Earn money while you wait for ChatGPT's reply: how Chatwait's 70K users got there is Indian make-money-online videos
What it is A Chrome extension that inserts an ad line in the few seconds while ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini generate a reply, and pays half the ad revenue to users in cash.
Why it took off The product is about the same as a dozen similar ones. What made it work: launch-day red packets, paid KOLs, and a referral link offering $1 on sign-up, which got Indian and Pakistani make-money-online YouTubers to publish dozens of tutorials in mid-October.
CHow you could follow it Don't copy the extension; copy the cold-start playbook: a meme plus a time-limited red packet, 1–2 paid Indian AI creators, and a sign-up referral link for make-money-online creators with a small reward. Apply it to your own "earn small money" product, and line up advertisers or task providers first.
70,000 users · rating 4.24 (612)
The same idea had nearly ten Chrome extensions in the works by summer 2026: insert an ad in the seconds while the AI "thinks" and pay the ad revenue to users. Rivals stalled at a few hundred to four thousand users, while Chatwait reached 70K. The products are about the same; the difference is distribution: a meme post, a $1,000 red packet, paid Indian AI creators, and a referral link offering $1 on sign-up, which finally broke into the Indian and Pakistani "make money online" YouTube scene. The idea is easy to learn and the playbook can be learned, but the category isn't worth chasing.
A Hindi tutorial with 20K views
On Oct 17 of 2026, the Hindi YouTube channel Your Tech Aman posted a video titled "Chat Wait Se Paise Kaise Kamaye 2026" (How to earn money with Chat Wait). As of 11-06 it had 20,635 views. The first line of the description reads "1$ Free sign up (₹95)", followed by a referral link starting with chatwait.com/r/, then a list of checkmarks: "What is Chat Wait", "How to withdraw", "How to avoid make-money-online scams".
This isn't a one-off. On YouTube, searching "chatwait" by views, the top 50 results include 40 that actually cover it. 38 of those were posted in October, clustered in the week of 10-13 to 10-18, totaling about 200k views; 15 have referral links in the description. The channels are mostly small Hindi and Telegu accounts with around 20K subscribers each.
Store reviews also show where people are coming from. Early-November Chrome reviews are almost all South Asian names: "Can the money be transferred to an Indian bank card, please help" (Hrithik Solanki, 11-04); "Stuck at $0.4, it only shows invite friends to earn" (Anas Ansari, 11-02).
What it is
A Chrome extension (there's also a Firefox version). When you hit send in ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, a line of sponsored text appears under your message during the seconds the model takes to respond. It counts as a valid impression once it's been visible for 5 seconds, and 50% of the ad revenue is credited to your account in dollars. The store page is restrained: "Heavy AI users at current prices earn roughly $3–8 a month, a small rebate on your AI subscription, not a salary."
The money flow is simple: advertisers self-serve at chatwait.com/advertise, bidding on CPM, with 1,000 impressions per ad and a $20 minimum. Chatwait takes half and users get half. Users pay nothing; withdrawals go through Whop, with a $10 minimum, and each earning is held for 30 days (per the website terms, 11-06).
The developer is Gokhan Celiker, and this is his only extension. Launched in Jul 11; 11-06 Chrome shows 70,000 users, a 4.24 rating, and 612 reviews. The review count went from 11-01 to 539, adding 73 in five-plus days, a dozen-plus a day, so people are still coming in. Firefox has only 1,219 users.
It wasn't the first, and not even the first with this slogan
| Product | Launched | Scale (Chrome users) | How it differs from Chatwait |
|---|---|---|---|
| Idlen | 2025-12 | 4,000 | The earliest one, built for developers and IDEs, and it issued a token |
| YapCash | 2026-05-29 | 3,000 | Issues gift cards, not cash |
| uwait | 2026-06-18 | 3,000 | Also used "Get paid while AI thinks", three weeks earlier; real-time bidding, supports 8 AI sites; reached #7 on Product Hunt's daily chart |
| Meanwhile | 2026-06-19 | 412 | Issues points |
| Dwell, Affiq, EarnPT and five or six others | 2026-02 to 07 | 60–420 | Same idea |
| PaidPrompt | About 2026-10 | Not verified | 10-23 published an SEO article titled "Chatwait alternatives" with the same features copied over |
Data from the Chrome Web Store listing, early November. The "related extensions" section the Chrome Web Store shows under the Chatwait page is this exact list.
uwait is the best comparison: same tagline, earlier, finer-grained mechanics, charted on Product Hunt's daily board, and it has about a twentieth of Chatwait's users. The gap isn't the product.
