OpenAI To Charge Based On Ad View Impressions, Not Clicks

Jan 22, 2026 - 7:31 am 1 by

Chat Ai

As you know, OpenAI will soon show ads on ChatGPT, but now we are hearing that those ads will be charged on a pay-per-view, impression-based model, not a click-based, cost-per-click model.

The Information reports that OpenAI is asking some advertisers for $1 million commitments with their ad campaigns on ChatGPT.

"OpenAI is asking that small pool of advertisers for less than $1 million in spending commitments each over a several week trial period, with ads launching in early February, the people said," The Information wrote.

"The company does not yet offer technology for advertisers to easily buy ads themselves, but is working on getting self-service ads up and running, the people said. While OpenAI announced last week it would start testing ads in ChatGPT, it did not reveal the pricing details," it added. So it seems like this will be done manually.

Truth is, the first Google Ads on Google Search, were handled similarly.

As Glenn Gabe put it on X, "Pay per view. OMG what does that tell you about clicks from ChatGPT? Also, with all the scraping going on, would you pay for a view?"

I am sure many advertisers are still going to want to test it out. But impression based ads over click-based ads is an early telling.

Forum discussion at X.

Update: And these costs are not cheap!

 

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