ChatGPT Business Verification and Ads: What Contractors Should Do Now

Claim your business in ChatGPT this week. It is free, it takes one phone code and an ID check, and it is the only way to fix what ChatGPT says about you. Do not move ad money into ChatGPT yet. The blue check will not move you up the list, and the new ads have no call button, no lead form and no published cost per lead for a single trade business. That is our read after going through everything OpenAI and the people testing it have put out since the launch on November 10.

Here is what launched, how to get verified, what the ads can and cannot do, and the order we would work in if we ran a tree, electrical, roofing or landscaping company today.

What OpenAI launched on November 10

The program is called Businesses in ChatGPT, and it is in beta. A business finds its listing in a new dashboard called Business Hub, proves it owns it, and gets a blue check. OpenAI’s own announcement says any eligible business in a country where ChatGPT runs can start by claiming its listing, then update its details, add product feeds and, for some businesses, build a Business Agent.

Think of it as a Google Business Profile with a lot less control. Until now there was nothing to claim at all. ChatGPT just pulled your name, number and reviews from wherever it found them, and you had no say in it.

According to VentureBeat’s launch coverage, claiming and managing a profile is free right now, and no ad account is needed. The same report says OpenAI left the door open to charging for it later.

How to get the blue check

There are two steps, and OpenAI reviews both by hand.

Step one is the claim. Open Business Hub from the ChatGPT sidebar, search for your business and pick your listing. ChatGPT then verifies you one of four ways: a code by text or automated call to the phone number it already has on file, a code to the business email it already has on file, a record added to your domain, or a Shopify login. Notice the words “already on file.” If ChatGPT has an old number for you, the fastest route sends the code to a phone you no longer answer.

Step two is your ID. Before you can publish changes or see any numbers, the person managing the listing passes an identity check run by a company called Persona. Have your driver’s license and your LLC paperwork on the desk before you start. VentureBeat reports the check can ask for a government ID, your business registration and proof you can act for the business.

One warning from the early users on OpenAI’s own forum: a listing claimed under someone’s personal login could not be moved to a company login. Claim it yourself, under the owner’s account. Do not hand this to a nephew or an agency and hope to get it back later.

What the blue check does and does not do

A verified listing lets you set your description, category, logo, cover photo and the link to your own pages. You also get 28 days of numbers: how often ChatGPT showed you, how many people clicked through, and the topics of the conversations you came up in. For a local business, ChatGPT showing your location counts as a mention. Below a volume OpenAI has not published, VentureBeat notes, the numbers stay blank.

What it does not do is move you up. OpenAI says plainly that claiming does not guarantee better placement. ChatGPT keeps making its own picks. The check fixes wrong facts. It does not win you the job.

The headline feature, a Business Agent that chats with buyers inside ChatGPT, is limited to US ecommerce and online service businesses for now, per OpenAI’s announcement. Contractors cannot build one yet.

The bigger catch for trades: local businesses can reportedly only claim a listing that already exists in the US, not create a new one. If you run out of a home office with no storefront, there may be nothing to claim yet. If that is you, skip ahead to where ChatGPT finds contractors, because that is where your work is.

ChatGPT ads: what a trade owner can buy today

Ads are a separate product with their own sign up and their own verification. They started in February as a test sold only through OpenAI’s sales team, out of reach for a local shop. On May 5 OpenAI opened a self serve Ads Manager to US businesses and added pay per click, according to Search Engine Journal. By October, CNBC reported more than 100,000 advertisers had run campaigns.

Here is what you get when you sign up:

• Where it shows: a labeled sponsored card under ChatGPT’s answer. Only logged in adults on the free plans see ads. Paying ChatGPT users never do.
• What it looks like: a small icon, a headline and a line of copy. No photos of your work, no video.
• Who it reaches: you can aim by state, metro area or ZIP code. There is no radius, so a service area gets built ZIP by ZIP, as PPC Land laid out.
• No keywords: you describe the conversations you want to show up in, in plain words. ChatGPT decides the match.
• What it costs: you pay per click or per thousand views. PPC Land reports OpenAI suggesting $3 to $5 a click to start.

What is missing matters more for a trade. There is no call button, no lead form and no booking. Every lead has to come through your own page and your own call tracking.

The early results are thin. In one agency’s side by side test reported by PPC.io, the ChatGPT ad was clicked by 1.06% of the people who saw it, against 5.2% on Google Search for the same advertiser, and it produced zero qualified leads to Google’s two. It is one small test. But nobody has published a single cost per lead for a US contractor yet. Until someone does, Google Local Services Ads are the number to beat, not to abandon.

Where ChatGPT actually finds local contractors

This is the part most owners miss. When a homeowner asks ChatGPT for a roofer near them, the answer is mostly built from directories, not from your profile.

A study by Cheers pulled 9,434 ChatGPT answers to home service questions across 60 US metros this fall. In US answers, Expertise.com was cited 53.5% of the time and Angi or HomeAdvisor 49.1%. The trade’s own pages varied a lot. Plumbers’ own sites showed up in 53.7% of plumbing answers. Roofers’ own sites showed up in only 17.8% of roofing answers. Yelp was barely quoted in the text, but it supplied the stars on 34% of the map cards.

And homeowners are asking. BrightLocal’s 2026 survey of 1,002 US adults found 45% used ChatGPT or another AI tool to find a local business, up from 6% the year before. The same survey found 59% then go check the reviews before they decide.

Angi already has its own app inside ChatGPT, and VentureBeat reports Angi is one of the companies testing the new sponsored chat ads. If your name and your pages do not come up, the homeowner gets handed to a marketplace, and you are back to paying for a shared lead that three other crews also got.

What we would do this month

Cheapest and highest payoff first.

1. Make your name, address and phone match everywhere. Google, Yelp, BBB, Angi and any “best of” list that already names you. ChatGPT reads all of them, and the phone code for your claim goes to the number it already has.
2. Check your Yelp stars, even if you have never opened Yelp. That rating is what shows on your card.
3. Give every service and every town its own page on your own domain, and make sure it does not block OpenAI’s search crawler. This is the same work that wins the Google map, which we covered in our read on Google’s AI answers and in our local search guide for home services.
4. Claim your ChatGPT listing under the owner’s login, with your ID ready. Expect correct facts and a blue check, not more calls.
5. Hold the ad money. If you want to test, keep it to a few hundred dollars over about a month in your two or three best ZIP codes, send clicks to one matching page with a tracked number, and compare the cost of each real lead to what Google Local Services Ads cost you. If it does not beat that, stop.

The owners who win in ChatGPT next year will not be the ones who paid first. They will be the ones whose information was right everywhere and whose own pages answered the homeowner’s question before anyone else did.

Quick answers

Get found by the homeowner, not the marketplace

The homeowner might start on Google, the map or ChatGPT. Either way, the jobs go to the business whose information is right everywhere, whose reviews are strong and whose pages answer the question. That is the work we do with our partners every week, and it is the same work that gets you picked when someone asks ChatGPT for a crew in their town. If you want it done for you, apply to become a partner.