How it took off
They spent money on launch day. On Jul 22, the founder posted on X: "I asked ChatGPT to generate money for me. Don't mess up. It thought for a while and said 'Absolutely!' So I built it." The post riffs on ChatGPT's habit of saying "Absolutely." A reply announced a $1,000 launch giveaway: the first people to sign up get up to $10 at random, until it runs out, "reply and tell me how much you got." 4 minutes later, the same day, Indian AI creator Utkarsh Sharma reposted it with a recommendation. The post carried X's "Paid partnership" label and got 15.5K views. On Aug 5, a larger Indian AI creator, Vaibhav Sisinty, posted a long post plus video with nearly the same pitch ("can't read your chats," "open source," "it's a few cents"). Whether it was paid wasn't verified.
The referral link turns money-making creators into salespeople. Signing up through the invite link gives $1 (₹95). The terms of service say "if either party's account is found to be cheating, referral rewards are void," so the referrer presumably gets one too, but the official site doesn't spell out the rules. For money-making creators this is a repeatable product to cover: how to install it, how to cash out, "is it real or fake," with the link in the description. Whether Chatwait separately paid for views in the mid-October video wave wasn't found.
The trust pitch targets "is this a scam." The make-money-online category is assumed to be a scam by default, and many video titles are just "REAL or FAKE." Chatwait's first screen says: cash, not points; code on GitHub; only 4 sites' permissions; can't read your chats. A commenter specifically noted: "The whole code is on GitHub, very transparent." (Tausip, 11-02) To be clear, its license is PolyForm Strict. The code can be read, but it isn't open source in the usual sense.
The product stays restrained. It's a single line of text, it can be turned off, and it steps aside automatically when the host site shows its own ads, which keeps the rating steady above 4.2.
It wasn't on Product Hunt or Hacker News, and no related TikTok videos turn up in search.
Is the money enough to split
Not really. Ad rates for users in South Asia are already low, and reviews say: "At first it was fine, then after a few days they cut the share. This past week it only shows their own ads, which don't count as earnings." (Ritik Nautiyal, 11-04) "Saving up to $10? Impossible, waste of time." (Baloch Bro, 11-04) Some people are philosophical: "Let it run in the background, and when I remember, cash out 1 dollars and buy a burger." (Abhijeet Jha, 11-01)
Inference: users are growing faster than advertisers. It fills empty slots with its own ads and lowers the per-impression rate to control costs. The $10 threshold plus a 30-day payout hold is cash-flow control and anti-fraud for the platform, and a hard hurdle to clear for the user.
Three more risks sit with other parties: ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini change their page and it breaks (it already has several versions out fixing exactly that); host platforms may not tolerate someone selling ads on their page; and ChatGPT already sells this attention on its free tier itself.
If it were you
C. You can learn a good playbook from it, but this space isn't worth following. The idea is already being built by a dozen-plus companies. The leader has 70K users, the runner-up 4K. Ad demand can't keep up with users, and the rules sit with AI platforms and the Chrome Web Store.
- Who it fits: teams with a "pay ordinary people small amounts" product (cashback, tasks, surveys, watch-ads-for-cash) who want to learn how it cold-started and how it broke into South Asia's money-making community.
- Who it doesn't fit: anyone who wants to copy it as an "AI wait-time ads" extension. You'd rank a dozen-plus down, and you'd have to find advertisers yourself.
- How to build it: if you do, swap out the "AI waiting" scene but keep three things: cash in dollars, not points; least-privilege permissions and readable code, stated on the first screen; and a threshold low enough that you see the first money in week one. Ideally line up advertisers or task providers first, then recruit users.
- How to acquire users: follow its three steps. At launch, use a meme people recognize plus a time-limited giveaway so people reply right away. Pay 1–2 relevant mid-tier Indian AI creators. Give the invite link for small signup money, and let Hindi, Urdu, and Telugu money-making YouTubers make the tutorials themselves. This costs far less than paid acquisition.
- Timing: this playbook has no window and works any time. But money-making creators chase new products, and this wave of Chatwait peaked in mid-October.
