ChatGPT Shows Ads on Free and Go, Not on Plus or Pro

ChatGPT shows ads on the Free plan and on Go, which is $8 a month in the US, in the countries where OpenAI runs them; Plus at $20, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts get none. To limit what the ads are based on, open Settings › Ads controls and turn off Personalize ads; to remove them, a Free user can switch to Ads-Free at lower limits, or pay for Plus or Pro.

Which plans see ads

Plan (US price a month)	Ads?	Can you turn off personalisation?
Free ($0)	May appear where tested. Ads-Free mode removes them, at lower limits	Yes: Personalize ads
Go ($8)	May appear where tested. No Ads-Free option	Yes: Personalize ads
Plus ($20)	No	Not needed: no ads
Pro (from $100)	No	Not needed: no ads
Business, Enterprise, Edu	No	Not needed: no ads
Signed out	Ads may appear, limited to ones suitable for all audiences	OpenAI does not describe ad controls for signed-out use

The Help Center also says ads are not shown to accounts identified as belonging to someone under 18, based on account age information and “age prediction where available”. Temporary Chats show no ads, and during the test, neither does OpenAI’s Atlas browser.

Prices are from OpenAI’s pricing page; what each paid plan adds beyond ad removal, including the agent that comes with Pro, is in our rundown of the ChatGPT plans after DevDay.

Where the ads appear

Today, below the end of a response, labelled as sponsored and set apart from the answer. OpenAI says you may see one or more ad units when there is “a relevant match to your chat”, and one unit can carry several products or advertisers.

Two more formats are on the way or in limited tests:

• Image ads during image generation. Announced on 5 October: a visual ad shown while ChatGPT creates an image, for Free and Go users, tested in the US from later this month. OpenAI says it stays separate from the image being made.
• Sponsored Agents, which let you open a chat with “an AI representative of a business” from an ad. OpenAI calls it a limited alpha with selected advertisers.

OpenAI says ads are not eligible to appear near sensitive or regulated topics, naming personal health, mental health and politics, and that political advertising is not currently allowed.

Which countries

OpenAI’s blog gives the rollout. The test began in the US on 9 February 2026. Canada, Australia and New Zealand were announced next, on 26 March; the UK, Mexico, Brazil, Japan and South Korea had launched by 11 August; 31 European countries were added from late August. On 23 September OpenAI named India among its earlier Asia-Pacific launches and added Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan, saying ChatGPT Ads were now in more than 60 countries.

That list is for advertisers. The Ads Manager page the Help Center links for “availability by country” is a list of 63 countries where a business can buy ads, and the user FAQ says only that ads are rolling out to Free and Go users “in select regions”. If your account is in the test, OpenAI says you will see “clear in-product information”.

The one regional difference OpenAI states for users: personalised ads are not initially available in the European Economic Area or Switzerland.

What the ads are chosen from

OpenAI lists two layers. Whatever your settings, the ad system uses what you are discussing in the current chat and basic context such as general location and language.

With Personalize ads on, it can also use:

1. Your current chat thread, including personalised model responses
2. How you interact with ads, such as ones you hide or click
3. Past chats and memory, if memory is on

So the short answer is yes, ads are chosen from chat content: always from the chat in front of you, and with personalisation on, from older ones too.

What goes the other way is narrower in OpenAI’s account. It says advertisers never receive your chats, chat history, memories, name, email, precise location or IP address, and get aggregated figures such as views and clicks. If you message an advertiser through an ad, they see the messages you send them.

Two details from OpenAI’s other pages fill in the picture. Its privacy policy says it may receive information from advertisers and data partners, “for example… information about purchases you make from these advertisers”, to measure the ads shown to Free and Go users. And its advertiser help says businesses can upload customer lists of email addresses or phone numbers to include or exclude matched people from a campaign, with at least 25,000 matched users needed to target. The user FAQ does not mention that matching, and we found no OpenAI page saying whether turning off personalisation takes you out of it.

The controls, by name

In Settings › Ads controls (the Help Center also writes it “Ad Controls”), OpenAI lists:

Control	What OpenAI says it does
Personalize ads	Off: ads use the current chat only, not other chats, ads history or topics. Ads still appear
Past chats and memory	Off: past chats and memory are not used to pick ads
View History and Topics	Shows ads you have seen or tapped, and the topics inferred for you
Delete ads data	Clears ads history and topics; removal takes up to 30 days. Your chats are not affected
Change plan to go ad-free	Free only: switches to Ads-Free at lower limits

Each ad’s three-dot menu adds Hide ad, Report ad, About this ad and Ask ChatGPT, which shares that ad into your chat; OpenAI says ChatGPT cannot see your ads otherwise.

Ads-Free on Free means fewer messages and no tools such as image generation or deep research. Go subscribers cannot choose it: OpenAI says they would have to drop to Free, or move to Plus or Pro. Turning off personalisation changes which ads you see, not whether you see them.

These are separate from the training switch. Whether your chats improve OpenAI’s models is controlled by “Improve the model for everyone” under Data Controls, covered in whether ChatGPT trains on your chats; turning that off leaves the ads controls as they were.

Where OpenAI’s own pages disagree

• Which plans are ad-free. The Help Center and the February post list Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu. The Europe post of 18 August and the Asia post of 23 September say “Plus, Pro, and Enterprise”, leaving out Business and Edu, and Engadget’s report of 5 October gave the same shorter list. We follow the Help Center, which answers the question by name.
• Free on the pricing page. The Go card says “This plan may include ads”. The Free card, on the plan that has the Ads-Free option, says nothing about ads.
• Signed-out users. The February post described a test for “logged-in adult users”. The Help Center now refers to “ads shown in logged-out experiences”.
• Placement. The Help Center, last updated 28 September, describes ads below responses only. It does not yet mention the image-generation format announced on 5 October.

What dropping the ads costs

For a Go subscriber, moving to Plus is $12 a month more, or $144 a year, which is close to the $132 a year Netflix charges to drop its ads. Plus brings more than ad removal for that money. A Free user who would rather keep the money can take Ads-Free mode and accept the lower limits, or compare what the other free chatbots include.

Questions people ask

Does ChatGPT Plus have ads?

No. OpenAI’s Help Center says Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts will not have ads. Ads may appear on the Free plan and on Go, which costs $8 a month in the US.

How do I turn off ads in ChatGPT?

Go has no switch for the ads themselves. On Free, Settings › Ads controls › Change plan to go ad-free removes them, at lower message limits and without image generation or deep research. Plus or Pro removes them with no cut. Temporary Chats show no ads.

Does ChatGPT use my chats to choose ads?

Yes. OpenAI says the current conversation is always a signal. With Personalize ads on, past chats and memory and your ad history can be used too. Advertisers do not receive your chats, according to OpenAI.

How do I stop personalised ads in ChatGPT?

Open Settings › Ads controls and turn off Personalize ads. You can also turn off Past chats and memory there and use Delete ads data. Ads still appear, chosen from the chat you are in.

Are there ads in ChatGPT in the UK or EU?

OpenAI says ads launched in the UK by 11 August 2026 and expanded to 31 European countries from late August. It says personalised ads are not initially available in the EEA or Switzerland, so ads there are chosen without your wider ChatGPT history.

Do ChatGPT ads change the answers?

OpenAI says no: ads run on separate systems, advertisers cannot shape or rank responses, and ads are labelled as sponsored and set apart below the answer. That is OpenAI’s stated policy; we have not tested it.