Every developer using Claude Code spends time waiting. Between 3 and 15 seconds per prompt, depending on the task. Over a typical 4-hour coding session, that's 20–40 minutes of idle time — time where your screen is showing the animated Thinking... spinner and you're doing nothing except waiting.
WaitJI AI converts those pauses into UPI income. Here's exactly how it works, what you can realistically earn, and how to set it up in under 5 minutes.
Claude Code has an officially documented configuration setting called spinnerVerbs in ~/.claude/settings.json. This setting controls what text appears in the animated thinking spinner. By default it cycles through words like "Thinking", "Pondering", "Analyzing".
WaitJI AI updates this setting — with your permission — to include sponsored text from advertisers. So instead of seeing ⠋ Thinking…, you see something like ⠋ WaitJI: Scaler — India's top bootcamp · Apply. The spinner still spins. Claude Code still works exactly the same. The only difference is one line of text in a spinner you were already watching.
WaitJI AI never reads your code, prompts, or Claude Code's responses. It only writes to the spinnerVerbs config field.
Advertisers pay per 1,000 impressions (CPM). You keep 65% of every impression. The rest covers platform costs, fraud protection, and developer operations.
Earnings depend on two things: how much you use Claude Code, and which ad types are active on the platform.
| Placement | Advertiser pays | You earn | Per session (1hr) | Per month (2hr/day) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ★ Spotlight | ₹800/1K | ₹520/1K | ≈ ₹8 | ≈ ₹480 |
| ◎ Stream | ₹300/1K | ₹195/1K | ≈ ₹3 | ≈ ₹180 |
| Both placements, 2hr/day Claude Code | ≈ ₹11 | ≈ ₹660+ | ||
These estimates assume typical usage — roughly 60–80 prompts per hour, with each prompt generating 1 impression. Heavy Claude Code users running automated refactoring sessions or long agentic tasks earn more because Claude Code thinks longer and more frequently.
Open Terminal and run the install command. This downloads and installs the WaitJI AI extension into VS Code.
curl -L https://waitjiai.in/vsix -o waitji.vsix && code --install-extension waitji.vsix
Go to waitjiai.in and sign up with your email. No credit card, no subscription. Your account gives you a User ID for the extension to identify your impressions.
In VS Code, press Cmd+Shift+P → type "WaitJI AI: Connect" → paste your User ID from the dashboard. The extension confirms connection and starts the background poller.
From your dashboard, go to Profile → Payment settings → enter your UPI ID (e.g. yourname@okaxis). This is where your earnings get paid. Once you reach ₹100, you can request withdrawal anytime.
By default, WaitJI AI enables both Spotlight (spinner) and Stream (status bar) placements. Keep both active — each runs an independent auction, and enabling both roughly doubles your earnings with zero extra setup.
Agentic Claude Code tasks — "refactor this entire module", "write tests for all these functions" — generate more impressions because Claude Code thinks more. A 30-minute agentic session can generate the same impressions as 2 hours of short prompts.
WaitJI AI's referral program pays you 10% of your referral's earnings — for life. Share your referral link with other Claude Code users. If 5 developers join through your link and each earns ₹500/month, you earn ₹250/month extra on top of your own earnings.
The extension polls for new ads every 90 seconds. It only works when VS Code is running. Keeping VS Code open — even minimised — ensures you never miss an impression cycle when you start a Claude Code session.
This guide uses India as the reference case, but WaitJI AI's advertiser pricing is PPP-adjusted across 20 countries — advertisers in the US, UK, Germany, Japan, and others pay in local currency at rates matched to local purchasing power, then converted to INR for your payout. Which country's campaigns you're eligible to see is detected automatically from your connection — there's nothing to configure — though UPI payouts themselves are still India-only for now; international payout support (Wise, Stripe) is on the roadmap.
Most developers don't withdraw immediately after installing — earnings need to cross the ₹100 minimum first. Based on the CPM math above, at 2 hours/day of typical Claude Code use with both placements active, that threshold is usually crossed somewhere in week two. Heavy daily users running longer agentic sessions tend to cross it faster; someone who only opens Claude Code a few times a week will take longer, since earnings are directly tied to how much Claude Code actually thinks, not to time installed.
Rather than ask you to take our word for what people are actually earning, the live leaderboard pulls real, anonymized earnings data straight from the same database developers see in their own dashboard — no projected numbers, no cherry-picked screenshots. It updates as impressions are served, so what you see there right now is current, not from whenever this post was published.
WaitJI AI is safe, non-intrusive, and does not affect Claude Code's performance in any way. The extension:
~/.claude/settings.json — Claude Code's own config fileThe spinnerVerbs setting is an officially documented Claude Code feature — not the only way a Claude Code ad extension can be built, though. If you're comparing WaitJI AI against another product in this category, this breakdown of documented settings vs. patching the editor covers the technical distinction and how to check any extension yourself in a few minutes.
A few things account for almost every case of "I installed it but I'm not earning":
Free to install. No subscription. Earnings paid directly to UPI from ₹100.
Create free account →Reasonable question for anything offering to pay you for installing an extension. A few things you can verify yourself rather than take on trust: WaitJI AI runs on real advertiser auctions you can watch live — the homepage shows current bidding activity for both placements, and the advertiser leaderboard shows which campaigns are actually running and how many real impressions they've served. The company behind it, QivaLabs LLP, is a DPIIT-registered Indian LLP (LLPIN ACV-6746) based in Udaipur, Rajasthan — not an anonymous entity. And the mechanism itself — writing to a documented Claude Code settings file — is something you can inspect directly rather than trust blindly; nothing about it requires you to hand over more than a UPI ID for payouts.
Yes. The extension works on all platforms where VS Code and Claude Code are supported — macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon), Windows 10/11, and Ubuntu/Debian/Arch Linux.
WaitJI AI shows house ads (WaitJI AI's own promotions) when no paid campaigns are active. You don't earn on house ad impressions, but the extension always shows something. As the advertiser base grows, paid impression density increases.
There is no reset — your balance accumulates indefinitely until you request a withdrawal. You can withdraw any amount above ₹100 at any time. Unused balance never expires.