- Where this call would be wrong: ① Chatwait publishes real revenue, or a brand advertiser runs long-term campaigns, showing the attention really sells for good money. ② A similar product (uwait, Idlen, or the like) changes its approach and passes 50K users within weeks, showing the category can fit another player. ③ The reverse: if the Chrome Web Store pulls this class of extension, or a ChatGPT redesign breaks them all, then the lessons from this playbook have to be applied to a different category.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one uwait Chrome 2026-06-18 (PH 2026-06-22 daily board #7) 3,000 users, 6 ratings Earlier, same tagline. Runs real-time bidding, 50/30/20 split (30% to the sites that get cited), supports 8 AI sites. Didn't break into the money-making crowd. Idlen Chrome 2025-12-31(Show HN 2026-01;PH 2026-09-15 #17) Chrome 4,000 users The earliest one. Aimed at developers and IDEs. Has a token, $IDL. YapCash Chrome 2026-05-29 3,000 users, 131 ratings Issues gift cards, not cash Meanwhile Chrome 2026-06-19 412 users Issues credits Dwell Protocol / Affiq / EarnPT / ads by aibc / Ask First AI Chrome 2026-02 to 2026-07 All at 60–420 users Same idea, no distribution PaidPrompt Chrome About 2026-10 Not verified Copied it, placing the ad above the input box Official ChatGPT ads Big-company features 2026 ChatGPT Free / Go tiers The platform sells this attention itself and pays users nothing. Chatwait steps aside automatically when the host shows its own ads. Surfe.be / SurfEarner / Slice Chrome 2018–2022 3–60k users Long-running watch-ads-for-cash apps. Scene is ordinary browsing, not AI wait time. - Where users come from
- Verified Founder's X meme post + $1,000 signup giveaway: @goceli 2026-07-22 "I asked ChatGPT to generate money… Absolutely! So I built it," with a reply announcing up to $10 at random for the first signups.
- Verified Paid KOL (Indian AI creators, X / Instagram): @techxutkarsh recommended it the same day. The post carried the Paid partnership label and got 15.5K views. 8-05 Vaibhav Sisinty posted a long post plus video (whether paid is unverified).
- Verified Referral rewards + Indian money-making YouTube tutorials: From 10-13 to 10-18, dozens of Hindi and Telugu videos titled "Chatwait se paise kaise kamaye" appeared. 40 of them, 15 carry chatwait.com/r/ invite links, with descriptions like "1$ Free sign up (₹95)." The terms of service include a Referral bonuses clause.
- Inferred Buying views by the play count (Whop Content Rewards, etc.): The videos cluster and look alike. One channel calls it a "hidden Whop money method," but no Chatwait campaign page was found.
- Verified Self-promotion on Reddit / Peerlist: 2026-08-10 post on r/SideProject; 2026-07-08 on Peerlist.
Chatwait: Get paid while AI thinks: why it took off
Chrome extension fjbgbmkdallahjigblomfalbpblojfng, developer Gokhan Celiker (chatwait.com). Research date 2026-11-06.
Bottom line
It wasn't first, and the concept isn't new. The "insert an ad while the AI is replying, split the ad money with the user" category saw nearly ten extensions appear in 2026 June. uwait even shares Chatwait's exact tagline, and it's earlier. Chatwait went from the 3K tier to 70K users because of distribution, not the product. Three steps:
- At the Jul 22 launch, the founder posted a meme, attached a $1,000 signup giveaway, and bought paid promotion from big Indian AI accounts (posts carried X's "Paid partnership" label).
- Referral: a $1 invite reward (₹95). It turned the product into a target for Indian and Pakistani "make money online" communities. Between October 13 and 18, dozens of Hindi "Chatwait se paise kaise kamaye" tutorials appeared within a week, many with chatwait.com/r/ invite links in the descriptions.
- The trust pitch of "cash not points + open code + permissions for only 4 sites" directly answers the make-money crowd's biggest fear: "is this a scam?"
