What does Refract do?

Refract builds ChatGPT Ads campaigns from the conversations your customers really have. You start with your website and a sentence about what you sell; the builder takes you through personas, a conversation map, ad groups, context hints and ads, and gives you a bulk-upload file for OpenAI Ads Manager.

Do I need an OpenAI Ads Manager account?

Yes, to run the ads. Refract builds and checks the campaign; you upload the file in Ads Manager, where the ads are reviewed and you set billing with OpenAI. Refract never changes campaigns in your Ads Manager account.

What's included for free?

One campaign with up to 5 ad groups and 25 ads, and 40 AI runs to build it. You can edit everything by hand at any time, and export the campaign when it's ready.

What counts as an AI run?

Each request the builder makes to the AI model, such as drafting personas or writing ads for one ad language. Steps that reuse saved results don't use a run. Your plan and billing page shows how many you've used.

Can I change what the AI writes?

Yes. Every persona, conversation, ad group, hint and ad can be edited, added or removed, and the review step checks claims, character limits and duplicates before you export.

How do clients stay separate?

Each client has its own profile, campaigns and results. People you add to one client only see that client; your team can open every client. Access is checked on every record, not just hidden in the app.

Can clients see their own results?

Yes. Invite them to their client profile as a viewer: each client includes 5 free viewer seats. Client admins can also build campaigns for their own brand and use a team seat.

Where does Conversation Intelligence get its data?

From the results you import from Ads Manager, or sync by connecting an Ads Manager API key to a client, plus each campaign's conversation map and published benchmarks. Refract never reads people's ChatGPT conversations.

How long until Intelligence shows anything useful?

As soon as a campaign has results. Early signals are shown with how sure they are, and they firm up as results build over the first week or two of delivery.

How do upgrades and downgrades work?

Changes apply straight away. Before you switch, Refract shows what Stripe will charge now for the rest of the billing period, and to which card. Moving to a smaller plan leaves a credit for your next invoices.

Open Plan and billing, then Card, invoices and cancelling. Your plan stays until the end of the period you've paid for, then moves to Free. Nothing is deleted.

Do prices include VAT?

Prices are in euros, before VAT. Businesses can add their VAT number at checkout or in Card, invoices and cancelling, and every payment has an invoice you can download there.

Who can see my data, and where is it stored?

Only the people you give access to. Refract runs on Base44, which stores data in the United States under standard data protection terms. The Trust centre, data processing agreement and sub-processor list have the details.

Can I export or delete everything?

Yes. Export a client's data from the Trust centre, delete clients and campaigns yourself, or email us to close your account and delete it all.

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27 October 2026 · Refract team

How much do ChatGPT Ads cost? CPC, CPM and budgets

What you pay for ChatGPT Ads depends on your industry, how you bid and how specific your ad groups are. Here's how pricing works, with a calculator to estimate your budget.

ChatGPT Ads are sold through an auction in OpenAI's Ads Manager, so there's no fixed price list. What you pay depends on how many advertisers want to reach the same kind of conversation, in the same market, and on how well your ads fit those conversations. This guide covers how you're charged, what moves the price and how to set a first budget, with a calculator to estimate yours.

How you pay

Ads Manager gives you three ways to bid (MarTech's walkthrough shows the set-up screens):

Per click (CPC): you set a maximum bid and pay when someone clicks. Most advertisers start here, because you only pay for visits.
Per 1,000 impressions (CPM): you pay for reach, whether or not people click. Useful when being seen in the conversation matters more than the visit.
For conversions: with OpenAI's pixel on your site, Ads Manager optimises for the actions you track, and you still pay per click, with an optional bid cap.

Whichever you choose, the calculator below reads a budget both ways: what it buys in clicks and what it buys in impressions.

What moves the price

Your industry. Finance, insurance, legal and software attract more advertisers per conversation than, for example, ecommerce, so clicks cost more.
Your market. Each country is its own auction, with its own advertisers and prices.
How specific your ad groups are. An ad that answers the exact situation someone described is more likely to be clicked than a generic one. That's why scaled campaigns built around conversation themes matter for cost, not just for reach.
Your bid and budget. Bid too low and your ads may barely serve. The right bid is the one that buys enough clicks at a cost per conversion you can afford.

Estimate your budget

Calculator

Estimate your ChatGPT Ads results

Pick your budget, industry and how you'll build the campaign. The estimate updates as you go.

Monthly budget

Industry

Conversion rate (%)From your analytics: the share of visitors who buy or enquire.

Value per conversion ($, optional)An average order or lead value, to estimate return.

How you'll build the campaign

Specific, themed ad groups tend to match conversations more closely, so the estimate moves toward the lower end of your industry's cost-per-click range.

Use your own CPC and CPM from Ads Manager

Cost per click ($)

Cost per 1,000 impressions ($)

Clicks a month1,579–2,308

Conversions a month16–23

Cost per conversion$130–$190

Impressions a month176,471–250,000

Cost per click$1.30–$1.90

Cost per 1,000 impressions$12–$17

Click-through rate0.63%–1.31%

Based on ecommerce and retail ranges for a growing campaign. About $99 a day. These are planning estimates, not quotes: the auction in Ads Manager sets what you pay, and results vary by market, bid and ads.

The calculator also has its own page, with the planning ranges for each industry and the formulas behind them.

How to read the numbers

Conversations in ChatGPT sit in the middle of the decision: people are exploring a need and comparing options, and they're not always ready to buy that minute. Expect fewer conversions on the first visit than from a search ad for the same product, and judge results over a longer window. ChatGPT Ads are a mid-funnel channel, and the budget should be planned that way.

Reporting is also more limited than in search. You can't see the conversations that triggered an ad, and results are broken down by campaign, ad group, ad and country. So how you build ad groups decides what you can learn: with one theme per ad group, each line in the report tells you about one kind of conversation.

A sensible first budget

Give each ad group enough clicks to learn from before you judge it. A common rule of thumb is around 100 clicks per ad group. Multiply that by your number of ad groups and your expected cost per click:

5 ad groups × 100 clicks × 2.00 per click = 1,000 for the test
12 ad groups × 100 clicks × 2.50 per click = 3,000 for the test

Run the test for at least two to three weeks, so the results cover weekdays, weekends and the people who come back to a decision later. Then move budget toward the ad groups with the lowest cost per conversion, and use what they tell you to write the next round of context hints.

The calculator's ranges are planning estimates, not quotes. Once your campaign has a few weeks of results, enter your own CPC and CPM from Ads Manager for an estimate based on your account.