“How much will it cost?” is the first question every business owner asks about a new ad platform. With ChatGPT ads, the honest answer is that you decide. There’s no large minimum spend for self-serve accounts, and you control both your budget and your maximum bid.
This guide explains how ChatGPT ad pricing works, what OpenAI recommends for bids, how to work out a realistic test budget, and the other costs to plan for.
How ChatGPT ads are billed
When you set up a campaign in OpenAI Ads Manager, you choose what it’s optimising for:
- Views (CPM): you pay for every thousand times your ad is shown. This suits awareness campaigns.
- Clicks (CPC): you pay only when someone clicks through to your website. This suits most small businesses.
- Conversions: the system aims for people likely to complete an action you’ve set up, such as an enquiry or purchase. You’re still charged per valid click, not per conversion.
The auction: why you rarely pay your full bid
You set a maximum bid for each ad group: the most you’re willing to pay per click, or per thousand views. When several ads could appear under a response, OpenAI runs a relevance-weighted second-price auction. In plain terms:
- A more relevant ad can win against a higher bid, so good ads and clear landing pages lower your costs.
- You typically pay just enough to beat the next competitor, not your full maximum.
Ads Manager also shows bid-strength guidance, which tells you whether your bid is likely to be competitive or may limit how often your ad appears.
What OpenAI recommends for bids
For click campaigns, OpenAI suggests starting with a maximum bid of around US$3 to US$5 per click. That’s a starting point, not a price list. Actual costs vary by industry and competition, and early reports suggest competitive categories like software and finance cost noticeably more than retail or local services.
Because the platform is new, treat any published “average CPC” figures with caution. They come from a small number of early campaigns and change month to month. Your own test results are the only numbers that really matter.
Working out a test budget
A useful way to set a budget is to work backwards from the number of clicks you need to learn something. As a rough guide, you want at least 100 to 200 clicks before judging whether a campaign works.
Example only, to show the maths. If your average cost per click turned out to be A$5:
- 150 clicks × A$5 = A$750 over the test period
- Spread over four weeks, that’s roughly A$27 a day
- If 4% of those visitors enquire, that’s about 6 enquiries, or around A$125 per enquiry
Whether A$125 per enquiry is good depends entirely on what a customer is worth to you. For a landscaper whose average job is A$6,000, it could be excellent. For a A$40 product, it wouldn’t work. Do this sum for your own business before you start.
The other costs to plan for
- Management. If you use an agency, there’s a fee on top of ad spend. At Madexify, ChatGPT ads management is a flat A$200 a month, and ad spend is billed by OpenAI straight to your own account.
- Landing page. Sending ads to a generic homepage wastes clicks. A focused page for the service you’re advertising is often the best investment you can make. See how to structure a service page.
- Creative. Each ad needs a strong image and tight copy. Real photos of your work generally outperform stock images.
- Tracking setup. Installing the OpenAI pixel, adding UTM parameters and checking conversions record correctly takes time, but without it you can’t tell what your money bought.
How to keep spend under control
- Set a daily or campaign budget you’re comfortable losing entirely during a test.
- Start with click-based billing, so you only pay when someone visits your site.
- Write precise context hints describing the conversations you want to appear in. Vague hints mean less relevant placements.
- Remember the reporting lag. Clicks and impressions update about every 15 minutes, but spend can take 7 to 8 hours to appear. Don’t raise budgets because spend looks like zero on day one.
- Review weekly, not hourly. Give the system a couple of weeks before making big changes.
Is it cheaper than Google or Meta?
It’s too early to say for certain, and it will differ by industry. ChatGPT ads may cost more per click than some Meta campaigns but reach people further along in their research. The fair comparison is cost per enquiry or sale, not cost per click. Our ChatGPT vs Google vs Meta comparison explains how to test them side by side.
Next steps
Before you set a budget, run through the ChatGPT ads readiness checklist, and read how to advertise on ChatGPT for the full setup process. If you’d rather hand it over, get in touch and we’ll give you a realistic starting budget for your business.
This article is part of our Online Advertising Guide. Browse all our guides on the guides page.
