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Last verified: 2026-10-13. We re-check pricing alongside the market list. Every dated platform change is in our ChatGPT Ads guide.
As of 2026-10-13, ChatGPT Ads self-serve has no minimum commitment, a reported minimum daily budget of $25 per campaign in the US (INR 725 in India), a reported recommended starting bid of $3 to $5 per click, and CPMs reported between roughly $18 and $65 depending on topic. OpenAI does not publish a rate card, so every number below is labelled reported or confirmed and dated. A realistic first test for a DTC brand is $50 a day for 30 days, about $1,500, which buys roughly 300 to 500 clicks.
Boundary note: LocalAds is not an OpenAI partner and does not place or buy ads. We make the creative, so we have no access to auction data beyond what is published.
The short answer
| Cost item | Figure | Status | Source, date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum commitment (self-serve) | None | Reported | PPC Land, 5 May 2026 |
| Minimum daily budget, US | $25 per campaign | Reported | PPC Land, 21 Aug 2026; StubGroup, Oct 2026 |
| Minimum daily budget, India | INR 725 | Reported | PPC Land, 21 Aug 2026 |
| Recommended starting max CPC | $3 to $5 | Reported | PPC Land, 5 May 2026 |
| Default CPM max bid | $60 | Reported | PPC Land, 5 May 2026 |
| CPM range by topic | About $18 to $65 | Reported | Third-party guides, 2026 |
| Published rate card | None | Confirmed | OpenAI publishes none |
"No minimum commitment" and "minimum daily budget" are different things, and some guides blur them. The commitment (a contracted total spend) disappeared for US self-serve in May. The daily floor per campaign did not.
How pricing changed in 2026
The channel went from a six-figure entry ticket to $25 a day in three months. Every row is third-party reporting unless marked.
| Date | Change | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 9 Feb 2026 | US pilot opens. CPM only, around $60 CPM. Minimum commitment reported at $200,000 (some reports say $250,000). | Reported |
| 17 Apr 2026 | CPMs reported as low as $25. Minimum commitment falls to $50,000. | Reported |
| 5 May 2026 | US self-serve Ads Manager. CPC bidding added beside CPM, no minimum commitment, $3 to $5 suggested starting CPC. | Reported |
| 22 May 2026 | Daily budgets added. | Reported |
| June to July 2026 | Conversion-optimised CPC rolls out (from 5 June per PPC Land; via the Conversions objective from 24 July per StubGroup). Billing stays per click. | Reported |
| Late July 2026 | Fixed daily budgets become seven-day average daily budgets. | Reported |
| 20 Aug 2026 | "Maximize results" automated bid strategy. | Reported |
| 21 Aug 2026 | Minimum campaign spend table published in ten billing currencies, $25 to INR 725. | Reported |
| 16 Sep 2026 | Conversion optimisation with impression billing generally available. | Reported |
| 23 Sep 2026 | South-East Asia and Taiwan open. No local currency floor listed as of 24 September. | Launch confirmed, currency reported |
| 1 to 14 Oct 2026 | No pricing change found in the trackers we check. | Our check |
Demand is the reason to watch this table. Digiday reported an annualised run-rate of about $1 billion on 31 August, and OpenAI says it has "tens of thousands" of advertisers. More advertisers chasing the same inventory pushes auction prices up.
Minimum daily budget by currency
The table PPC Land reported on 21 August, labelled as daily floors:
| Market | Currency | Daily minimum |
|---|---|---|
| United States | USD | 25 |
| Canada | CAD | 25 |
| Australia | AUD | 25 |
| New Zealand | NZD | 25 |
| United Kingdom | GBP | 15 |
| Japan | JPY | 2,500 |
| South Korea | KRW | 25,000 |
| Brazil | BRL | 40 |
| Mexico | MXN | 150 |
| India | INR | 725 |
Two things stand out. The floors are not a straight conversion: INR 725, BRL 40 and MXN 150 each come to well under $10, so entry is much cheaper there than in the US. And the table predates September, when the market count jumped to 63. We have not seen a published floor for euros, Gulf currencies or the seven South-East Asian markets, so check Ads Manager when you open an account rather than assuming $25. Market-specific detail is in ChatGPT Ads in Singapore and South-East Asia and ChatGPT Ads in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
What a click or an impression really costs
You choose between paying per click (CPC), per thousand impressions (CPM), or a conversion-optimised mode that still bills on clicks or impressions.
