ChatGPT Ads Statistics: Advertisers, Ad Rates, CTR and Rollout

ChatGPT ads went from a US test in February 2026 to 89 countries and more than 100,000 advertisers by October. OpenAI says the business passed a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate in under 200 days. Independent studies put the ad rate anywhere from 13% to 76% of answers, depending on the prompts. Below are 40 numbered statistics on ChatGPT ads: rollout, advertisers, ad rates, click-through rates, formats and what ads mean for organic visibility. Each one comes from OpenAI or an original study, and all sources were read on 3 November 2026.

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What are the key takeaways?

• Ads scaled faster than almost any ad product. OpenAI reported a $1 billion annualized run rate in under 200 days and more than 100,000 advertisers by 21 October 2026.
• Only Free and Go users see ads. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education accounts are ad-free, and ads sit below the answer, labelled.
• The ad rate depends on the prompt set. Evertune found an ad in 1 in 8 responses. SE Ranking found 25.94% on commercial prompts. Otterly found 76.4% on shopping prompts.
• Click-through rates sit under 2%. Graphite and Similarweb measured 0.73% in the US and 1.91% in Brazil. SE Ranking's own campaign got 1.30%.
• Ads do not buy citations. The advertiser's domain was cited in the answer above its own ad in only 3.63% of placements.
• Organic answers still decide the shortlist. In 12 of 14 industries Otterly studied, the market leader ran no ads at all.

How fast did ChatGPT ads grow?

ChatGPT ads went from a US-only test on 9 February 2026 to 89 countries on 21 October 2026. OpenAI reported tens of thousands of advertisers and a $1 billion annualized run rate by 31 August, then more than 100,000 advertisers in October. More than 1.2 billion people use ChatGPT each week.

1. More than 100,000 advertisers have run ChatGPT ads since launch, "just over eight months ago", OpenAI said on 21 October 2026. Source: OpenAI, "ChatGPT Ads expands to 26 new countries", 21 October 2026.
2. Ads are live in 89 countries after 26 were added in one release. Source: OpenAI, 21 October 2026.
3. More than 1.2 billion people use ChatGPT each week. Source: OpenAI, 21 October 2026.
4. $1 billion annualized revenue run rate in under 200 days. Source: OpenAI, "A milestone in expanding access to AI", 31 August 2026.
5. More than 50 technology and measurement partners by 31 August 2026, with ads in more than 40 countries. Source: OpenAI, 31 August 2026.
6. Ads reached 31 European markets on 18 August 2026, OpenAI's largest single expansion at that point. Self-serve buying opened in all 31 on 31 August. Source: OpenAI, "ChatGPT Ads expands across Europe", 18 August 2026.
7. Seven Asian markets were added on 23 September 2026: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan, taking ads past 60 countries. Source: OpenAI, "ChatGPT Ads expands to Southeast Asia and Taiwan", 23 September 2026.
8. 89 countries are listed as open for self-serve Ads Manager, from Algeria to Vietnam, including the US, Canada, the UK and India. Source: OpenAI Help Center, "Ads Manager Availability".

Date	Milestone	Source
16 Jan 2026	Ad principles published; Go plan comes to the US at $8 a month	OpenAI
9 Feb 2026	Test begins for logged-in adults on Free and Go in the US	OpenAI
26 Mar 2026	Pilots begin in Canada, Australia and New Zealand	OpenAI
5 May 2026	Self-serve Ads Manager beta, CPC bidding, pixel and Conversions API	OpenAI
11 Aug 2026	Launch in the UK, Mexico, Brazil, Japan and South Korea	OpenAI
18 Aug 2026	31 European markets	OpenAI
31 Aug 2026	$1B run rate in under 200 days	OpenAI
23 Sep 2026	Southeast Asia and Taiwan; more than 60 countries	OpenAI
21 Oct 2026	26 more countries, 89 total; 100,000+ advertisers	OpenAI

Who sees ads in ChatGPT, and where do they appear?

Only logged-in adults on the Free and Go tiers see ChatGPT ads. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education accounts are ad-free. Ads sit at the bottom of an answer, are labelled, and are kept away from health, mental health and politics. Free users can opt out in exchange for fewer daily free messages.

