ChatGPT Ads are sponsored placements that appear below a ChatGPT answer, in a separate box labelled Sponsored. Businesses buy them through OpenAI's self-serve Ads Manager, which opened to UK advertisers in June 2026 and to advertisers in 31 European markets, Malta included, on 31 August 2026. The ads are shown to people on ChatGPT's Free and Go plans, and OpenAI says they do not influence the answer itself.
We manage ChatGPT Ads for Malta businesses and run a campaign for our own agency, so this guide combines what OpenAI documents with what we have seen in a live account. Where a figure comes from a single advertiser or a vendor, we say so.
How ChatGPT Ads work
When someone asks ChatGPT a question, the ads system looks at the conversation and may show an ad below the finished answer. The standard ad is a card with the advertiser's name and logo, a title, a short description, one image and a link. Retailers can also run product ads built from a catalogue feed, and since August 2026 ChatGPT can show several products from one retailer in a carousel.
Three things set the platform apart from Google and Meta:
- There are no keywords. You describe what each ad group offers with context hints. OpenAI's targeting documentation is explicit that hints are not exact-match keywords, and the platform has no match types, negative keywords or search-term report.
- You never see the conversation. Advertisers receive aggregated figures such as views and clicks. OpenAI says it does not share chats with advertisers.
- The answer cannot be bought. OpenAI says ads run on separate systems from the chat model and that advertisers cannot shape or rank ChatGPT's responses.
That last point matters for planning. An ad buys a placement under the answer for Free and Go users. A recommendation inside the answer has to be earned through generative engine optimisation, and it reaches every user, including those on paid plans who see no ads.
Where ChatGPT Ads are available
OpenAI began testing ads in the United States on 9 February 2026 and opened the self-serve Ads Manager to US advertisers on 5 May 2026. The rollout since then:
- United Kingdom. Ads went live for UK users on 6 June 2026, and UK advertisers gained self-serve access later that month.
- EU and Malta. OpenAI announced on 18 August 2026 that ads would reach 31 European markets the following week, and on 31 August it opened self-serve access across those markets. They cover the 27 EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
- Elsewhere. OpenAI has since added markets across Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa.
The audience is large. OpenAI says ChatGPT has more than 1 billion weekly users, and the European Commission designated ChatGPT a very large online search engine on 31 August 2026, after OpenAI reported an average of about 159 million monthly users of ChatGPT search in the EU. In Malta, Eurostat found that 47% of people aged 16 to 74 used generative AI tools in 2025, against an EU average of 33%. Within the EU only Denmark, at 48%, was higher.
That designation has a useful side effect for marketers. OpenAI will have to keep a public repository of the ads it shows in the EU, which should make it easier to see what competitors are running.
Who sees the ads
- Ads may appear for people on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts have none.
- OpenAI does not show ads to accounts it identifies as belonging to under-18s.
- Ads do not appear next to sensitive conversations, including personal health, mental health and politics.
- In the European Economic Area and Switzerland, ads are not personalised for now. They are chosen from the current conversation, without drawing on past chats or memory.
If you use ChatGPT and wonder why ads have started to appear, this is why: you are on the Free or Go plan in a country where ads have launched. OpenAI's help centre explains the controls under Settings, Ad Controls, where you can dismiss ads and see why a particular ad was shown. Paid plans from Plus upwards carry no ads.
Who can advertise, and who cannot
OpenAI's ad policies, last updated on 10 September 2026, are stricter than Google's or Meta's. The early focus is on household and consumer goods, local services, travel and entertainment, and digital products and education.
Not accepted anywhere:
- Real-money gambling
- Alcohol and tobacco, including vaping
- Recreational drugs
- Adult content and dating
- Political advertising
- Individual job listings and individual property listings
Accepted in the United States only, case by case:
- Financial services such as loans, credit cards, insurance and investment services
- Health services such as dental care, hospitals and medical testing
- Legal services
Outside the US, the policy says ads for financial and health services are generally prohibited and ads for legal services are prohibited. For a bank, insurer, clinic or law firm in Malta, the UK or the EU, ChatGPT Ads are closed for now, whatever the budget. The same applies to Malta's iGaming operators, because real-money gambling ads are not accepted anywhere.
Two exceptions are worth knowing. Financial tools that do not sell a financial product, such as budgeting apps or general finance software, are generally permitted. And a property or recruitment platform can advertise as long as the ad and landing page do not point to a specific listing.
The policy has been revised several times this year, so read the current version before planning a campaign in a regulated category.
What ChatGPT Ads cost
There is no rate card. Prices are set by auction, and OpenAI's bidding documentation offers three ways to bid:
- Impressions. A bid per thousand views (CPM).
- Clicks. A bid per click (CPC), set manually or left to a maximise-clicks strategy.
- Conversions. The system bids towards a conversion event you choose, such as a lead or an order. You are still charged per click.
What the numbers have looked like so far:
- Minimum spend. The first managed deals reportedly needed commitments of USD 200,000 or more. Self-serve removed that. What remains is a minimum daily budget per campaign that depends on your account currency. In our euro account it is EUR 15 a day.
- CPM. Launch pricing was reported at about USD 60 per thousand impressions. By April 2026 trade press was reporting CPMs as low as USD 25.
- CPC. Published data is thin. One US agency that shared a full account breakdown reported an average of about USD 1.72 per click across 15 days.
We have not seen reliable euro or sterling benchmarks yet. Treat any European figure you are quoted as one account's experience.
