ChatGPT Ads Have a $200K Minimum: What B2B Should Do Now

ChatGPT isn’t just where people ask questions anymore—it’s rapidly becoming where buying journeys start. That’s why any concrete signal about paid placement inside ChatGPT matters right now, especially if you’re responsible for pipeline and performance.

This week, we got one of the clearest signals yet: ChatGPT advertising is available, and it comes with a serious price floor. If you’re a B2B marketer or media buyer, this changes how you should think about your mix across answer engines (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Copilot, Perplexity, Brave, Meta AI)—and it raises the bar on what “being present” in ChatGPT will cost.

The news: ChatGPT ads are here—with a $200,000 minimum

According to NewsAPI: ChatGPT Advertising (reputable press), OpenAI is “setting a $200,000 minimum spend for ChatGPT advertising.” The report explicitly frames this as a stated minimum spend requirement tied to ChatGPT advertising availability.

That single detail—the minimum—does most of the strategic work for you. It tells you who OpenAI expects to participate first, and it tells you what kind of buying motion this is likely to be: planned, budgeted, and controlled—more enterprise than self-serve.

What this means for B2B marketers

1) ChatGPT paid presence is (for now) an enterprise channel

A $200,000 minimum spend requirement is a gating mechanism. In practice, it means most B2B teams won’t “test” ChatGPT ads the way they test a new LinkedIn audience or a small paid search experiment. If your budget can’t clear that floor, you’re not in the first wave of paid distribution inside ChatGPT.

Even if you can clear it, the minimum implies that the cost of learning will be high. You’ll need sharper measurement discipline and tighter creative strategy before you spend.

2) It increases the importance of non-paid visibility in answer engines

When paid access is expensive or limited, the competitive advantage shifts to the brands that earn visibility through what they publish and how clearly they answer.

For B2B, that means AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) stops being a “nice-to-have” and becomes your most realistic path to influence inside answer engines—including ChatGPT—without paying an enterprise-level minimum.

3) It will likely reshape how you justify budget across AI surfaces

If ChatGPT advertising requires a $200,000 minimum, you’ll need to compare it against what else that money could do across your current mix.

This doesn’t mean ChatGPT won’t be worth it. It means the bar for proof is higher, and the internal conversation shifts from “let’s try it” to “what’s the use case that deserves this level of investment?”

Action items: what to do right now

1) Decide if you’re even a candidate for ChatGPT ads (today)

Start with a simple filter:

• If you can’t commit to the stated minimum spend requirement of $200,000 (as reported by NewsAPI: ChatGPT Advertising), treat ChatGPT ads as out of scope for now.
• If you can commit, define the one or two outcomes that justify an enterprise-level test (for example: accelerating awareness in a narrow category, or owning a specific set of high-intent questions). Keep it tightly bounded.

2) Build your “answer coverage” plan before you buy anything

Whether or not you ever run ChatGPT ads, you need to know what questions you want to be the default answer for.

Do this:

• List the 25–50 questions buyers ask before they talk to sales (category definitions, “best X for Y,” comparisons, pricing logic, implementation concerns, risk/objections).
• Create (or improve) pages that answer each question directly, in plain language, with clear structure.

This is the foundation that supports visibility across answer engines—ChatGPT included—without relying on paid placement.

3) Tighten your “proof” assets

Answer engines reward clarity. Buyers do too. Make sure your content library includes:

• Clear positioning pages (what you do, who it’s for, when it’s not a fit)
• Comparison pages (your approach vs. alternatives)
• Use-case pages (specific outcomes for specific audiences)

You’re not doing this because “SEO likes it.” You’re doing it because answer-first experiences demand answer-first assets.

4) If you can meet the minimum, treat ChatGPT ads like a strategic program—not an experiment

Because the reported minimum spend is $200,000, the right posture is:

• Define a narrow target audience and a narrow set of intents you want to win.
• Align stakeholders early (brand, demand gen, sales) so you don’t waste spend on mismatched expectations.
• Plan for creative and landing experiences that match the question-driven context people bring into ChatGPT.

Even without additional platform details, the minimum alone tells you this is not a “set it and forget it” channel.

Bottom line

NewsAPI: ChatGPT Advertising reports that OpenAI is “setting a $200,000 minimum spend for ChatGPT advertising.” For most B2B teams, that makes AEO your most practical path to influence in ChatGPT right now—and for enterprise teams, it raises the standard for how you plan, justify, and execute paid tests in answer engines.