ChatGPT Sites: What It Is, Who Gets It, and How to Build One

ChatGPT Sites turns a chat into a live website with its own link. You describe the page or small app you want, ChatGPT builds it, hosts it and hands back a URL, at no extra charge on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu. It is not on Free or Go. If you read OpenAI's 9 July launch note and gave up because you live in Europe, look again. Sites reached the UK, the EEA and Switzerland on 20 July 2026 for Plus and Pro accounts, and the launch note still says it did not.

That stale line is not the only place OpenAI's documentation argues with itself. Its pages disagree on whether a Site can take payments, whether it can pull in live data, and even whether Plus and Pro get Sites at all. This guide covers what ChatGPT Sites is, which plan and country you need, and how to build and share a Site from the web or the Mac app. It also shows how to put your own domain on it, and which of the conflicting answers holds up.

The Key Takeaways

• What it is: a way to build, host and share a website or small web app from a ChatGPT conversation, launched in public beta on 9 July 2026.
• Who gets it: Plus ($20 a month), Pro (from $100), Business, Enterprise and Edu. Not Free or Go, and no separate fee during the beta.
• Europe: available in the UK, EEA and Switzerland for Plus and Pro since 20 July 2026.
• Your own domain: supported if you already own one. Sites does not sell domains, and Enterprise workspaces cannot use custom domains yet.
• The catch: every deploy goes straight to production, and OpenAI does not publish the beta usage limits before you hit them.

What Is ChatGPT Sites?

ChatGPT Sites is a feature in ChatGPT that creates, previews, publishes and shares interactive websites and lightweight apps. Describe it, and ChatGPT writes it, hosts it and gives you a link. It launched in public beta on 9 July 2026, according to OpenAI's release notes, the same day as ChatGPT Work, the agent mode that builds it.

OpenAI's own examples are practical rather than flashy: dashboards, project trackers, launch calendars, prototypes, internal portals and reports. The Sites developer documentation adds web apps and games, and a simple game takes one prompt, as the Snake build in our guide to games you can play with ChatGPT shows. A Site is more than a static page, too. Ask for it and ChatGPT adds a relational database for saved records, capped at 10 GB per Site, plus file storage for uploads with no fixed limit. It can also add Sign in with ChatGPT, so each visitor keeps their own saved progress. Visitor analytics (unique visitors and page views) are built in, except on Sites owned by an Enterprise workspace.

The feature has found an audience fast. On 11 September, OpenAI's official ChatGPT account put the count at more than five million Sites and listed what had changed since launch:

Three months ago, we launched ChatGPT Sites – an easy way for anyone to build and host fully functional, interactive web apps. Since then, people have created over 5M sites.

We’ve been listening to your feedback and ICYMI, we’ve launched a few Sites updates:

🫂 Build together: Invite teammates to edit, save, and publish to your shared Site

🔐 Share privately: Invite specific people to a private Site without making it public

🚀 Launch faster: Go from prompt to deployment in half the time

👀 Explore your data: Ask ChatGPT to inspect your Site’s database. Editors can view it, too

🌐 Add your own custom domain

— ChatGPT (@ChatGPT) September 11, 2026

What ChatGPT Sites is not

Several guides call Sites the successor to Canvas. It is not. When OpenAI switched Canvas off, its release notes moved that writing and coding work into writing blocks and code blocks inside the chat, and our guide to what happened to ChatGPT Canvas walks through that change. Sites is a hosting and publishing layer that sits on top of Work and Codex, which is a different job.

It is also not a full software platform. OpenAI's Academy page says so plainly: a Site suits "a focused internal tool, page, dashboard, or calculator". Beyond that, "a more complex product may still require a separate engineering project." Treat it as the fastest way to get a working page in front of people, not as the place to build a company.

Who Can Use ChatGPT Sites, and Is It Free?

ChatGPT Sites is not free. It is included, with no extra fee during the public beta, in the paid plans below, and OpenAI's pricing page says availability "depends on your plan, region, and workspace settings."

Prices are from OpenAI's own pricing page for ChatGPT and Codex. For what else each tier includes, see our full ChatGPT pricing breakdown and the Plus vs Pro comparison. If you are on Free or Go and only need the words and layout for a page rather than the hosting, any strong model will draft them. Fello AI puts GPT, Claude and Gemini side by side in one Mac app for $9.99 a month, with a free tier.

