How to Set Up an OpenAI Ad Account (and Add a Partner)
Create your OpenAI ad account, set up billing and tracking, and give a partner access without handing over ownership of your data or spend.
Before you can run a single ChatGPT ad, you need an OpenAI ad account. Since the self-serve ChatGPT Ads Manager opened in beta to US advertisers on May 5, 2026, that account is something any eligible business can create, without the reported ~$200K minimum commitment that applied in the early managed phase.
Setting it up takes less time than most ad platforms, but a few decisions made in the first half hour matter for years: who owns the account, whose card pays for spend, and how partners get access. This guide walks through each step and explains how to bring in an agency or done-for-you service without giving away control.
Before you start: what you need
Have these ready before you begin:
- A business email address on your own domain, ideally a shared role address (like
ads@yourbrand.com) rather than one person's inbox. - Your business details: legal name, address, website, and the country you are advertising from. Availability and minimums vary by market.
- A payment method for ad spend. OpenAI bills ad spend directly.
- Access to your website (or someone who has it) so you can install the OpenAI pixel.
- A clear idea of your first campaign: what you sell, who buys it, and your primary conversion event.
Step 1: Create the ad account
Go to ChatGPT Ads Manager from OpenAI's advertising pages and sign up with your business email. The flow asks for business information and the website you plan to advertise.
A few decisions to get right:
- Owner identity. The account should be owned by the business, using a business login you control. Do not let an agency or freelancer create the account under their own email "to save time." If you part ways, you can lose access to your history, pixel data and audiences.
- Time zone and currency. Choose the ones your finance team reports in. These are often hard or impossible to change later and affect how daily budgets and reports line up with your books.
- Account name. Use your brand name. If you plan to run multiple sites, a consistent naming scheme saves confusion later.
Step 2: Add billing
Add a payment method for ad spend. Ad spend is billed by OpenAI to you, separate from any fees you pay an agency or service.
Two habits worth adopting from day one:
- Use a card or billing method dedicated to advertising, so spend is easy to reconcile.
- Set a sensible budget at the campaign level rather than relying on your card limit as a safety net. OpenAI's minimum daily budget is about $25 per campaign in the US. SecondWin recommends $50–200 a day to start, so the campaign gets enough clicks to learn from. The ChatGPT ads budget calculator helps you pick a starting number.
Step 3: Install tracking
Create the OpenAI pixel (often called the OAIQ pixel) inside Ads Manager and add it to your site:
- Paste the base code into your site-wide header so it loads on every page.
- Add event code for your key actions: page view, add to cart, sign up, lead and purchase.
- Set up the server-side Conversions API, directly or through an integration, so conversions are recorded even when browsers block the pixel.
- Place a test conversion and confirm it appears once, with the right value.
Do this before launch, not after. Without tracking, you cannot tell which ads are working. Our ChatGPT ads conversion tracking guide covers events, deduplication and verification in detail.
Step 4: Decide who needs access
Make a short list of who needs access and at what level. Ad platforms typically distinguish between people who can manage everything (including users and billing settings), people who can create and edit campaigns, and people who can only view reports. Check Ads Manager for the exact roles available in your account, since the beta has been adding features steadily.
A simple rule of thumb:
| Person | Typical access |
|---|---|
| Business owner or marketing lead | Admin (owner) |
| Agency or done-for-you partner managing campaigns | Admin or campaign management role, as the partner requires |
| Finance | Billing or view-only |
| Analyst or consultant | View-only |
Keep at least two people from inside your business as admins, so you are never locked out if one person leaves.
Step 5: Invite a partner as Admin
If you are working with an agency, freelancer or a done-for-you service like SecondWin, you invite them into your account rather than giving them your login.
The general process:
- In Ads Manager, open the account's user or access settings.
- Choose to invite a user and enter the partner's email address.
- Select the role they need. Many partners managing campaigns end to end, SecondWin included, ask for Admin so they can create campaigns, upload creatives, adjust bids and read conversion data.
