How to sell on ChatGPT: feeds, checkout and your own app

01What are the ways to sell on ChatGPT?

A store can use more than one of these.

An app here means an MCP server: a small server that lets ChatGPT call your store's tools, such as product search or order status. OpenAI now calls these apps plugins. OpenAI says most merchants start with a feed, and that apps are optional and best suited to larger merchants who want more control over the shopping and purchase experience.

02How do products show up in ChatGPT shopping?

When a question shows shopping intent, ChatGPT shows product options with images, details and links to sites where the shopper can buy (OpenAI Help Center). OpenAI says these results are not ads, and its partnerships don't influence them.

ChatGPT picks products using structured data from merchants and other providers, such as price and description, plus other third-party content. It weighs what the shopper asked for. A stated budget, for example, makes price count for more. When several merchants sell the same item, ChatGPT ranks them by availability, price, quality, and whether the merchant makes or mainly sells it.

For your own pages to be eligible, allow OAI-SearchBot, OpenAI's search crawler, to crawl your site (OpenAI). AEO covers the crawler rules and how to write pages AI tools can read. For Shopify stores, see Shopify AEO.

03What does a shopper see?

• A product carousel with images, prices and key details.
• Side-by-side comparisons of price, reviews and features (OpenAI).
• A list of merchants for each product. When more than one sells it, the cheapest one ChatGPT knows of may get a "Best price" label.
• Labels and review summaries that ChatGPT writes, such as "Budget-friendly". ChatGPT may also simplify your product titles and descriptions.
• Try on for clothes and accessories, from a selfie.

This richer shopping view reached Free, Go, Plus and Pro users in March 2026. Shopping is live in the US, and OpenAI plans more regions over time.

04What is the Agentic Commerce Protocol?

Agentic commerce means AI assistants helping people find and buy products, sometimes acting for them. The Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) is the open standard ChatGPT uses to get product data from merchants. OpenAI built it with Stripe and published it in September 2025 (OpenAI), under the Apache 2.0 license (agenticcommerce.dev).

ACP first powered Instant Checkout. In March 2026 OpenAI extended it to product discovery: merchants share feeds and promotions through it, directly or through providers such as Salesforce and Stripe. Target, Sephora, Nordstrom, Lowe's, Best Buy, The Home Depot and Wayfair have integrated for discovery (OpenAI).

05What is a ChatGPT product feed?

A product feed is a file listing your products, one record per item, that you send to OpenAI. OpenAI's feed spec accepts CSV, TSV or JSON Lines. Nine fields are required:

One record in JSON Lines:

{"item_id": "TEE-001-M", "title": "Organic cotton T-shirt", "description": "Heavyweight organic cotton tee.", "url": "https://example.com/products/organic-tee", "brand": "Example Co", "seller_name": "Example Co", "image_url": "https://example.com/images/organic-tee.jpg", "availability": "in_stock", "price": "29.00 USD"}

Optional fields add product reviews (review_count, star_rating) and a return_policy link. Update the feed when a price changes, a sale starts or ends, or an item sells out. The spec says dates in the feed don't schedule those changes for you. OpenAI's get started guide suggests uploading a full snapshot over SFTP at least once a day.

06How do I apply to the ChatGPT merchant program?

1. Check whether you're already in. Shopify and Etsy catalogs are already integrated, with no application (OpenAI). On Shopify, look in Sales channels > Agentic in your admin. The Shopify guide lists the eligibility rules.
2. Get your feed ready. The form asks whether your feed meets OpenAI's spec.
3. Fill in the form at chatgpt.com/merchants. It asks for your name, work title, LinkedIn, work email, company, headquarters country, website, main product categories and number of unique SKUs.
4. Wait for approval. Applicants go on a waitlist. OpenAI's developer docs say feed onboarding is open to approved partners.
5. Upload and keep it current. Once approved, upload over SFTP and replace the file with a full snapshot at least daily. Products must follow OpenAI's prohibited products policy, which rules out items such as weapons and prescription-only medicines.

The merchants page still says a self-service merchant portal is coming later this year. Business Hub, launched on 10 November 2026, already lets a business connect a feed itself. After you claim your business and pass ID verification with Persona, you can connect a Shopify feed, upload a CSV that follows the feed spec, or add a hosted URL that links to the feed file (OpenAI Help Center). OpenAI says a connected feed doesn't guarantee that ChatGPT recommends your products. If verification gets stuck, see Business Hub verification.

07What happened to ChatGPT Instant Checkout?

Instant Checkout launched on 29 September 2025. US shoppers could buy from US Etsy sellers without leaving the chat, and Shopify merchants were announced as coming soon (OpenAI). It handled one item per purchase at launch, and merchants paid a small fee on completed sales.

On 24 March 2026, OpenAI said the first version of Instant Checkout didn't give merchants the flexibility it wanted. It let merchants use their own checkout and turned its effort to product discovery (OpenAI). The merchants page now says purchases complete on merchant-owned websites or apps, with no fees on purchases that start in ChatGPT.

One form of in-chat payment remains. OpenAI's plugin docs describe a ChatGPT payment sheet, in private beta for select marketplaces only (OpenAI). How Walmart's in-chat checkout performed, and why it moved to its own app, is in The checkout experiment.

08How do payment and orders work?

The merchant runs checkout, payment and fulfilment on every route.

In an app, OpenAI recommends external checkout. The app sends the shopper to checkout on your domain, where you handle payment, tax, shipping and refunds. After buying, the shopper can come back to ChatGPT with the order confirmation or tracking details. An app can also let a signed-in customer pay with a payment method already saved with you, without leaving ChatGPT. It can't collect new card details unless it's in the payment sheet beta (OpenAI).

On Shopify, your branding and payment methods apply at checkout, and Shopify says there's no ChatGPT fee beyond normal payment processing (Shopify).

09What does a store's own ChatGPT app add?

A feed puts your products in results next to other merchants' products. An app is your store's own listing in ChatGPT's plugin directory. It answers from your systems, and customers connect to it by name.

• Signed-in customers. A customer signs in with the account they already have with you, then asks "Where's my order?", starts a return, or checks store credit or loyalty points.
• Checkout on your site. The app finds the product, then hands the shopper to your own checkout, with your payment methods and discounts.
• Tools only your store has, such as fit finders, configurators, bookings or warranty claims.
• Claude as well. The same MCP server can be listed in Claude's directory.

OpenAI's own example is Walmart, whose ChatGPT app supports account linking, loyalty and Walmart payments (OpenAI).

A Business Agent is a different thing. Eligible US online stores and services can publish one from Business Hub, and customers open it from the business's ChatGPT profile (OpenAI). It answers questions from your product and policy details, then links to your site. OpenAI's help center says it can't complete purchases, make bookings or check a customer's order, and it doesn't use your plugin's data. Claim your profile and publish the agent, then add an app for what the agent can't do. More in ChatGPT Business Agent.

OpenAI's plugin guidelines allow plugins to sell physical goods only. A plugin can't sell digital products or subscriptions, show ads, or add fees that apply only in ChatGPT.

The case for an app is strongest when customers have accounts, loyalty programs or many support questions. A small store with simple products gets most of the reach from a feed or its platform. Store guides: Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento. Review steps: ChatGPT's plugin directory.

10Do ChatGPT ads help sell products?

Ads are a paid unit below ChatGPT's response, shown to people on the Free and Go plans (OpenAI). They're labelled and kept separate from product results, and OpenAI says advertisers can't shape or rank its answers. An ad buys clicks to your landing page while the budget runs. Costs and setup are in ChatGPT ads.

12Common questions