The honest answer to "how much do ChatGPT Ads cost" has two parts: what you pay the platform for the placements, and what you pay whoever runs the campaigns. The first is an auction and moves with competition and intent; the second is a management fee. This post explains what drives each, how to size a test, and the one number to judge the channel on. For the service itself, see ChatGPT Ads by MediaBloom.
What you pay the platform
Placements inside assistant conversations are bought in an auction, so there is no rate card. Cost is set by how many advertisers want the same prompts, how commercial the prompt is, and how well your ad performs once shown. A prompt like "best personal injury lawyer near me" draws more bidders than "how do I know if I have a case", and costs accordingly. Expect pricing to look more like search than social: intent is high, and so is competition on the prompts that signal a purchase.
TODO(John): Insert MediaBloom's own dated CPM or CPC ranges by vertical from live campaigns, with the month they were observed.
What you pay for management
If an agency runs it, the fee usually covers prompt research, answer-style creative, landing pages, conversion tracking, weekly optimisation and reporting. Fees are either a flat monthly amount scoped to spend and the number of offers, or a percentage of media. Ask what is included, who builds the landing pages, and whether follow-up on the leads is part of the service, because a click that nobody calls back is the most expensive click there is.
How to size a test
A test needs enough clicks to produce a readable number of booked appointments, not just leads. Work backwards: decide the cost per booked appointment you would accept, estimate a realistic booking rate from your current inbound (if you book 25 percent of leads, every four leads is an appointment), and fund enough clicks to produce at least ten to fifteen appointments over two to four weeks. Below that, you are reading noise.
TODO(John): State MediaBloom's recommended minimum test budget and test length.
The number to judge it on
Not CPM, not CPC, not even cost per lead. Cost per booked appointment, and after a sales cycle, cost per customer. Those are the figures that compare cleanly with Google, Meta and TikTok, and they are the only ones that tell you whether to scale. The New Lead AI Setter ROI Calculator shows how booking rate and show rate turn ad clicks into revenue, and why the follow-up decides the real cost.
What makes the cost go down
Three things. Better answer-style creative lifts click-through, which lowers what you pay per click. Landing pages that finish the conversation lift conversion, which lowers cost per lead. And instant follow-up lifts booking rate, which lowers cost per appointment. The platform price is the part you control least; the rest is where the money is made or lost. Read how ChatGPT Ads work for the mechanics and agency vs DIY for who should run it.
