OpenAI Eligibility Flags Gate Search Checkout and Ads Access

is_eligible_checkout is a boolean field in OpenAI's product feed spec. Set it true and a product can be bought inside ChatGPT, but only if is_eligible_search is also true on that row; set it false, leave it blank, or set search to false, and checkout stays off no matter what else the row says. It is one of three flags, alongside is_eligible_search and is_ads_eligible, that OpenAI uses to gate what ChatGPT does with a product record, separate from whether the record is accepted at all.

Most teams read the product feed docs once, upload a feed that passes validation, and never look at these three fields again. That is the gap this page closes: not what a product feed is, but what each flag actually controls and how they depend on each other.

The three OpenAI product feed eligibility flags

Flag	Controls	Depends on	Default if omitted
is_eligible_search	Whether the product can appear in ChatGPT product discovery and shopping results	Nothing else	true
is_eligible_checkout	Whether the product can be bought directly inside ChatGPT	Requires is_eligible_search=true; a false search value overrides a true checkout value	Disabled (false)
is_ads_eligible	Whether the product can be served in ChatGPT product ads	Independent of the other two flags	Disabled unless your feed has an Ads default configured

None of these flags affects how the product displays on your own site. They only switch ChatGPT's three integrations on or off for that row. (OpenAI Products reference)

The dependency that trips people up: checkout is not a standalone switch. is_eligible_checkout=true does nothing if is_eligible_search is false or unset to false elsewhere in your integration, because search eligibility gates checkout eligibility, not the other way around. Setting checkout true also does not finish checkout onboarding by itself — OpenAI requires the integration to be separately enabled, plus seller_privacy_policy and seller_tos URLs on the row. The checkout session itself runs on OpenAI's Agentic Commerce Protocol, where the seller stays merchant of record for pricing, inventory, and payment processing through a fixed set of REST endpoints — the eligibility flag only decides whether that session can start for a given product.

Older field names still work as aliases: enable_search maps to is_eligible_search, enable_checkout maps to is_eligible_checkout, and is_eligible_ads maps to is_ads_eligible. Where a feed sends both an old and a new name for the same flag, the enable_ and is_ads_eligible spellings win.

What counts as a digital goods product feed field

The query that sends people looking for "digital goods product feed fields" is usually asking one specific thing: how does OpenAI's spec distinguish a physical item that ships from a digital item that does not. The answer is a single boolean, is_digital. Set it true for a digital item with no physical shipment, false for a physical item. Leaving it blank does not default to either state — OpenAI's spec treats an omitted value as unspecified, so a digital-item checkout path should not depend on the field being left empty. is_digital requires feed-specific setup; adding the column to a standard upload does not turn on digital-item handling by itself. (OpenAI Products reference)

There is no separate "digital goods feed" format. A digital product (a license key, a subscription, a downloadable file) uses the same nine required discovery fields as a physical one — item_id, title, description, url, brand, seller_name, image_url, availability, price — plus is_digital to flag it, and the same eligibility flags to control search, checkout, and ads. The field-by-field required-field checklist covers those nine required fields in depth; this page covers the flags layered on top of them.

The audit most feeds are missing

Pull your current feed and check three things against the table above:

1. Does every row that should be purchasable in ChatGPT have both is_eligible_search=true and is_eligible_checkout=true? A row with checkout true and search omitted or false is not purchasable, and the feed will not tell you that in a way that is easy to spot.
2. Does your checkout integration actually have seller_privacy_policy and seller_tos populated? Setting the boolean without these two URLs leaves checkout looking configured and functioning as disabled.
3. Is is_digital set explicitly on every digital item, not left blank? An unspecified value is not the same as false, and a digital item depending on that distinction will behave unpredictably.

Why getting the flags right carries real weight

These three booleans are not a formality. OpenAI opened self-serve product feed ads to every US business with zero minimum spend, and AI-referred conversions are already running at twice the rate of traditional search (ppc.land); a row with is_ads_eligible set wrong either misses that spend or burns it on a product that was never meant to run. On the discovery side, a merchant feed with complete, correctly flagged rows is measurably doing more work: one in five Walmart referral clicks now comes from ChatGPT, a share that grew 15% month over month on a feed Dataslayer found carries deep proof fields across its top SKUs. Checkout itself is still the least settled of the three: Forrester is blunt that "agentic commerce only sort of exists" in mid-2026, with most AI shopping flows still ending the transaction somewhere other than inside the chat. That makes is_eligible_checkout worth auditing precisely because so few merchants have it configured correctly yet; a working checkout flag today is a real, scarce advantage, not table stakes.

A feed can tell ChatGPT what your product is and whether it can be searched, bought, or advertised. It cannot, by itself, prove that your brand deserves to be in the shortlist for a broader category question. "Is this specific SKU checkout-eligible" is a feed question with a feed answer. "Which brand should I trust in this category" is a different question, and it is answered by third-party sources and citation-ready proof, not by a correctly configured boolean. That is the Machine Relations layer sitting on top of the feed layer: making the brand and proof legible to the same systems that are now reading is_eligible_checkout.

FAQ

What does is_eligible_checkout mean in an OpenAI product feed?

is_eligible_checkout is a boolean flag that allows a specific product to be purchased directly inside ChatGPT. It only takes effect when is_eligible_search is also true on the same row, and it requires checkout to be separately enabled for your integration. Omitted, empty, or false disables checkout for that product.

What are the OpenAI product feed fields for digital goods?

There is no separate digital-goods feed format. A digital item uses the same nine required discovery fields as any product (item_id, title, description, url, brand, seller_name, image_url, availability, price), plus the is_digital boolean set true to flag it as having no physical shipment.

Does is_eligible_search affect checkout and ads?

Yes for checkout, no for ads. is_eligible_search=false disables checkout eligibility on that row even if is_eligible_checkout is true. is_ads_eligible is independent of both other flags and is controlled separately, including by feed-level Ads defaults.

What happens if I set is_eligible_checkout but not the seller policy fields?

Checkout stays non-functional. OpenAI requires seller_privacy_policy and seller_tos URLs for checkout, and a true eligibility flag does not substitute for completing that setup.