The OpenAI Ads MCP server for ChatGPT Ads
OpenAI Ads is new, its API is new, and most teams are still working out what a campaign even looks like there. The OpenAI Ads MCP is a free, open-source server that puts your ChatGPT Ads account inside the AI assistant you already use, so you can ask about campaigns and results in plain language.
What you can do with the OpenAI Ads MCP
The server wraps the read endpoints of the OpenAI Ads API as 11 MCP tools. Your assistant picks the right one; you ask the question.
Check your account and API key
Confirm that your key works and see which ad account it belongs to. Each OpenAI Ads key is scoped to a single ad account.
Try askingIs my OpenAI Ads API key working, and which ad account is it tied to?
Read campaigns, ad groups and ads
List campaigns with their objective, budget and country targeting, drill into ad groups and bidding, and see each ad's creative and review status.
Try askingList my active campaigns with their budgets, then show which ads are still pending review.
Pull reporting into any MCP client
Get performance insights for the whole account, a campaign, an ad group or a single ad, for any date range, daily or in total.
Try askingShow spend, clicks and CTR for each campaign over the last 30 days, by day.
Ask in plain language instead of working the raw API
No request building, no pagination cursors, no micros arithmetic. The tool descriptions explain the API's conventions, so the assistant answers in readable amounts.
Try askingWhich campaign has spent the largest share of its lifetime budget so far?
Read-only today. The server never creates, edits or pauses anything and never spends budget. Write actions are on the roadmap and will need an explicit opt-in.
Install and run in under a minute.
The server is published on npm, so there is nothing to clone or build. Your MCP client starts it with npx and passes your API key as an environment variable.
Before you start
- Node.js 20 or newer
- An OpenAI Ads account (currently US only) and an API key, created under Settings at ads.openai.com
- An MCP client that runs local servers, such as Claude Desktop, Cursor or VS Code
Add this to claude_desktop_config.json, then restart Claude Desktop:
{
"mcpServers": {
"openai-ads": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@hypd-ai/openai-ads-mcp"],
"env": {
"OPENAI_ADS_API_KEY": "your-openai-ads-api-key"
}
}
}
}Cursor uses the same block in ~/.cursor/mcp.json. For VS Code and other clients, the README has a snippet for each.
To check the setup, ask your assistant: “Use the openai-ads tools to look up my ad account.”
If it doesn't work
- The tools don't appear: restart the client completely and check that the config file is valid JSON.
- npx is not found or fails to start: install Node.js 20 or newer and restart the client.
- The API returns 401 or 403: check that OPENAI_ADS_API_KEY holds a valid key for the ad account you want to read.
- Still stuck: run the server in the MCP Inspector to see each tool call, or open an issue on GitHub.
ChatGPT Ads, plus the rest of your stack
On its own, this server reads OpenAI Ads and nothing else. Most advertisers testing ChatGPT Ads already spend most of their budget on Google and Meta, and the useful questions sit across channels: is the new channel cheaper per conversion, and where should the next dollar go?
HYPD connects Google Ads, Meta Ads, Google Analytics and Merchant Center to the same AI assistant, so you can keep the OpenAI Ads server next to HYPD and compare channels in one conversation.
Open source, and why that matters here
We built the OpenAI Ads MCP in the open for two reasons. MCP is most useful when the ecosystem moves together, and a closed reference server slows everyone down. And the OpenAI Ads API is young: the people shipping agents against it find the rough edges first, so we want their feedback and fixes in the same repository.
The code is MIT licensed and written in TypeScript. Pull requests are welcome; for larger changes, open an issue first so the approach can be agreed. Every change has to pass linting, type checks and tests.
This is a community project. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by OpenAI.
Open-source server vs the HYPD connector
The open-source server is for developers who only need OpenAI Ads and want full control. HYPD is for teams that run several platforms, need access control and don't want to run a server of their own.
| OpenAI Ads MCP (open source) | HYPD connector | |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | OpenAI Ads | Google Ads, Meta Ads, Google Analytics and Merchant Center. OpenAI Ads is not part of the HYPD connector today. |
| Read / write | Read-only today; write actions planned behind an explicit opt-in | Read-only by default, with per-client permissions |
| Hosting | Runs locally on your machine via npx | Hosted by HYPD in the EU, nothing to run yourself |
| Permissions and audit | One API key per ad account; access control is up to you | Per-user and per-client permissions, audit log |
| Support | GitHub issues and pull requests | Support from the HYPD team |
| Price | Free, MIT license | Free plan; paid plans from $19.99/month |
| Who it's for | Developers who only need OpenAI Ads and want full control | Teams and agencies running several ad platforms |
OpenAI Ads MCP FAQ
Still have a question? Open an issue on GitHub or talk to the team.