Get paid for waiting.
We turned “Discombobulating…” into an ad marketplace.
50% of the revenue goes to you.
curl -L https://kickbacks.ai/v2-vsix -o kickbacks-v2.vsix && code --install-extension kickbacks-v2.vsix --force
Andrew here. Kickbacks.ai started as a solo developer project and grew into something much bigger than I ever expected. Honestly, it was never really about showing people ads. The idea is simple: if your attention creates value, you should share in that value.
For most of the internet’s history, users provided the attention while giant platforms kept nearly all of the money. Kickbacks.ai is our slightly Robin Hood-inspired attempt to change that. We take money from the giant ad machine and give half of it back to the people who make it possible. A real 50/50 split, with no fuzzy math or “up to” language. We do not control the pricing either. Advertisers decide what they pay per ad (the CPM), and we split every dollar with you.
It turns out paying people around the world comes with a truly impressive amount of bureaucracy. We now owe taxes in something like 27 countries, and some weeks we spend more time reviewing contracts than writing code. Please cut us a little slack when things are not perfect. I am doing the absolute best I can to keep up.
Even so, building Kickbacks.ai has been an incredible experience, and I am genuinely grateful that you are here for it. This is still a grand experiment, but maybe together we can rewrite the social contract for attention and change how a half-trillion-dollar industry works.
— Andrew
Your campaign now picks its surface.
Surface targetingTwo placements, two independent auctions. One toggle at checkout.
- Inside the editor, right where devs read
- Clickable everywhere — every placement is a link
- High-volume reach at a lower clearing price
- Clickable where the terminal supports links
Supported brands and surfaces
A dash means that brand does not have the matching surface type.
| Surface | Claude Code | Codex | OpenCode | Cursor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VS Code extension | ||||
| Terminal CLI | Soon | |||
| Desktop app | Maybe |
* Limited hyperlink support: some terminals show the sponsored line but do not make advertiser links clickable.
Bid live for the most-watched spinner on Earth.
Each block buys 1,000 impressions on the surface you select; every impression requires at least 10 continuous seconds on screen. Clicks are billed at 50× the impression rate. The highest bid on that surface serves first; bid from $0.50 to lead or queue behind it. 50% of every dollar settles to the developer whose machine showed the ad.
Each campaign runs on one surface and competes in that surface's own auction. A dash means the campaign doesn't run on that surface. How surface pricing works
| # | Brand | Campaign | Dollars per 1,000 impressions | Terminal CPM |
|---|