9. No ads on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Education. Ads run only on the Free and Go tiers. Source: OpenAI, "Testing ads in ChatGPT", 9 February 2026.
10. Go costs $8 a month in the US and had launched in 171 countries before ads were announced. Source: OpenAI, "Our approach to advertising and expanding access to ChatGPT", 16 January 2026.
11. Five ad principles: mission alignment, answer independence, conversation privacy, choice and control, and long-term value. OpenAI says it does not optimize for time spent. Source: OpenAI, 16 January 2026.
12. No ads for users under 18, and none near health, mental health or politics. Source: OpenAI, 16 January 2026.
13. Advertisers get aggregate data only, such as views and clicks, never conversations. Source: OpenAI, "Testing ads in ChatGPT".
14. "No impact on consumer trust metrics" and "low dismissal rates", OpenAI reported on 26 March 2026. Source: OpenAI, "Testing ads in ChatGPT", update of 26 March 2026.

How often does ChatGPT show an ad?

It depends on the prompts. Evertune saw an ad in about 13% of 401,000+ responses across 12 categories. SE Ranking saw 25.94% on 50,006 commercial prompts. Otterly saw 76.4% on shopping prompts. Similarweb measured US desktop ad penetration rising from 14% in May to 26% in June 2026.

15. About 1 in 8 ChatGPT responses (13%) carried an ad across 401,000+ prompts run from 21 May to 8 June 2026. Rates ran from 6.7% in games to 17.8% in home and garden. Source: Evertune, "ChatGPT shows an ad in 1 in 8 responses", 15 June 2026.
16. 25.94% of 50,006 US commercial prompts (12,974) triggered an ad in July 2026, against 29.45% for Google AI Mode on the same prompts. Source: SE Ranking, "ChatGPT Ads Study", 10 August 2026.
17. 76.4% of shopping answers carried an ad across 16 US industries, tracked daily from 2 to 15 July 2026. The daily rate held between 77% and 82%. Source: Otterly.AI, "ChatGPT Ads Study", 17 July 2026.
18. Finance and insurance had the highest ad rate in Otterly's data at 85.9%; healthcare had the lowest at 42.3%. Source: Otterly.AI, 17 July 2026.
19. US desktop ad penetration rose from 14% in May to 26% in June 2026. Source: Similarweb, "ChatGPT ads are reshaping paid search", 3 September 2026.
20. 14.35% of ads were off-topic for the prompt, rising to 51.1% in relationships and 54.2% in news and politics. Source: SE Ranking, 10 August 2026.
21. ChatGPT showed one ad slot per answer, always below the answer. In Google AI Mode, 71.1% of ad placements showed two ads side by side. Source: SE Ranking, 10 August 2026.

Study	Prompts	Window	Ad rate
Evertune	401,000+ across 12 categories	21 May to 8 Jun 2026	13%
Similarweb	US desktop panel	June 2026	26%
SE Ranking	50,006 commercial, 20 niches	July 2026	25.94%
Otterly.AI	Shopping prompts, 16 industries	2 to 15 Jul 2026	76.4%

When in a conversation do ads appear?

Most ads come after the opening exchange. Similarweb found 66.3% of ads appear after the second prompt, and that the median turn at which an ad fired rose from 7-8 to 14-22 between spring and June 2026. Sessions usually carry on afterwards: 65.3% continue after an ad is shown.

22. 66.3% of ads appear after the second prompt, and 65.3% of sessions continue after an ad. Source: Similarweb, 3 September 2026.
23. The median ad-firing turn rose from 7-8 to 14-22. By brand, Vanta's ads fired at a median turn of 15.8, Aikido's at 15.0, Wix's at 14.6, Monday.com's at 13.6 and Home Depot's at 12.8. Source: Similarweb, "ChatGPT Ad Stats", 15 June 2026.

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Who advertises on ChatGPT?

Early ChatGPT advertisers skewed to B2B SaaS and comparison sites. Similarweb counted 5,171 unique advertisers between 30 March and early June 2026, with Monday.com holding 5.05% of impressions. SE Ranking counted 1,159 advertisers in July, and BestMoney alone held at least 13.56% of ads.

