In its initial rollout of ads, OpenAI is charging approximately $60 per 1,000 views, a premium rate that The Information says rivals live NFL broadcasts and significantly exceeds Meta’s average CPM pricing, which is around $20 per 1,000 views.
Despite the high cost, the company will only provide limited performance data to advertisers, offering basic metrics like total impressions and clicks, rather than granular attribution insights like which keywords surfaced the ads or which ads led to conversions.
Adweek later reported that OpenAI is asking select advertisers to commit at least $200,000 to its beta ads program in order to participate, which is a lot smaller than the $1M figure floating around last week, but still a sizable amount for an untested channel. Four clients represented by Adthena were approached by the company to commit $250,000 each, which based on The Information’s estimates, would equate to around 4.17M views.
Adweek also notes that although OpenAI stated a $200k minimum, companies are reporting being approached for less. For example, a global brand with over $10B in 2024 revenue was asked for roughly $125,000, while a digital agency reported being asked for $100,000.
This ad offering feels rushed, doesn’t it?
If this was the year 2000 and the concept of online advertising was still taking shape, I can understand testing the market with an immature ads platform (albeit not at a premium price). However it’s 2026, and online advertising is the most sophisticatedly tracked ad channel on the planet.
Coming at potential enterprise advertisers, many of which are existing partners of OpenAI through their apps program or other endeavors, and asking for a six-figure commitment to throw digital ad dollars into a black hole feels sloppy and not what you’d expect of an almost $1 trillion company that’s poised to upend the ad industry.
Is building an ad platform that offers better ad attribution that difficult? Vibe code that shit with AI guys, come on.