Targeting and measurement
Campaigns can be targeted by:
- Location. Countries, and in some markets smaller areas.
- Platform. Web, the iOS app or the Android app.
- Context hints. Short descriptions of what the ads in an ad group offer, which help the system match them to conversations.
- Customer lists. Uploaded lists used to include, exclude or adjust bids for known audiences.
The last option is not available in most of Europe. OpenAI's audience documentation says custom audiences are not supported for campaigns targeting the EEA or Switzerland, because personalised ads are not yet offered there. A campaign in Malta is matched on the conversation, the country and the device.
Measurement uses a browser pixel, a server-side Conversions API, or both. Reporting covers impressions, clicks, spend, conversions and return on ad spend, with breakdowns by country and device, and click attribution can be set to 7, 14 or 30 days.
Two set-up points save trouble later:
- Consent. The pixel sets cookies, so in the EU and UK it needs the visitor's consent first. OpenAI's pixel has a consent feature for this. On our own site it loads only after a visitor accepts measurement cookies.
- UTM tags. Tag every ad URL. In our Google Analytics, tagged ad clicks appear separately from the unpaid referrals ChatGPT already sends, which keeps paid and organic results apart.
How to set up your first campaign
- Create the account. Sign up at ads.openai.com with the OpenAI account your business will use. The business owns the account and can invite an agency as a user.
- Verify the business. Complete identity verification and add your business name, website, logo, country, currency and time zone.
- Add billing. A billing profile and a company card are needed before ads can deliver.
- Install tracking. Add the pixel or the Conversions API with consent handling, and decide which event counts as a conversion.
- Build the campaign. The campaign holds the objective, budget, schedule and targeting. Ad groups hold the bid and the context hints. Ads hold the creative and the destination.
- Write the ad. OpenAI's specifications ask for a title of 3 to 50 characters, a body of up to 100 characters and an image of at least 640 by 640 pixels in JPEG, PNG or WebP.
- Submit for review. Every ad is reviewed before it runs, and editing the creative triggers another review.
OpenAI does not publish review times. In our own account, nine of ten ads were approved on the day we submitted them. The landing page also has to be reachable by OpenAI's ad crawler, so check that your site does not block it.
Do ChatGPT Ads work?
It is too early for a confident answer. The evidence so far:
- Click-through rates are modest. A September 2026 report by Graphite, built on Similarweb panel data, put click-through at 0.74% in the UK and 0.73% in the US, counted as clicks per answer that carried an ad. No EU country was included.
- OpenAI's own examples are strong and unaudited. When it opened self-serve in Europe, OpenAI cited an e-commerce advertiser earning three times its ad spend over 28 days.
- Independent results vary. The agency account mentioned above returned 1.49 times its spend over 15 days, with daily results swinging between 0.2 and 2.9 times.
Our view is that ChatGPT Ads belong in a test budget beside Google and Meta. Set a fixed budget and one success measure, run the test for at least four weeks and compare cost per lead or sale with your other channels using the same attribution rules. That is how we run it inside our performance marketing work.
Ads or organic visibility: which comes first?
They do different jobs. An ad puts you in front of Free and Go users quickly, in the conversations you choose. Organic visibility decides whether ChatGPT names you in the answer, for every user, with no cost per click. On our own site, visits referred by ChatGPT roughly matched visits from organic Google search in the 28 days to 2 October 2026. That reflects our audience and should not be read as a benchmark.
If your category is restricted, organic is the only route. If you sell something people ask ChatGPT about, such as where to stay, what to buy or which supplier to shortlist, test ads and work on being cited at the same time. Our guide to choosing an AI SEO agency covers the organic side.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do ChatGPT Ads cost?
There is no fixed price. ChatGPT Ads are sold by auction, with bids set per thousand impressions, per click or towards a conversion goal. There is no minimum spend commitment, only a minimum daily budget per campaign that depends on your currency, which is EUR 15 a day in our own euro account. Reported CPMs fell from about USD 60 at launch to as low as USD 25 by April 2026.
Can businesses in Malta and the EU advertise on ChatGPT?
Yes. OpenAI brought ChatGPT Ads to 31 European markets in August 2026, covering the 27 EU member states, Malta included, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. Self-serve access through Ads Manager opened across those markets on 31 August 2026. UK advertisers have had self-serve access since June 2026.
Which businesses cannot advertise on ChatGPT?
OpenAI does not accept ads for real-money gambling, alcohol, tobacco, recreational drugs, adult content and dating, political content, or individual job and property listings. Financial, health and legal services can advertise in the United States only, so banks, insurers, clinics and law firms in Malta, the UK and the EU cannot run ChatGPT Ads today.
Do ads change what ChatGPT recommends?
OpenAI says they do not. Ads run on separate systems from the chat model, appear below the answer in a box labelled Sponsored, and advertisers cannot shape or rank ChatGPT's responses. Being named inside the answer cannot be bought and depends on your organic visibility.
Who sees ChatGPT Ads?
People on ChatGPT's Free and Go plans in countries where ads have launched. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts are ad-free. OpenAI does not show ads to accounts it identifies as under 18, or next to sensitive conversations such as personal health, mental health and politics.
Start with a small, measured test
ChatGPT Ads are new, the rules are still moving and the early data is thin. That is a reason to test carefully, with tracking and consent in place from day one. If you want a campaign set up and managed for you, see our ChatGPT Ads service for Malta businesses or book a discovery call.
