How-to guide
How to Combine Ads With a Subscription in OpenAI Assistants API
This guide shows how to combine ads with a subscription in a OpenAI Assistants API app, the goal being to run ads on the free tier and a paid ad-free tier together. It builds on the Monetzly server SDK, so the approach is specific to how OpenAI Assistants API produces and streams responses.
Overview
Ads and subscriptions are not mutually exclusive for a OpenAI Assistants API app. A common setup runs Monetzly ads on the free tier and offers a paid, ad-free tier for power users — capturing revenue from casual and committed users alike.
Implementation is a branch on the response path: enable injection for free-tier sessions and skip it for paying users, based on your own OpenAI Assistants API app's user state.
OpenAI Assistants API apps are usually built for hosted chat assistants, file-search agents, and tool-calling assistants, so combine ads with a subscription typically comes up while a user is mid-conversation, the moment where monetization has to be additive rather than disruptive.
How this works on OpenAI Assistants API
The Node OpenAI SDK streams run/completion events. Map each text delta event to { content: delta } and feed the generator into sdk.inject(). The Monetzly side is standard; the only framework detail to confirm is the exact delta event field for your chosen mode (Assistants run stream vs Chat Completions).
Because Monetzly's inject() accepts any async token stream, the OpenAI Assistants API side of this task is just mapping your output to it, no rewrite of your OpenAI Assistants API model call.
Steps
- Determine the user's tier from your OpenAI Assistants API app's auth/session state.
- Run ad injection for free-tier sessions.
- Skip injection (return the plain stream) for paying, ad-free users.
Frequently asked questions
Start monetizing in about 5 minutes
Wrap your existing LLM response stream with the Monetzly SDK and earn on every session, no paywall required.