Terms of Service

Paid Loads operates a two-sided marketplace. On one side, developers install our software (a VS Code extension or a statusline CLI) that displays short sponsored text lines during the wait states of AI coding agents — the moments when the agent is thinking and the developer is watching a spinner. On the other side, advertisers buy that display time in an open auction. By using either side of the marketplace you agree to these terms.

The unit of sale is a block: 1,000 impressions, where an impression is at least five seconds of continuous display during a genuine, human-initiated wait state. Bids set queue priority; blocks set volume; the minimum bid is $1.00 per block.

You may hold one earning account per natural person. Accounts are personal and non-transferable; sharing credentials, pooling devices under one account to dodge limits, or operating multiple accounts ("multi-accounting") is prohibited and grounds for termination of all involved accounts.

If you install Paid Loads on a machine you don't own — say, your employer's — you are responsible for having permission to run software that modifies your editor and displays advertising on it.

Developers are credited up to 50% of the net revenue from each qualifying impression and click displayed on their machine. Credits land in your ledger at event time. "Net revenue" means what the advertiser actually paid us, after payment processing and any refunds, credits, or chargebacks.

Ledger balances are estimates until reconciled. Every credited event is subject to audit; events that fail later review (fraud, double-counting, advertiser refunds) may be voided, and resulting overpayments may be recovered for up to 90 days, including by deduction from future earnings.

We apply hourly and daily earning caps per account. When you hit a cap, ads may keep serving but crediting pauses until the window resets. Cap amounts, the revenue-share percentage, and per-event rates may change at any time without notice. That flexibility is the deal; we will try not to be jerks about it.

• Payouts run monthly, on or about the 1st, via Stripe Connect.
• The minimum payout balance is $10.00. Smaller balances roll forward to the next month.
• Balances under the minimum are forfeited if you close your account; all unpaid earnings are forfeited if your account is terminated for breach of these terms.
• You must complete Stripe Connect onboarding (identity and bank details) before your first payout can be sent.

Paid Loads uses Stripe Connect for payouts. Stripe may collect tax certifications, such as W-9 or W-8 information, through Stripe-hosted onboarding or the Stripe Express Dashboard when required. We do not need you to email tax forms to Paid Loads.

If tax reporting is required, Paid Loads may use Stripe's tax reporting tools to create, file, and deliver the applicable forms. Reporting thresholds, form types, backup withholding, and international withholding rules depend on current law and your tax status.

Paid Loads earnings are neither wages nor contractor compensation. You are not our employee, and displaying ads is not a job, no matter how much time you spend watching the spinner. Reporting and paying any tax owed is your responsibility.

Billing. Blocks are prepaid through Stripe Checkout. You are billed for impressions served and clicks recorded; both draw from the same prepaid balance. Once your campaign has served any impression, your bid is final and non-refundable. If we fail to deliver purchased impressions, we may issue credits at our discretion — we are not obligated to, but an empty queue helps nobody.

Content rules. Ad copy and destination URLs must be lawful, accurate, and yours to use. No misleading claims, no impersonation, no malware or phishing destinations, no content that is defamatory or infringing.

Prohibited verticals. We do not accept adult content; hate speech; gambling where prohibited; alcohol, tobacco, or controlled substances where unlawful; or unsubstantiated health or financial claims. Get-rich-quick schemes pitched at people who are literally waiting to get paid is a level of irony we decline to host.

Moderation. We may reject or remove any ad, at any time, for any reason, without refund of amounts already spent. If you believe a removal was made in error, you have 30 days to appeal.

The following will get your account terminated. Do not:

• Click fraud — clicking ads (or causing clicks) to generate credits rather than out of genuine interest.
• Wait-state automation — running agents, scripts, or loops whose purpose is to manufacture wait states. Impressions only count during genuine, human-initiated work.
• Multi-accounting — operating more than one earning account, or coordinating accounts to circumvent caps.
• Telemetry tampering — forging, replaying, or modifying ad events, serve tokens, or client software to inflate earnings.
• Cap circumvention — any technique whose purpose is to earn past the hourly or daily caps.

We detect violations through automated systems and human review. Penalties may be applied without prior notice and include: suspension or termination, voiding of ledger entries, withholding or reversal of payouts, and clawback of amounts already paid — including by deduction from future earnings. Our internal records are presumed accurate in any dispute.

We may update these terms, change rates, caps, and auction parameters, or discontinue the service. Material changes will be posted here; continued use after a change is acceptance. Either side can walk away at any time — see sections 3 and 4 for what happens to balances when that happens.

The service is provided as-is, without warranties. To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total liability to you is limited to the greater of $100 or the amounts you paid us (or we owed you) in the three months before the claim arose.

Questions about these terms: legal@paidloads.com. A human reads it. Eventually. They're probably waiting on an agent.