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If you're one of the thousands of people who've built a cool custom GPT or AI app that users love, yet not making a dime for it, this article is for you. What if you could monetize your app without turning off users or sacrificing privacy? That’s where ADS4GPTs comes in. It’s an open-source platform designed for inserting relevant, text-based ads into AI chat interfaces—like custom GPTs or apps built with LangChain, Vercel AI, and other AI frameworks. Think of it as “Google Ads” for AI apps, tailored to chat experiences.

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In this article, I’ll test ADS4GPTs to see if it truly can deliver relevant ads without comprising the flow of conversations user’s have with AI. I’m especially curious about how well it distinguishes ads from chatbot responses, so people don’t feel tricked or spammed.

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Let’s dive in and see if ADS4GPTs is indeed a hassle-free solution for earning revenue from AI applications.

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Who is this for

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• Custom GPT creators: If you've built a GPT with steady user traffic but no revenue stream, ADS4GPTs offers a fastest path to monetization without requiring changes to your GPT's core functionality.
• ‍AI application developers: Building with LangChain, Vercel AI, or similar frameworks? The platform's SDKs let you integrate ads naturally into your chat flows while maintaining full control over the user experience.
• ‍AI entrepreneurs focused on privacy: For teams building AI tools for privacy-sensitive markets (like the EU), ADS4GPTs' no-PII approach means you can monetize while staying compliant with data protection regulations.
• ‍Indie makers & startups: If you're looking to turn your AI side project into a revenue-generating product, the platform's revenue model has the potential to provide a highly passive, steady income stream.

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Setting up ADS4GPTs (for Custom GPTs)

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Getting started is dead simple with minimal technical experience required. In all cases, you start by filling out the short contact form and wait to receive your API key. If you're using custom GPT you don't need to install anything (full process to set this up below).  If you're implementing ads for another type of AI app, you  proceed to installing the relevant package. SDKs are neatly organized in their Github repo, with separate folders tailored to the specific framework you’re using, like Custom GPTs, LangChain or Vercel AI.

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In my case, I set ADS4GPTs up using a custom GPT I’ve built called Add to Calendar, which lets users describe details of an event (time, date, place, attendees, etc) and it creates a calendar event based on it.

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This works via OpenAI’s Actions feature, which lets you interact with third-party APIs. I used their short guide specifically for Custom GPT located here, and the setup took me less than 5 minutes.

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Here’s how to set up ADS4GPTs in for an existing custom GPT:

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- Inside ChatGPT, go to the editor for your GPT and click the configure tab.

- Scroll down to the bottom, click the “Add action” button. In order to make it work, you need to add a Schema, API key and Privacy policy.‍

1. Authentication: Click the gear icon, select “API key” as Authentication type, enter the API they sent you in the text input field, and select “Bearer” as Auth type.‍
2. Schema: Clicked the “import from URL” button and input the URL given in the documentation.‍
3. Privacy policy: Provide a link to ADS4GPTs’ privacy policy for custom GPTs or create your own.

- Once you’ve done that, the last step is to edit your GPT’s instructions (go back to the Configure tab) so that it knows how to use the new Action — when and how many ads to show, how ads should be formatted, and a rule to avoid including any Personal Identifiable Information (PII) in the output. Luckily, ADS4GPTs has made this step easy by providing an easily adaptable template.

- Additionally, if you need help in getting the ads to display in the best way possible inside your GPT, you can also easily reach the people at ADS4GPTs through their Discord channel (you’ll get an invite when you join).

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Once you’ve set this up, ads should start showing up in your GPT’s responses. I specifically asked it to show ads after each time the GPT creates a calendar event for the user.

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Integration in other AI Apps

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ADS4GPTs aren't just for custom GPTs. Basically any chat app you’ve made with AI could be used to serve up these ads — they provide SDKs and integrations for Python and JavaScript/TypeScript. Let’s say you’ve made a tutoring app that integrates OpenAI’s API to give feedback on homework; this platform would easily let you include relevant ads in the chat responses.

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The team at ADS4GPT are constantly expanding the frameworks they support, and you can easily see an updated list in their Github. You’ll find the necessary documentation and examples you need to set things up for your specific app.

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Using any of these frameworks besides custom GPT has the added advantage that it lets you customise the ads more. These front-end components are built with React and Tailwind CSS, meaning you can easily tweak them to match your brand. Customising the look of the ads could also help in terms of improving click rates and your ad revenue.

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Customizing the user experience

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A major benefit of ADS4GPTs is the ability to control when and how ads appear in the users’ AI conversations. You can decide exactly at which points the ads should be triggered—say, after a user completes a particular action or even at both the beginning and end of a longer response. The AI selects ads that match the context of the conversation, ensuring users see relevant promotions. This level of customization goes a long way toward balancing monetization with user satisfaction, preventing the chat experience from feeling spammy or intrusive.

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Privacy & data handling

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A common worry among developers is how ads might interfere with user data.From what I’ve gathered, ADS4GPTs tackles this by avoiding the collection of personally identifiable information (PII) altogether—they mainly process contextual data from the chats, along with non-personal technical metrics like device details or session duration. They never sell or share user data with third parties, and any limited information they do handle is anonymized for the purpose of serving relevant ads.

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Best of all – they already have Privacy Policy templates (aligning with major regulations like GDPR and CCPA) for you as the app owner, ready to implement.

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Since everything is open-source, it’s possible to inspect how data flows within the platform and confirm that sensitive user information stays out of the mix. Of course, I still recommend evaluating your specific setup to make sure you have the right user consent and only pass the data you’re comfortable sharing. In other words, you stay in control of your users’ information, and ADS4GPTs promises to keep things transparent, making it easy to maintain user trust while still monetizing your AI app.

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Tracking the performance of your ads

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As a GPT/app owner you typically get paid from the platform on a monthly basis and, along with the payout, you get a PDF report where you can see impressions and click statistics for the ads you have run. The team is currently working on a portal dashboard where you’ll be able to monitor the ad performance for your GPTs and apps.

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Final word

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Setting up ADS4GPTs in your custom GPT or AI app is easy, privacy-oriented, and allows you to serve up contextually relevant ads in the chat responses. You also have a lot of control over ad placement and timing, meaning you don’t need to disrupt the user experience of your app either. Definitely recommend testing it if you’ve got an AI app that has got some users and you’re not making money from it — you might be missing out!

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