24. Active weekly advertisers rose 46%, from 2,585 to 3,770, in the week ending 8 June 2026. Similarweb counted 5,171 unique advertisers since 30 March. Source: Similarweb, 15 June 2026.
25. Monday.com held 5.05% of global ad impressions, the top five advertisers about 17%, and 8 of the top 10 were B2B SaaS or productivity brands. Source: Similarweb, 15 June 2026.
26. The US took 71.6% of ad impressions in early June 2026, Canada 12.8%, Australia 10.1% and New Zealand 2.2%. Source: Similarweb, 15 June 2026.
27. 1,159 unique advertisers appeared 11.19 times each on average in SE Ranking's July sample. Google AI Mode had 2,930 advertisers at 8.61 appearances each. Source: SE Ranking, 10 August 2026.
28. Single brands dominate whole categories. Hungryroot held 79.92% of food and beverage ads, Booking.com 62.57% of travel, Robinhood 52.24% of finance and TickPick 51.03% of entertainment and hobbies. Source: SE Ranking, 10 August 2026.
29. BestMoney led Evertune's sample with 7.6% of ads, ahead of Autotrader (5.9%), Home Depot (5%), Expedia (3.7%) and MANSCAPED (3.5%), among more than 1,000 brands. Source: Evertune, 15 June 2026.
30. In 12 of 14 industries, the market leader ran zero ChatGPT ads. Source: Otterly.AI, 17 July 2026.

What click-through rate do ChatGPT ads get?

ChatGPT ad CTRs sit below 2%. Graphite and Similarweb measured all-time CTRs to 16 September 2026 of 0.73% in the US and 1.91% in Brazil, with worldwide CTR up 112% since launch. SE Ranking's own two-week campaign got 1.30% from 97,000+ impressions. OpenAI says it has no benchmarks yet.

31. Worldwide ChatGPT ad CTR rose 112% since launch. Source: Similarweb and Graphite, "ChatGPT ads CTR by country", 8 October 2026.
32. Brazil had the highest CTR at 1.91%, about 2.6 times the US rate of 0.73%. Source: Similarweb and Graphite, 8 October 2026.
33. SE Ranking's own test got a 1.30% CTR: 1,263 clicks from 97,000+ impressions, across 3 campaigns, 8 ad groups and 48 ads in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Source: SE Ranking, 10 August 2026.
34. OpenAI "does not yet have performance benchmarks" to share with advertisers. Source: OpenAI Help Center, "ChatGPT Ads FAQ".
35. One ecommerce advertiser reported 3x return on ad spend over 28 days, and a technology partner reported that more than 80% of ad-driven ChatGPT traffic came from new customers. Source: OpenAI, 31 August 2026.

Market	Reach among eligible users (Sep 2026)	All-time CTR to 16 Sep 2026
Brazil	34.9%	1.91%
Mexico	27.8%	1.55%
Japan	35.9%	1.53%
South Korea	32.9%	1.21%
Canada	42.9%	0.75%
UK	45.7%	0.74%
US	43.4%	0.73%
Australia	43.3%	0.67%
New Zealand	40.9%	0.60%

Source for the table: Similarweb and Graphite, 8 October 2026.

How do advertisers buy ChatGPT ads?

Advertisers buy through Ads Manager, launched as a self-serve beta on 5 May 2026, or through agency and technology partners. The pilot sold only on CPM. Cost-per-click bidding arrived with Ads Manager, and by 31 August CPC and outcome-optimized bidding made up the majority of campaigns. Product-feed ads followed.

36. CPC and outcome-optimized bidding are the majority of campaigns, and small and mid-sized businesses are now a "material share" of advertisers. Source: OpenAI, 31 August 2026.
37. A daily budget can spend up to 2x in a day and up to 7x in a week, and ads are in beta after a focused pilot from February to April 2026. Source: OpenAI Help Center, "ChatGPT Ads FAQ".
38. Ad titles allow 50 characters (16-24 recommended) and ad copy 100 (32-48 recommended). An account can hold up to 5,000 campaigns, ad groups and ads, and metrics refresh about every 15 minutes. Source: OpenAI Help Center, "Launch campaigns".
39. Multi-image ads entered open beta on 26 October 2026, using 4 to 6 square images. Landing pages must not block OAI-AdsBot or OAI-SearchBot. Source: OpenAI Help Center, "Create ads".
40. Product-feed ads are "among the strongest-performing ads in our program to date," OpenAI says. During the beta, feed products appear only in ads, not in organic answers, and feed items expire after two weeks. Source: OpenAI Help Center, "Create campaigns from product feeds".

Do ChatGPT ads change which brands the answer cites?

No, by OpenAI's design and in the data. OpenAI's answer-independence principle says ads do not influence answers. SE Ranking found the advertiser's domain was cited in the answer above its ad in only 3.63% of placements, and its brand was mentioned in 4.44%. Paying for the slot below an answer does not put you in it.