- Send the invite and let the partner know it is on its way.
- Once they accept, confirm they appear in your user list with the role you expected.
For SecondWin specifically, this step takes about ten minutes. You stay the owner; we operate inside your account.
Why "invite, don't hand over" matters
Running campaigns inside your own account means:
- You own the data. Pixel history, conversion data and campaign learnings stay with your business.
- You see every dollar. Spend is billed by OpenAI to you, and you can see every bid and budget.
- You can leave cleanly. Removing a partner is a single change in access settings. Your campaigns and history stay where they are.
Be wary of any arrangement where a partner runs your ads from their own account and bills you a marked-up total. It may be convenient, but you lose visibility and ownership.
Step 6: Set up your first campaign
With billing, tracking and access in place, you can build the first campaign:
- Objective and conversion event matching what you set up in tracking.
- Daily budget above the minimum, at a level that gets meaningful clicks.
- Bid type, usually CPC to start. See CPC vs CPM vs oCPC.
- Ads: headline of 3–50 characters, body of up to about 100 characters, an image and a landing URL.
- Context hints describing the conversations each ad belongs in, written as situations rather than keywords.
For a walkthrough of every setting in the interface, see our ChatGPT Ads Manager guide.
Common setup problems
| Problem | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Cannot access Ads Manager | Self-serve not yet available in your market | Check OpenAI's current country list; availability has been expanding through 2026 |
| Partner invite not received | Typo in email, or invite in spam | Resend; ask partner to check filters |
| Pixel shows no events | Code in wrong place, or consent banner blocking it | Check page source; test with consent accepted |
| Ads rejected at review | Policy issue, often unprovable claims or mismatched landing page | Edit copy to remove superlatives and match the page |
| Account owned by a former contractor | Account created under their email | Ask them to add you as Admin and transfer ownership; start fresh if they will not |
Security checklist
- Business-owned login with two-factor authentication enabled
- At least two internal admins
- Partners invited by email, never given your password
- Billing method in the business's name
- Quarterly review of who has access, removing anyone who no longer needs it
How SecondWin fits in
SecondWin is a done-for-you service for ChatGPT ads. After you pick a plan and invite us as an Admin on your OpenAI ad account, we launch and manage campaigns there: original ads written from the proven messages in your niche, policy-checked before launch, with regular refreshes. OpenAI bills your ad spend directly to you; SecondWin never touches it. Plans start at $99 a month, and you can compare them on the pricing page.
Before any of that, you can get a free ChatGPT ads report for your website. It needs only your URL and shows the ads we would write.
SecondWin is independent and not affiliated with OpenAI.
FAQ
Is there a minimum spend to open an OpenAI ad account?
As of mid-2026, self-serve ChatGPT Ads Manager has no minimum total spend. The earlier reported ~$200K minimum commitment applied before self-serve opened on May 5, 2026. There is a minimum daily budget of about $25 per campaign in the US, which varies by market. In practice, starting at $50–200 a day gives you data faster.
Should my agency create the ad account for me?
No. Create the account yourself under a business-owned login, then invite the agency as a user. If an agency creates the account under its own email, you can lose access to your campaign history, pixel data and learnings if the relationship ends. Owning the account and inviting partners keeps your data and spend under your control.
What access does SecondWin need?
SecondWin asks to be invited as an Admin on your OpenAI ad account so we can create campaigns, upload creatives, set bids and read conversion data. The invite takes about ten minutes. You remain the owner, OpenAI bills ad spend directly to you, and you can remove access at any time from your account settings.
Can I advertise on ChatGPT outside the US?
ChatGPT ads launched in the US and have been expanding, with reports of availability in 40 or more countries by late 2026, including Brazil and Mexico announced in August 2026. Self-serve access, minimum budgets and ad-eligible users vary by market, so check OpenAI's current list for your country before planning a campaign.