ChatGPT Ads Manager Opens to Businesses in Turkey, but No Lira Billing

September 24, 2026 · Daily Radar

Sixteen days ago, I published a post on this blog titled "ChatGPT ads are live in 52 countries, so why not Turkey?" The main point of that post is now wrong. On the "Ads Manager Availability" page in OpenAI's help center, as of September 24, the row for Turkey says one word: Available [A].

That means a company incorporated in Turkey can now open its own ChatGPT ads account and set up campaigns at ads.openai.com, without a foreign legal entity or an agency in between. It sounds like a big door has opened. Partly, it has. But read the page line by line and a few details come up that cool the "let's start right now" excitement a bit. The simplest one: the minimum budget table lists 30 currencies, and the Turkish lira isn't one of them.

Quick answer: OpenAI has opened Ads Manager, the self-serve panel for ChatGPT ads, to companies incorporated in Turkey; as of September 24, 2026, the list covers 63 countries. This matters to every business that invoices in Turkey, but most of healthcare, legal, and finance are still banned outside the US. The first thing to do is open an account and start business verification; verification can take up to 7 business days.

What happened?

OpenAI's ad product launched as a pilot in the US in February, then opened to Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and India on August 31 [C]. On September 3, the self-serve list had 52 countries, and Turkey wasn't on it [C: Digital Applied, September 3 data]. Today I count 63 countries on the page. Seven of the 11 new ones come from the Southeast Asia and Taiwan expansion announced yesterday: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Taiwan [A].

The remaining four are Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. According to the change log kept by Index Lab, these four were added on September 16 [C]. I'll be upfront: I'm not entirely sure about that date. Another Turkish-language source dated September 21 still listed Turkey as "not on the list." OpenAI hasn't announced the date anywhere, and there's no separate blog post for Turkey. The only certain thing is that it's on the list today.

Alongside yesterday's announcement, OpenAI shared another number: the ads business reached a $1 billion annual revenue run rate in under 200 days from launch [B: OpenAI announcement, as reported by Adgully and Unite.AI]. There's no independent data to verify this figure; it's the company's own claim.

Why does it matter?

Because the route I suggested in the September 8 post was a roundabout one: if you have a company abroad, open the account there; if you don't, wait and get your product feed ready. There's no waiting anymore. But the panel being open doesn't mean every business can get in. Here are the rules:

• The legal entity rule. The legal entity that runs the ads and gets billed must be incorporated in a country marked "Available" on the list [A]. The card must belong to that country too; a card from another country may be declined [A]. The country, currency, and legal entity chosen when you open the account may not be changeable from the panel later; you'll need a support request [A].
• Your own country first. New self-serve accounts can initially advertise only in their own country. To expand to another country, your identity verification has to be approved and you have to reach a certain spend level in your home country [A]. For a hotel targeting foreign tourists or an exporter, that's a significant brake.
• No lira. The minimum daily budget table lists 30 currencies, from AED to VND: 25 USD, 15 EUR, 15 GBP, and so on [A]. There's no TRY row. The official page doesn't say whether a Turkish company's account will be set up in dollars or euros; either way, the exchange rate directly affects your budget plan.
• Industry bans. The policy table has separate columns for the US and "all other countries" [A]. In other countries, hospitals, cosmetic and minimally invasive procedures, dietary supplements, and consumer health devices are "not allowed." Legal services are fully closed outside the US. In finance, personal loans, BNPL, crypto, and payment services are closed; deposits and credit cards are open only to selected, approved advertisers. Healthcare and finance software, on the other hand, is allowed.

In my view, that last point is the part of this news that will get talked about least but hurt the most. Some of the industries that spend the most on digital ads in Turkey (clinics, medical tourism, law firms, fintech) can't get through this door for now.

What changes for your brand?

