ChatGPT Ads started as a test in the United States and, in the fall of 2026, covers a large map. We read the five official OpenAI pages and counted the countries in the availability table ourselves. Here is what that means for a company from Romania.
You open ads.openai.com, create your account, then the question hits that blocks many Romanian companies: does it make sense to run ChatGPT ads from Bucharest? The answer is yes, and we did not get it from hearsay. On 20 September 2026 we read the five official OpenAI pages about ChatGPT Ads and counted the countries in the availability table with a script. Here is the complete map, with its rules.
The basic rule sits in one sentence from the official documentation: to use Ads Manager in self-service mode, that is to open your own account and campaign, the legal entity that runs the ads and pays must exist in a country on the list (help.openai.com, read on 20 September 2026). So it concerns your company, the SRL that issues the invoice, not the markets where your customers are. A company from Cluj can target people anywhere the ads reach, as long as it legally exists in a country with "Available" status.
The list also has a back gate: if your country is missing or carries the "Coming Soon" status, that is "soon", you do not get self-service access. The account can still be created, OpenAI says it notifies you when your country enters the program, and an account opened early does not bring you access sooner. Big companies, with complicated needs, still have one more door: direct support from the Ads team.
For Romania, the question narrows down to one: does our country appear on the list? Yes. Below is what we found counting row by row.
The launch was small, compared with what followed. On 9 February 2026, OpenAI started the ads in ChatGPT test in the United States, for logged-in adult users, on the Free and Go plans, that is the free variant and the entry plan (openai.com, "Testing ads in ChatGPT", published on 2026-02-09, read on 2026-09-20).
Then the map grew stage by stage, again from the updates of the same page: on 26 March 2026 the expansion beyond the US started with a pilot in Canada, Australia and New Zealand; on 7 May 2026 came the plan for the United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil, Japan and South Korea, promised "in the following weeks"; on 11 August 2026 the five countries effectively entered the program, and OpenAI wrote that the expansion continues to other markets in 2026 (openai.com, the updates from 2026-03-26, 2026-05-07 and 2026-08-11, read on 20 September 2026).
Today's state goes past those stages: the official "Ads Manager Availability" page lists 56 countries, all on "Available" status, Romania included (help.openai.com, read on 20 September 2026). The number does not come from a press release: it comes from a script run on the table saved on 20 September 2026.
Here a friction appears that says how fresh the channel is. An OpenAI announcement says the program passed 1 billion USD annualized revenue in under 200 days from launch, with tens of thousands of advertisers, figures the company declares about itself, and the publication date could not be confirmed at the check on 20 September 2026 (openai.com, "A milestone in expanding access to AI", read on 20 September 2026). The same announcement talks about the self-service launch in India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, plus "over 40 countries" covered through the Ads Solutions team and partners.
Today's official table says 56. The two figures meet: the help page updates faster than the press page. When you want the real state, you read the table; when you want the commercial story, you read the announcement.
From the same announcement two operating benchmarks stay with you: cost per click and result-optimized bidding support most campaigns, and the measurement foundation is set with Pixel and Conversions API, that is a piece of code placed on your site that reports to the campaign what visitors do after the click.
Your budget only works if you understand who sees the message, and here the most useful list is the one of those who do not. The documentation draws the exclusions clearly: the Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education plans get no ads, the same for accounts identified as belonging to people under 18 (help.openai.com, "Ads in ChatGPT", read on 20 September 2026). In the test phase, ads are missing from OpenAI's Atlas browser, from Temporary Chats, that is conversations that delete themselves, and away from sensitive subjects: personal health, mental health, politics.
The practical translation follows the line of the exclusions: the ad audience is not inside companies using ChatGPT through the company plan, because no ads appear there at all. If your ideal client is an employed professional, your campaign does not reach them in this channel.
That is, the budget is built where the audience actually shows up, not where the subject makes noise. Whoever knows their audience's plans decides from the start whether the test is worth it.
Now the part that concerns you directly in Romania and in the whole community zone. Ads can appear in the European Economic Area and in Switzerland, but at the start without personalization. The exact quote is worth it:
Personalized ads are not initially available in the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland", writes the official OpenAI help page, which we read on 20 September 2026.
Personalization means, in short, that the ad is picked based on the conversation's context and on your interest signals. At the start, your campaign can appear in the EEA, but targeting stays poorer, and the idea that the message reaches exactly the right person stands on weaker legs. It sounds like a minus. It is, at the same time, a window: the first campaigns in the zone learn the auction mechanics and the language of messages on ground where the competition is only settling in.
One honest precision, to close this fairly: the availability table says where the paying company can be, it declares nothing about the geography of the person who sees the ad. The official sources read on 20 September 2026 do not say whether users in Romania already see ads, and we do not make that jump without a source.
The practical road is short: you create your account on ads.openai.com, enter Ads Manager, pick the campaign, budget and audience, then start (ads.openai.com, read on 20 September 2026). At the check on 20 September 2026, the registration page showed a 500 USD ad credit bonus at a spend of 500 USD. Offers like this change, so you date it: valid today, probably not forever.
What you do not find yet in the official pages: average costs, bidding parameters, performance benchmarks. Our shop has run no ChatGPT Ads campaign to date, so we have no numbers of our own and we invent none: the weight of this article comes from reading the documentation exactly. Your first budget stays a personal test, with sums you can afford to treat as a learning fee.
We, for our part, work daily with n8n and agents for clients, and campaign reports arrive in automated flows, like our n8n automations, so you see the numbers in the morning, already gathered. If you want an opinion on your budget, you find us on the contact page.
Yes. openai.com). The condition concerns the company that pays, not the country your customers are in.
56 countries, all on "Available" status. The number comes from a script run on the official "Ads Manager Availability" table on 20 September 2026, not from a press release.
At the check on 20 September 2026, ads.openai.com showed 500 USD ad credit at a spend of 500 USD. Treat the offer as a window with a date on it, not as a permanent rule.
The documentation read on 20 September 2026 does not say explicitly, so we do not claim it. The table describes where the paying company can be incorporated, not where the person who sees the ad lives. We know for sure who does not see: Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education subscribers, minors and, in the test, users of the Atlas browser and of Temporary Chats. For the rest, the geographic answer stays open until OpenAI writes it down in black and white, and we prefer to tell you that rather than invent a certainty.
Want to know whether ChatGPT Ads deserves the first leu of your budget? See our digital marketing services and write us a few lines about what you sell and to whom.