The limits you cannot see before you pay

During the beta, Sites usage is included "up to plan-specific limits", and OpenAI does not print those limits anywhere public. They apply across every Site on your account, and you see them only inside Sites. Hit a limit and you cannot create a new Site, add storage, or keep a high-traffic Site public until usage drops. You can still edit and manage the Sites you have.

One OpenAI table says Plus and Pro do not have it

Here is the first contradiction. The feature matrix at the bottom of OpenAI's Learn pricing page marks Sites as unavailable on Plus and Pro. Every other OpenAI source says the opposite. The plan comparison on chatgpt.com/pricing ticks Sites for Plus and Pro, and the Help Center article, the Sites documentation, the July release note and the European rollout post all name both plans. Five sources outweigh one table row. If you pay for Plus and do not see Sites, the Help Center's own answer is that it may still be rolling out to your account.

ChatGPT Sites in Europe, the UK and Switzerland

The 9 July release note says: "Public publishing and the expanded beta rollout are not available in the EEA, Switzerland, or the United Kingdom at launch." That sentence is still on the page, which is why several guides still tell European readers they are locked out. Eleven days later, OpenAI's developer account reversed it:

Sites is now available in the UK, EEA, and Switzerland for Plus and Pro accounts 🇬🇧🇪🇺🇨🇭

https://x.com/OpenAIDevs/status/2075337031954395447?s=20

— OpenAI Developers (@OpenAIDevs) July 20, 2026

Note the scope. The post covers Plus and Pro accounts. It says nothing about Business or Enterprise workspaces in those countries, so a European company should check its workspace settings rather than assume.

How to Use ChatGPT Sites to Build a Site

You start a Site in Work on ChatGPT on the web, or in Work or Codex in the ChatGPT desktop app. The web route takes five steps:

1. Open ChatGPT on the web and select Work.
2. Describe the website you want. Include the word "website" in your prompt, or type @Sites.
3. Add the content, files, data, links and constraints it should use.
4. Review the private preview ChatGPT generates.
5. Ask for changes until it is right, then choose who can see it and publish.

Your Sites stay listed under More > Sites, or at chatgpt.com/sites, even after the chat that made them ends. To change one later, open it there, select the edit icon, and describe the change.

Prompts to copy

OpenAI's documentation says the best first prompt names the audience, the purpose, the behaviour you need and the information the Site should use. It also says to ask for storage in so many words when the Site has to remember anything. Two starting points. Fill in the brackets before you send them:

Build a one-page website for [business or event] aimed at [audience]. Include [sections, for example opening hours, prices, a map link and a contact form]. Use a clean layout that reads well on a phone. Show me a private preview before you publish anything.

Build a website that lets [group] submit [requests or entries], see who owns each one, update its status and filter the list. Keep the data saved between visits, and ask me any questions you need before you start.

Building a ChatGPT Site on a Mac

On a Mac, the one detail that trips people up is which app you are in. Sites lives in the new ChatGPT desktop app that arrived on 9 July. The previous app, now renamed ChatGPT Classic, does not have it, and many Macs have both icons, so check which one you opened. For how the new app compares with the native Claude and Gemini apps, see our ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini Mac app comparison.

In the new app, select ChatGPT and then Work, or select Codex, and prompt the same way. The Mac app adds one route the web lacks: you can publish a project that already sits on your disk. OpenAI's documentation suggests this exact prompt:

Deploy this project with Sites. Check whether it is compatible, make any required changes, and give me the deployment URL.

OpenAI's Academy, which describes this flow in Codex, adds one practical instruction: open the deployed link in Chrome before you share it, since the in-app browser is not currently supported.

Every deploy is live

This is the rule that bites. In OpenAI's words, "Every deployment URL is a production URL." There is no staging copy by default. If you want to review a change before visitors see it, ask ChatGPT to save a version first and deploy only after you have checked it. Deleting a Site is just as final: you type the Site's slug to confirm, and a deleted Site cannot be restored.

How to Share a ChatGPT Site

A new Site starts private, visible only to you and your workspace admins. To open it up, select Share and choose an audience under Who has access. The options depend on your plan and workspace:

External viewers arrived on 3 September, per the release notes, and they fill a real gap: you can show a Site to a client or a friend without publishing it to the world. OpenAI's documentation says private sharing from a personal account is rolling out to Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise. Viewers can use the Site but cannot edit or publish it.

