What ChatGPT Ads cost for B2B companies in Europe.

01Short answer

From 9 September to 2 November 2026, our three B2B software clients paid €2.32 a click on ChatGPT Ads, across 4,050 clicks and €9,405.55 of spend. In the same three companies, a ChatGPT Ads click cost 13% to 38% of a non-brand Google search click. Fewer of the clicks went on to a product tour or a sign-up. In the account where the client's own tool counts the same outcome for both channels, a product tour cost €101 from ChatGPT Ads and €56 from Google.

• €2.32 a click on average for B2B software, €18.78 per 1,000 impressions and a click rate of 0.81% (4,050 clicks on 500,735 impressions).
• 13% to 38% of a Google click in the same company and country, in each of the three B2B software companies.
• €101 per product tour from ChatGPT Ads against €56 from non-brand Google search, in a DACH manufacturing software company over September and October (34 and 306 tours).
• The platform's conversion column read 1.9 to 4.8 times what the clients' own tools credited to a ChatGPT Ads click, in the two accounts where we could check.
• Clicks got 20% to 35% dearer in the longest-running account by late October, in the same ad groups at the same maximum bid.
• Daily budgets work as averages. 54% of 239 full campaign days spent more than the daily budget, and full weeks came in at 0.94 to 1.04 times seven daily budgets.
• Financial services could not run. OpenAI rejected all 8 ads we built for a European wealth manager.

02The price of a click by country

Germany and Austria pool two B2B software companies. Switzerland and the UK are one company each, so their figures are that company's price. The Netherlands is a consumer-facing client, shown for comparison.

From each account's first spend to 2 November 2026.

Country explains only part of the price. With the same ads, bids and context hints in all three DACH countries, one company paid €2.06 a click in Germany, €1.79 in Austria and €1.96 in Switzerland (951, 454 and 412 clicks). From 12 October to 1 November, in Germany and Austria, the other DACH company paid €2.63 and €2.60 a click, against €2.27 and €2.18 for the first (144 to 1,199 clicks per figure). The two sell different software, with different ads and hints.

Prices have gone up since September. That month the DACH manufacturing software company paid €1.75 a click (831 clicks). Since 1 October our three B2B software clients have paid €2.16, €2.61 and €2.54. Inside the first company, in the same ad groups and at the same maximum bid of €3.00, a click cost 20% more from 28 September to 11 October than from 9 to 20 September, and 35% more from 26 October to 1 November (469, 467 and 114 clicks in the three periods). The price rose in 12 of its 13 ad groups, and the average over its first seven days was €1.53 against €2.28 over its last seven. The other accounts show no measurable trend over their shorter runs.

03Against Google in the same company

The cleanest price comparison is inside one company, with the same offer in the same market. In all three B2B software companies a ChatGPT Ads click cost a fraction of a non-brand Google search click.

The UK Google figure covers August to October, because in the same days Google brought only 22 clicks (€23.25 each).

04What a click turns into

Fewer ChatGPT Ads clicks went on to an outcome. In the DACH manufacturing software company we can count the same outcome for both channels: product tours started from each channel's tagged links, counted in the client's tour tool.

The ChatGPT Ads column starts on 9 September, and the likely range is a 95% interval.

In the B2B software company in Germany and Austria, sign-ups and booked calls (the same two website actions on both channels) came from 0.69 of every 100 ChatGPT Ads clicks (13 of 1,895) against 1.32 on non-brand Google (6,951 clicks), from 12 to 31 October. On the platform's own count a sign-up still came out cheaper, €382 after a click against €519 on Google. The client's CRM turned that around: it credited ChatGPT Ads with 8 leads in October, €620 each, against €412 for a non-brand Google lead.

We judge the channel on the client's own count. In the two accounts where we could check, ChatGPT's conversion column read far higher: 164 pixel events against 34 tagged product tours in the first (4.8 times), and 15 conversions against 8 CRM leads in the second (1.9 times).

Almost every conversion came from a phone: 186 of 195 attributed conversions in the two DACH accounts followed a mobile click. The platform does not split impressions or clicks by device, so we cannot say how much of the delivery went to mobile.

05Budgets and bidding

• Plan on the average price. 500 clicks at €2.32 come to about €1,160, which is why our pilots start from about €1,200 of ad spend. OpenAI's minimum is €15 a day per campaign; our campaigns ran on €15 to €154 a day.
• A daily budget is an average. 54% of 239 full campaign days spent more than the daily budget, the highest 1.91 times, while the middle day spent 1.01 times. Full Monday-to-Sunday weeks landed at 0.94 to 1.04 times seven daily budgets (27 weeks). OpenAI describes the daily budget as a seven-day average that may bill up to twice the amount on a single day.
• First days run over. A new campaign spent 1.01 to 1.82 times its daily budget on its first day, even when switched on during the day. One UK campaign started at about 16:00 and had spent 1.8 times its daily budget by midnight.
• Start on the Clicks objective. One company's conversion-optimised campaigns, with no conversion history behind them, showed 3 impressions in three days. The same ads, hints, bids, budgets and countries on the Clicks objective showed 46,975 impressions and 260 clicks in the next three. All the spend behind this page ran on Clicks, billed per click.
• The price paid sits below the bid. The average click cost 60% to 90% of the maximum bid, depending on the account.

06Creative and context hints

• A plain brand-mark tile beat photography. With identical copy, the brand-mark tile got a click rate of 1.5% against 0.8% for photos in one account's first ten days (318 clicks on 21,366 impressions against 77 on 9,715), and it led in 11 of 15 ad groups.
• The topic of an ad group moved the click rate more than the copy did. Across 14 topics in one account the click rate ran from 0.54% to 0.85% (2,060 clicks), and across 8 topics in another from 0.88% to 1.96% (1,817 clicks). Four copy angles in one account and three in another showed no measurable difference once we corrected for the number of angles tested.
• Hints about comparing vendors left the click rate where it was. Ad groups whose context hints describe buyers comparing vendors clicked at 0.96% (151 of 15,690 impressions) against 0.97% for the standard hints on the same topics (170 of 17,575), at the same €2.25 a click. They took 47% of the impressions. It is too early to say whether they bring more product tours.
• Seven hints per ad group. Our B2B ad groups carry a median of 7 context hints, 11 to 14 words long, each describing a buyer and the situation they are in.
• Financial services cannot run. All 8 ads we built for a European wealth manager were rejected under OpenAI's financial-services policy, and the account never spent. OpenAI's ad policies generally prohibit financial services outside the US.

07What this data cannot say

• Lead quality and revenue: one account has a lead count from the client's CRM (8 leads in October), and none has pipeline or revenue credited to ChatGPT Ads yet.
• Why the price rose: the platform shares no auction data. Inside the same ad groups the price per 1,000 impressions went up and the click rate went down, which fits more advertisers bidding without proving it.
• Enquiries: one account had no contact, pricing or ROI form from 1,285 ChatGPT Ads clicks. At its Google rate we would expect 1.7, so the zero tells us little yet.
• Reach and conversion bidding: none of our accounts ran Reach, and conversion bidding ran for three days on a new pixel only.
• Delivery by device or placement: the platform reports no split of impressions or clicks, and no list of the conversations the ads appeared in.
• The UK and consumer brands: the UK account has 173 clicks over 13 days, and the only consumer-facing account that spent stopped after three weeks.
• Before and after self-serve: every account here started after OpenAI opened self-serve buying in Europe.
• The last days: conversions from 1 and 2 November are still coming in, so the outcome figures end on 31 October.

08Buyer questions