OpenAI is charging premium fees, such as a 4% take rate on Shopify sales and ad CPMs three times higher than Meta's. This signals a value-based strategy, betting that high-intent AI users will deliver superior conversion rates that justify the hefty premium over established digital platforms.

For OpenAI's commerce features to succeed, it's not enough to build one-click checkout. They must fundamentally retrain hundreds of millions of users to trust a new purchasing workflow inside a chatbot, breaking deeply ingrained habits of searching on ChatGPT then buying on Google or Amazon.

Ridge, an e-commerce wallet company, reveals that traffic originating from ChatGPT generates $12 per user session, a staggering 12 times higher than the $1 per user from Meta. This demonstrates the exceptionally high purchase intent of consumers who use AI for product research.

While a 4% fee seems reasonable for new customer acquisition, it becomes a burden if users who discovered a product organically then use ChatGPT for checkout convenience. This dynamic forces merchants to pay OpenAI for customers they didn't acquire through the platform.

OpenAI's 4% fee for in-app purchases creates a risk for merchants. If consumers start using ChatGPT as their primary purchasing interface, it could intercept sales that originated from a brand's own marketing. A customer might see a product elsewhere, then buy it via ChatGPT, imposing a new tax on an otherwise organic conversion.

The Instant Checkout feature is a strategic tool designed to collect valuable first-party conversion data. This data is essential for building and tuning a future performance-based ad platform. The feature's primary purpose is data acquisition, not direct e-commerce revenue.

The 4% fee for ChatGPT's Instant Checkout is deceptively high because it is for a single transaction, not true customer acquisition. The terms forbid using customer data for remarketing, meaning brands do not gain a long-term relationship or LTV, unlike with traditional ad-based acquisition.

OpenAI's partnership with Stripe to enable in-app purchases transforms ChatGPT from an information tool into a transactional platform. This creates a frictionless sales channel for e-commerce brands, directly challenging Google's established search-to-purchase business model.

Instead of traditional cost-per-click models, ChatGPT could pioneer a "verified outcome" system where advertisers pay only upon a completed transaction and user satisfaction. This would inherently favor advertisers with superior products that lead to actual conversions, improving ad quality and relevance for all users.