Editing with other people needs a workspace. The owner can give another active member Can edit access, and that editor can save and publish updates once the owner has done the first publish. Choose editors with care, because OpenAI notes that editors can read the Site's live database data. Some controls stay with the owner alone: who has access, the Site's name and URL, ownership, secrets and custom domains.

Plus and Pro owners can also rename the address. Since 20 August, Change URL in a Site's settings swaps its ChatGPT-hosted URL without redeploying, and the old address redirects to the new one, routes and query parameters included. The new name needs at least five characters, must start with a lowercase letter, and can use only lowercase letters, numbers and single hyphens.

How to Connect a Custom Domain to ChatGPT Sites

ChatGPT Sites will serve your Site on a domain you own, but it will not buy one for you. You need the domain already and access to its DNS records at your registrar. You can use the root domain or a subdomain. Then:

1. Open the Site's settings and select Add domain.
2. Enter the root domain or subdomain you want to use.
3. Copy the DNS records and values Sites shows you, and add them at your domain provider.
4. Wait a few minutes, then go back to the Site's settings and refresh the domain status.

A subdomain such as app.yourname.com is the safer first move if the root domain already runs your main website, since you are adding records rather than replacing the ones your current site depends on. If you would rather not touch DNS yourself, OpenAI says ChatGPT can help navigate your domain provider when browsing or computer use is turned on, after you sign in to the provider yourself.

Two limits apply. Custom domains are owner-only, and they are not available in Enterprise workspaces at launch. Renaming the ChatGPT-hosted URL later does not touch a custom domain, which stays connected on its own.

What ChatGPT Sites Cannot Do, and Where OpenAI Disagrees With Itself

The limits matter more than the features, because they decide whether your project belongs on Sites at all. Two of them are also the places where OpenAI's pages give opposite answers.

Can a ChatGPT Site take payments?

The Help Center says yes, with conditions. You can sell goods or services "by using a third-party payment processor", and you carry the responsibility for fulfilment, refunds, customer support and taxes. The Sites documentation says the opposite: do not use Sites to "enable financial transactions." Both agree on one hard line, that a Site must not process payment-card data itself. The workable reading is to link out to a hosted checkout from a payment provider and never put a card form on the page. If selling is the point of your site, a dedicated shop builder is the safer home until OpenAI settles its own wording.

Can a ChatGPT Site show live data?

OpenAI's Academy says "Sites cannot connect directly to live data today", and suggests a scheduled automation that gathers updates so you can refresh the Site by hand. The Help Center describes something newer: on Business and Enterprise, a Site can use each visitor's own connected apps, so a shared dashboard pulls live figures with that visitor's permissions. The admin guide explains the gap. That access sits in an admin preview, it is off by default at the organisation level, and a global admin has to approve it. On Plus or Pro, treat whatever your Site shows as a snapshot.

Technical and policy limits

Sites runs web experiences only: HTTP, HTTPS and WebSockets work, raw TCP connections do not, and some frameworks, private networks and background services are not supported. There is no data residency or inference residency at launch, which covers the Site, its code, its stored data and its logs. A Site must not handle protected health information, target children under 13, spread malware, phish, or impersonate a person or organisation.

What happens to your data

The chats you use to build a Site are ordinary ChatGPT conversations. On Free, Go, Plus and Pro, OpenAI may use them to train its models if the "Improve the model for everyone" setting is on. That includes chats where ChatGPT pulls information back out of a published Site. Business, Enterprise and Edu conversations are not used for training by default. If a Site will hold anything sensitive, check that setting before you start, and read OpenAI's full Help Center guide to ChatGPT Sites and the Sites developer documentation for the current terms.

The Verdict

ChatGPT Sites is the quickest way for a paying ChatGPT user to get a working page or small tool onto a real URL. It earns its place for things with a short life and a known audience: an event page, a team tracker, a client preview, a calculator. The access story is better than most guides admit, since Plus is enough and Europe has been included since 20 July. It falls down wherever you need certainty. Nobody can tell you the usage limits in advance, OpenAI gives two answers on payments, and a personal plan gets no live data. Build the small thing on Sites today, and keep the shop and the long-term company website somewhere built for them.

Frequently Asked Questions