How to schedule ChatGPT ads by the hour

A campaign that runs from the first day of the month to the last can still be eligible to run while your office is closed. If you want it active on weekdays from 09:00 to 18:00, you need a recurring weekly rule as well as the campaign’s overall dates.

That distinction matters when someone needs to answer a call, qualify an enquiry, or help a customer complete a purchase. Choosing run hours gives you control over when you request campaign activation. Whether those hours improve results needs to be measured.

What ChatGPT Ads lets you schedule

OpenAI’s campaign guide describes start and end dates. Its campaign API exposes start_time and end_time, along with actions to pause and activate a campaign. Those controls define an overall eligibility period and let you change campaign status. OpenAI campaign guide and campaign API reference.

As of September 28, 2026, those public documents do not describe a recurring weekday-and-hour schedule. This is a statement about the documented controls, not a guarantee that every account has identical features. Check your account’s current options before building a workaround.

When a recurring schedule is unavailable, you can pause and resume manually, maintain your own automation, or use Campaign Hours. A manual routine needs someone to perform both actions every working day, with coverage for holidays and changes in local time.

1. Connect the account you want to manage

Sign in to Campaign Hours and open Accounts. A workspace owner can choose Connect account and enter an Advertiser API key created in OpenAI Ads Manager settings. Review the account details before confirming the connection.

Use the intended account, especially if you manage several clients. Give your schedule a name that identifies its purpose, such as “UK sales team hours,” rather than a name that only makes sense today.

2. Choose campaigns and a timezone

Create a schedule and select the connected ad account and campaigns it should control. Choose the timezone that defines the working day. For a London sales team, that would usually be Europe/London, even if you are configuring the account from another country.

A schedule applies the same weekly windows to its selected campaigns. If two groups need different local hours, configure separate schedules with the appropriate campaigns and timezones. Review the campaign list carefully before enabling anything.

3. Set your recurring run windows

Under Run hours, select the weekdays and enter a start and end time. For example, use Monday through Thursday from 09:00 to 18:00, then add a second window for Friday from 09:00 to 15:00.

The weekly preview helps you spot an accidentally selected weekend or an unexpectedly long day. The All day option is useful when you want an entire selected day included. You can save the timing as a template to reuse it without treating the template itself as an enabled schedule.

Start with hours your team can explain. Avoid adding many narrow windows before you have enough evidence to justify them. Our guide to choosing ad-running hours explains how to make that decision.

4. Review before enabling

Choose Review schedule to inspect the proposed action now and the upcoming changes. If you enable a schedule outside its run window, it may request a pause immediately. Inside a window, it may request activation for eligible campaigns.

Check any authorization required for paused campaigns. Manual holds remain in place; a schedule should not silently undo an operator’s decision to keep a campaign paused. Save disabled stores the schedule without enabling its automation.

Disabling a schedule later stops its automation. It does not itself pause the campaigns, so use the campaign controls when your intention is to stop them.

5. Check what actually happened

After the first boundary, open Activity and inspect scheduled actions. A planned pause, a requested pause, and a verified paused state are different stages. Do not treat the time on a schedule as a promise that delivery stops at that exact second.

Likewise, activation does not guarantee impressions. Budget, review status, targeting, and other delivery requirements still apply. OpenAI’s delivery troubleshooting guide explains how those conditions interact.

Review the first few transitions, then compare campaign outcomes over a useful period. If your customers span several regions, read the timezone guide before expanding the schedule.