ChatGPT ads · Australia · setting a budget
How much a tradie should put behind ChatGPT ads
You pick a daily cap. OpenAI caps the rest. The number that decides it all is not the cap though. It's what 1 job is worth to you.
Start with a daily cap, not a total
OpenAI tells new advertisers to start with a daily budget. You can set a total for the whole campaign instead. For a first run, the daily cap is the safer one. Turn it off on a bad day and you've lost a day, not a month.
2 numbers the cost page already answers
Your daily cap is a dial, not a hard stop. OpenAI's rule: a day can spend up to double the daily cap, and a week up to 7 times it. OpenAI also suggests a starting bid for each click, which is someone tapping the ad. Both sit in full on what ChatGPT ads cost.
What no page can tell you is what a click ends up costing an Australian tradie. Nobody has published that. You find it out in month 1.
The maths, in made-up numbers you swap for yours
- Say a job is worth $500 to you, after your costs. Those are Australian dollars, and an example, not a market rate.
- Say you set your daily cap at $40. Again, an example.
- On OpenAI's 2 caps that is up to $80 on a big day, and up to $280 across the worst week.
- 1 job at $500 pays for that week and leaves $220 in your pocket.
That is the test. Does a week of ads bring you more work than a week of ads costs? How many clicks it takes to get a call, nobody can tell you yet. You find that out in month 1, in your own numbers.
When to push it up, and when to stop
Give it a month of normal working days, not a long weekend. Then read 3 things. If the calls beat the spend, lift the cap slowly and watch the same numbers again. Clicks with no calls usually means the page or the phone number, not the budget. No clicks at all points at the hints and the ad itself.
What I do with your budget while we work for free
We set the cap together on the call, in your numbers, starting near the bottom. You cover that ad spend and it goes to OpenAI for the clicks. You pay OpenAI, not me.
Then I read the spend every morning against what came in the day before. I pause the cap on the weeks you tell me you are flat out, and I put it back on for the quiet ones. I only lift it once the calls are beating the spend, and I lift it slowly. That way one bad week is a lot less likely to run away from you.
3 things tradies want to know about the budget
What's the smallest I can start with?
There's no published minimum, and what a sensible start looks like is on what ChatGPT ads cost.
Can I turn it off when I'm flat out?
Yes. We set the cap together on the call, and we can pause it any day. A lot of trades have a dead month and a month where the phone never stops. The ads should follow that shape, not fight it. Tell me your quiet weeks and we aim the spend there.
Does your fee come out of the budget?
No. You only cover your own ad spend, and that money goes to OpenAI. The first month is free. Once you have seen the results, we sort out a rev-share or a retainer, and that is agreed in writing before month 2 starts.
Let ChatGPT show your business to high-intent customers
- ChatGPT has released paid ads, and this changes the marketing game absolutely.
- If you missed out on Facebook ads in 2007, where anything you posted would have popped off, don't miss out on the next big ad platform.
- Unlike Facebook, where people get interrupted mid doom-scroll, ChatGPT shows your business to people who are already researching something related.
- That makes ChatGPT a cheat code. The engine your customers ask for advice shows your business right under its answer.
- Most marketing agencies charge you thousands before you see any results.
- We work for you, for free. You just cover your own ad spend. The first month is free, so you see the results for yourself before you pay us anything.
- Then, if you want to keep getting those results month after month, we sort out a rev-share or a retainer. A rev-share is a cut of what it makes you. A retainer is a flat monthly fee. Agreed in writing before month 2 starts.
- In the free month, we don't get paid if you don't get paid. After that, it's the rev-share or the retainer you chose.
- Only 10 a month. The work up front is heavy and brings us no income at first. That is all we can take.
If the ads make you nothing, you pay us nothing and we stop there. You will have paid OpenAI for the clicks, and that is all.
Read next
For the ways to pay and the bid guidance in full, read what ChatGPT ads cost. Not sure you should spend a dollar yet? The fit test answers that first. Before you set a cap, read the 7 ways a campaign wastes money, because 2 of them are budget faults. And a budget you can't measure is a budget you'll argue with, so set up the call counting first.
30 minutes, then a straight answer
30 minutes on the phone, mostly questions about your business and your customers. You get 2 straight answers. Do people ask ChatGPT for what you do? And is it worth a run, where we only get paid a rev-share or a retainer, sorted once you have seen the results, to find out?