The useful conversion is effective cost per click. Similarweb reported a 0.50% click-through rate on ChatGPT ads in June 2026 (third-party, not confirmed by OpenAI). At that CTR:
| CPM | Clicks per 1,000 impressions | Effective cost per click |
|---|---|---|
| $18 | 5 | $3.60 |
| $25 | 5 | $5.00 |
| $40 | 5 | $8.00 |
| $65 | 5 | $13.00 |
So a CPM buy at the top of the reported range costs more than twice the suggested CPC ceiling per click, unless your square earns a well above average CTR. That is why we recommend starting on CPC with a cap you can afford, and moving to conversion optimisation only once your pixel has recorded real purchases. StubGroup's guide reports, from the author's own campaigns, clicks costing at least about $2 and often more depending on industry. Common Thread Collective claims CPMs in newly opened regions run 30 to 50% lower than in mature markets, but gives no source, so treat that as unverified.
A worked $50-a-day test for a DTC brand
Assume a DTC food or beauty brand testing in the US for 30 days at $50 a day, $1,500 in total.
| Low case | High case | |
|---|---|---|
| CPC bidding at $5 / $3 | 10 clicks a day, about 300 a month | 17 clicks a day, about 500 a month |
| CPM bidding at $65 / $18, 0.50% CTR | 770 impressions, about 4 clicks a day | 2,780 impressions, about 14 clicks a day |
| Orders at an assumed 2% conversion rate (CPC case) | About 6 | About 10 |
| Implied cost per order | About $250 | About $150 |
The 2% conversion rate is an illustrative assumption, not a ChatGPT benchmark. Plug in your own site's rate.
What $50 a day can teach you:
- Structure. The $25 floor is per campaign, so $50 a day is either two campaigns at the floor or one campaign with two or three ad groups. We would run one campaign with two ad groups, each built around a different conversation.
- Creative. Two squares per ad group, four in total. Each gets roughly 75 to 125 clicks over the month: enough to spot a square that clicks at half the rate of its sibling, not enough to read a reliable cost per order per creative.
- The verdict you can reach. After 30 days you can judge click-through and landing page behaviour with confidence, and cost per order only roughly. If you need a CPA answer, budget for longer, not for more ad groups.
Here is what two ad groups for a protein oats brand might look like, using real ads.
A real ad from the LocalAds ChatGPT Ads studio for GOAT Life: square, title and copy line are unedited output from the product page. The conversation is our mockup, not a live placement.
Same product, second ad group, generated in the LocalAds ChatGPT Ads studio and left unedited. We wrote the question and answer to show where it might sit.
One group is about convenience ("keep it at my desk"), the other about a nutrition target ("20g of protein"). Same product, different conversations, different squares. That is the minimum useful split for a $50-a-day test. We have no data on whether either ran or how it performed.
How it compares with Meta and Google
On raw price, ChatGPT is not the cheap channel. PPC Land noted in May that Meta's typical CPMs often fall below $20. Measurement firm Measured, which partners with OpenAI, is blunter: its Terence Einhorn told Modern Retail on 9 October that the equivalent cost per click on ChatGPT is "around 6X of that on Google", that results have generally been poor so far, and that many attributed sales look non-incremental. What you buy is different, a placement inside a question someone asked, shown to Free and Go users only, but on cost per order the burden of proof is on the new channel.
Treat ChatGPT as a capped test line, not a reallocation. The bigger practical difference between the three platforms is the creative each one demands, which we cover in ChatGPT Ads vs Meta Ads vs Google Ads.
Quenzy's square and copy, unedited output from the LocalAds ChatGPT Ads studio. The chat above it is illustrative only.
Low-ticket products are where cost per click bites hardest: at $3 to $5 a click, a single-can order cannot pay for itself. Send these clicks to multi-pack or subscription pages, and decide that before you spend.
The costs that are not in the auction
Media is the line everyone asks about. These are the others.
- Creative production. Each ad group needs its own 1:1 square, a 16 to 24-character title and a 32 to 48-character copy line (specs), plus refreshes when a square tires. Meta statics rarely port across because they rely on baked-in headlines. This is where LocalAds fits: paste a product URL and the ChatGPT Ads studio produces squares, titles, copy, context hints and negative phrases as an Ads Manager upload kit. Starter is $149 a month for 150 credits; the 3-day trial includes 60 credits, enough for 30 ad creatives, and needs a card. You can also do it by hand, following how to create ads for ChatGPT.
