OpenAI Shifts ChatGPT Ads to Cost-per-Click as CPM Erodes
April 22, 2026 - 9:55 am
OpenAI has transitioned ChatGPT's advertising model from Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM) to Cost per Click (CPC), placing the company in direct competition with Google and Meta for performance ad budgets just ten weeks after introducing ads within its chatbot. Advertisers can now bid between $3 and $5 per click, with a minimum spend of $50,000, down from the previous $250,000.
This shift was prompted by a significant drop in CPMs, which eroded from $60 at launch in February to as low as $25 in some cases. This made the volume-based impressions model unsustainable for a company projecting $14 billion in losses this year.
The ads appear at the bottom of ChatGPT responses, clearly labeled "sponsored" and visually separated from the answer. While users on the free tier and $8-per-month Go plan see ads, paid subscribers on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education tiers do not. OpenAI emphasizes that advertisers cannot access user conversations, chat history, names, email addresses, or IP addresses, receiving only aggregated performance data. Targeting is contextual, aligning with the conversation topic rather than demographic or third-party data.
From a mere experiment to a fully-fledged ad platform in ten weeks, OpenAI's rapid expansion is notable. They initially introduced advertising on February 9th with a CPM model, and within two months, the pilot program achieved $100 million in annualized revenue with several hundred advertisers on board. OpenAI forecasts $2.5 billion in ad revenue for 2026, projected to scale to $100 billion by 2030.