SE Ranking matched each ad against the answer it sat under. In 96.37% of placements the advertiser's domain was not cited at all, and the exact landing page was cited 12 times, or 0.09%. Google AI Mode cited its advertisers more often, at 11.53%. Source: SE Ranking, 10 August 2026.

A ChatGPT ad buys a labelled unit below the answer. It does not answer "why isn't my brand in ChatGPT?" or "why does AI cite my competitors?" Those depend on which pages ChatGPT retrieves and trusts. See our ChatGPT search statistics and LLM citation statistics for how retrieval and citation work.

How are shopping ads different from other ChatGPT ads?

Shopping ads come from product feeds and show images, titles, ratings, prices, sale prices and the brand. OpenAI says feed ads are among its best performers. Organic product cards are separate: Otterly saw ChatGPT's Shopping Cards in only 2.2% of answers, against an ad in 76.4%, with Walmart the most frequent card brand.

OpenAI's developer documentation lists the product-ad template fields as brand, title, body and price, allows one product-ad template per ad group, and bills conversion-optimized campaigns per click. Source: OpenAI Developers, "Product feeds". Product-feed campaigns can target only at country level. Source: OpenAI Help Center. For organic shopping behaviour, see our ChatGPT shopping statistics.

Where does Mentionova fit, and where does it not?

Mentionova measures the organic answer, not the ad below it. It runs your buyers' questions through ChatGPT and other answer engines on a weekly, two-weekly or monthly schedule or on demand. Each run logs whether you were named, whether your domain was cited, your position, the sentiment and every source used.

What it does well:

• Answers "why isn't my brand in ChatGPT?" You see which competitors were named and which URLs were cited instead of you.
• Shows how to track AI visibility across engines. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Reddit are covered, so a ChatGPT-only gap is easy to tell from a gap everywhere.
• Explains why AI cites competitors by listing the sources each rival was cited from.

Where it does not fit: Mentionova does not buy or manage ChatGPT ads. Use OpenAI's Ads Manager reporting for impressions, clicks and spend.

Pricing, checked on 3 November 2026: Starter is $99 a month billed annually ($125 monthly) with 25 tracked prompts and three engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google). Scale is $320 a month billed annually ($400 monthly) with 100 prompts and all six engines. Every paid plan starts with a free trial, no card. See pricing and our roundup of AI brand monitoring tools.

Where does each number come from?

• OpenAI: 16 January 2026, 9 February 2026 and updates, 5 May 2026, 18 August 2026, 31 August 2026, 23 September 2026, 21 October 2026.
• OpenAI Help Center: FAQ, Ads Manager availability, Launch campaigns, Create ads, Product feeds; OpenAI Developers.
• Original studies: SE Ranking, Evertune, Otterly.AI, Similarweb (June, September, October with Graphite).

What do people ask about ChatGPT ads?

Does ChatGPT have ads?

Yes. OpenAI began testing ads on 9 February 2026 in the US and, as of 21 October 2026, runs them in 89 countries. Ads appear only for logged-in adults on the Free and Go tiers, labelled and placed below the answer.

Which ChatGPT plans have no ads?

Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education have no ads. Free users can also opt out of ads in exchange for fewer daily free messages. Go, at $8 a month in the US, does show ads.

How much revenue do ChatGPT ads make?

OpenAI said on 31 August 2026 that ChatGPT ads passed a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate in under 200 days. It has not published a later revenue figure. By 21 October it reported more than 100,000 advertisers.

What is a good CTR for ChatGPT ads?

OpenAI has no official benchmarks yet. Graphite and Similarweb measured all-time CTRs to 16 September 2026 of 0.60% to 0.75% in English-speaking markets and 1.21% to 1.91% in South Korea, Japan, Mexico and Brazil. SE Ranking's own campaign got 1.30%.

Can I advertise on ChatGPT myself?

Yes, if your billing entity is in one of the 89 countries listed for self-serve Ads Manager. Larger advertisers can also go through the OpenAI Ads team or agency partners such as dentsu, Omnicom, Publicis and WPP.

Do ChatGPT ads help my brand get cited in answers?

No. OpenAI says ads do not influence answers, and SE Ranking found the advertiser's domain cited in the answer above its ad in only 3.63% of placements. Organic visibility depends on the pages ChatGPT retrieves and cites, which you can check by prompt.

How do I track whether ChatGPT recommends my brand?

Run the questions your buyers ask on a schedule and record whether ChatGPT names you, cites your domain and who it names instead. An AI visibility tracker such as Mentionova does this across six engines, with a free trial and no card.

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