- Landing pages. Send each ad group to a page that answers its question, not your homepage. OpenAI's OAI-AdsBot crawler checks the safety of ad landing pages (OpenAI crawler docs), so do not block it.
- Measurement. The ChatGPT conversion pixel, the Conversions API, or the Shopify app (which sets up the pixel) are the setup cost. View-through conversions are reported separately and excluded from bidding and billing, per PPC Land.
- Feed hygiene. Product feed campaigns build ads from your catalogue, so titles, prices and images are effectively creative. See ChatGPT shopping ads and your product feed.
- Management. If you buy through an agency, add its fee. OpenAI named dentsu, Havas, Omnicom, Publicis and WPP as partners for its South-East Asia launch.
Before you pay for any of it, preview how your square and copy look on a card with our free ChatGPT ad preview tool. If you are budgeting for Q4, the ChatGPT Ads Black Friday playbook covers holiday bids and pacing.
FAQ
How much do ChatGPT ads cost? As of 2026-10-13, reported figures are a $25 minimum daily budget per campaign in the US, a suggested starting maximum CPC of $3 to $5, and CPMs between roughly $18 and $65 depending on topic. There is no minimum commitment for self-serve, and OpenAI publishes no rate card.
What is the minimum budget for ChatGPT ads? A reported $25 a day per campaign in the US. The August minimum spend table listed ten currencies, including GBP 15, JPY 2,500, KRW 25,000, BRL 40, MXN 150 and INR 725. No floor had been published for euros or the South-East Asian markets when we last checked.
What is the CPC for ChatGPT ads? The recommended starting maximum was reported at $3 to $5 per click when CPC bidding launched on 5 May 2026 (PPC Land). What you actually pay depends on the auction for your topic, and Measured has put effective ChatGPT CPCs at around 6x Google's.
What is the CPM for ChatGPT ads? It launched at about $60 in February 2026 and was reported as low as $25 by April. Current reported ranges run from about $18 to $65 depending on topic. At the reported 0.50% CTR, that equals $3.60 to $13 per click.
Is there still a $200,000 minimum for ChatGPT ads? No. That was the reported commitment for the February 2026 pilot. It fell to $50,000 in April and disappeared for US self-serve buyers on 5 May 2026. Only the daily floor remains.
Are ChatGPT ads more expensive than Meta ads? Per impression and per click, usually yes on the figures reported so far: Meta CPMs are often below $20. Judge it on cost per order and incrementality, not cost per click.
How much should I budget for a first ChatGPT ads test? For a DTC brand, $50 a day for 30 days ($1,500) is a sensible minimum. That buys roughly 300 to 500 clicks at $3 to $5, split across two ad groups with two squares each. Expect a confident read on click-through and a rough one on cost per order.
Changelog
- 2026-10-14: First published. No pricing changes found for October to date.
Sources
- PPC Land: self-serve Ads Manager and CPC bidding (5 May 2026), minimum campaign spend table, targeting and reporting (21 August 2026), South-East Asia expansion and pricing timeline (24 September 2026).
- StubGroup's ChatGPT advertising guide: bidding models, $25 daily minimum per campaign, conversion optimisation dates (updated 13 October 2026).
- Modern Retail: Measured's 6x Google CPC comparison and early results (9 October 2026).
- Common Thread Collective: October product updates and the unsourced regional CPM claim (1 October 2026).
- OpenAI newsroom: South-East Asia and Taiwan launch and agency partners (23 September 2026).
- OpenAI crawler documentation: OAI-AdsBot.
- Similarweb's CTR figure and Digiday's run-rate figure are third-party, as reported in trade coverage, and not confirmed by OpenAI.
Related reading:
- ChatGPT Ads guide: status, change log and every guide by question
- ChatGPT Ads for Black Friday 2026: Holiday Playbook
- Where ChatGPT Ads Are Available
- ChatGPT Ads Specs 2026: Every Character Limit, Reconciled
- How to Create Ads for ChatGPT: A Step-by-Step Guide
- ChatGPT Ads vs Meta Ads vs Google Ads
- ChatGPT ads creative from your product URL