• E-commerce and software (SaaS) companies are the luckiest group. There's also a feature for building campaigns from a product feed [A]; if your feed is already clean for Google Merchant Center, half the work is done.
• For local service businesses (plumbers, hair salons, architecture firms), city and postal code targeting is supported, though it varies by country [A]. Even OpenAI's own example includes a context hint like "after-hours plumbing service in the city." So local businesses are part of this product's target audience.
• If you're in healthcare, legal, or finance, the panel is open, but your ad most likely won't be approved. Open the account anyway, finish verification, and wait. When the categories open up, you'll be first in line, and that's about it.
• A note for agencies: there's cross-account permission management [A], but as OpenAI states plainly, the platform doesn't yet offer industry performance benchmarks [A]. Anyone telling a client "CPC on ChatGPT will be this much" is selling a guess.

I also have one objection. Everyone will say "early movers win," and I only half agree. Getting in early means fewer competitors in the auction, true. But OpenAI's FAQ page says clearly that delivery and spend will fluctuate during the beta, and that ad formats and buying methods will change [A]. So it's hard to make lasting decisions based on the first two months of data. If I were you, I'd set aside a small slice of the budget as a learning budget, not treat it as a main channel.

I walked through what you need to prepare before setting up your first campaign in the panel, step by step, in my ChatGPT ads guide.

The one thing to do today

Open an account at ads.openai.com and start business verification today. Opening an account is free, and adding a card doesn't mean launching a campaign. Verification can take up to 7 business days [A]; you can make the campaign decision later, but you won't spend that week waiting. Make sure the legal entity name, address, and domain on the form match your website exactly; if OpenAI can't match the advertiser identity to the domain, it won't approve the domain [A].

Today's Radar

Frequently asked questions

Who sees ads in ChatGPT?

Only users on the Free and Go plans. There are no ads on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, or Edu accounts, and they aren't shown to accounts identified as under 18 [A]. The ad appears below the answer, with the advertiser's name and landing page.

Can I choose keywords?

No, not in the classic sense. You write "context hints" for the ad group: natural sentences describing who your product helps and in what situation. OpenAI states that these are not exact-match keywords and don't guarantee delivery [A]. That's why how well an ad performs in ChatGPT also depends on how your brand is already described in ChatGPT; that side is covered by ChatGPT SEO / GEO work.

What budget do you need to start?

The minimum daily budget is 25 USD for a dollar account and 15 EUR for a euro account [A]. For click campaigns, OpenAI recommends a maximum CPC of 3–5 USD to start [A]. Since the Turkish lira isn't in the table, the real cost depends on the exchange rate; you'll see this when you open the account.

Does your industry run into the ad policy? How should the account be set up, and how should context hints be written? You can take a look at our ChatGPT ads service, or measure your brand's digital standing first. For the new format that starts a conversation with a click, the Sponsored Agents post is here too.

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Sources

• OpenAI Help Center — Ads Manager Availability (accessed September 24, 2026)
• OpenAI Help Center — Create Campaigns for ChatGPT Ads (minimum budget table, country targeting)
• OpenAI Help Center — Troubleshooting Common Onboarding and Policy Issues (industry eligibility table)
• OpenAI Help Center — Billing & Payment
• OpenAI Help Center — Ads in ChatGPT: The Basics
• OpenAI Help Center — Write Context Hints for ChatGPT Ads
• OpenAI Help Center — ChatGPT Ads FAQ
• OpenAI — ChatGPT Ads expands to Southeast Asia and Taiwan
• PPC Land — OpenAI gains 7 Asian markets for ChatGPT ads, passing 60 countries
• Index Lab — Where ChatGPT Ads are available
• Digital Applied — Where ChatGPT Ads Are Sold: Every Market, Every Date
• Adgully — OpenAI expands ChatGPT Ads into seven Asian markets as ad platform hits $1 billion ARR pace
• Unite.AI — OpenAI Rolls Out ChatGPT Ads in Seven New Asian Markets
• Search Engine Roundtable — Google Ads New AI Max Reporting & AI Brief Expands
• PPC Land — German court ends Meta's hosting shield, 250,000 euros per fake ad
• Search Engine Roundtable — Google AI Overviews With Way More External Links
• Search Engine Roundtable — Google Business Profiles Gives You Four Days To Reject User Edits
• PPC Land — Gemini gains 14 third-party apps including Experian and Adobe