer descriptions, a presence in credible sources. We explain the mechanism in ranking in ChatGPT, and the role of the media in the article on why publications decide what ChatGPT says about your company. If you mix up the abbreviations, take a look at the explainer how SEO differs from GEO and AEO.

How to measure whether a ChatGPT campaign worked

More enquiries in the month of a campaign are not yet proof that it worked. Correlation is not impact. At the same time, the season may have started or a competitor may have raised prices, and some customers were coming to you from Google anyway. So check the result in three ways: compare it with the equivalent weeks of the previous year, compare it with a group without the campaign (a region or a customer segment) and separate the sources in analytics using UTM tags.

What counts is the cost of acquiring an enquiry or a customer compared with other channels, not the number of impressions. The old question of where to advertise your business to win customers, still has the same answer: wherever the return can be measured. We run search campaigns as part of our Google Ads, and we look after presence in model answers as part of AI positioning.

Where first ChatGPT campaigns most often burn through the budget

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