1. Data (our database + stores)
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome users | 70,000 (11-01 through 11-06 all sit around this figure) | chromestore.item_snap |
| Score | 539 (11-01) → 555 → 586 → 612 (11-06), +73 over 5 days, about 15 per day | chromestore.item_snap |
| Rating | 4.24 | chromestore |
| Launch / update | 2026-07-11 first release; 2026-10-28 reached v0.1.10 | chromestore;GitHub releases |
| Firefox | 1,219 users, 4.1 stars (26 reviews) | addons.mozilla.org |
| GitHub | chatwait/chatwait-extension, 102 stars, 44 forks, repo created 2026-07-07 | GitHub API |
| Paid | Free for users. Revenue comes from advertisers self-serve (chatwait.com/advertise: bid by CPM, 1 block = 1,000 impressions, minimum spend $20), with half passed to users. Cashout via Whop, $10 minimum, earnings held for 30 days. | Official site / terms of service (via paidprompt.online) |
The rating count is still rising every day, so acquisition hasn't stopped. User count is stuck around the 70K level, and daily growth isn't visible.
2. Competitors: a crowded category, mostly earlier
| Product | Channel | Launched | Scale | How it differs from Chatwait |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Idlen | Chrome + VS Code/IDE | 2025-12-31 listed; 2026-01 Show HN; 2026-09-15 on PH (#17) | Chrome 4,000 users, 5 ratings | The earliest one, aimed at developers and IDEs. It issued a token, $IDL, and is running ads like "invest €200, get €400" campaigns for advertisers. |
| uwait | Chrome / Firefox | 2026-06-18 listed; 2026-06-22 on PH, daily board #7,180 votes | 3,000 users, 6 ratings | Same tagline, "Get paid while AI thinks," 3 weeks earlier. Runs real-time bidding with 50/30/20 split (30% to the sites AI cites), supports 8 AI sites, pays out via Stripe. |
| YapCash | Chrome | 2026-05-29 | 3,000 users, 131 ratings | Issues gift cards, not cash |
| Meanwhile | Chrome | 2026-06-19 | 412 | Issues points (credits) |
| Ask First AI / ads by aibc / EarnPT / Dwell Protocol / Affiq | Chrome | 2026-02 to 07 | All at 60–420 users | Same idea, neither took off |
| PaidPrompt | Chrome | About 2026-10 | Not verified | 10-23 published a "Chatwait alternative" SEO article and copied the features one-for-one (50%, impressions calculated every 5 seconds, three sites). |
| WaitToEarn | Web / ad network | 2026 | Not verified | Runs a review site (including a uwait review) while selling ad slots for AI wait time. |
| Official ChatGPT ads | Big-company features | Launched on the Free / Go tiers in 2026 | Very large | The platform sells this attention itself and pays no share to users. Chatwait avoids a head-on clash by not showing ads when the host page runs its own. |
| Old "watch pages, earn money" products: Surfe.be, SurfEarner, Slice | Chrome | 2018–2022 | 3–60k users | Same "watch ads, get paid" idea, just on regular browsing instead of AI wait time |
Sources: chromestore library (item, related), producthunt library (post), hackernews library (story), and each vendor's site. The store's "related extensions" listing next to Chatwait is exactly Idlen, uwait, YapCash, Meanwhile, Dwell, Affiq and EarnPT, which suggests Google also files them in the same category.
Key point: Seven or eight near-identical products launched together in late June. Only Chatwait passed 10k users; the runner-up sits at 4,000. The products are almost the same, but the scale differs by an order of magnitude, and the gap comes from distribution.
3. Growth tactics (in timeline order)
- 7-07 GitHub repo created, 7-08 listed on Peerlist, 7-10 v0.1.1,7-11 released to Chrome (GitHub API; Peerlist page timestamps). At first it could only be installed manually as an unpacked package, and the README still includes those steps.
- 7-22 X launch post: founder @goceli posted "I asked ChatGPT to generate money, make no mistakes. It thought for a while and said "Absolutely!" So I built it." It rides the meme of ChatGPT always saying "Absolutely," with a video attached. A follow-up reply announced a $1,000 launch giveaway, with the first sign-ups getting up to $10 at random (x.com/goceli/status/2079914397447688208).
- Paid KOL the same day: Indian AI creator Utkarsh Sharma (@techxutkarsh) reposted the product within 4 minutes. The post carries X's "Paid partnership" label and got 15.5K views (x.com/techxutkarsh/status/2079915367057838126). 8-05 Vaibhav Sisinty, a top Indian AI creator, posted a long recommendation with a video (x.com/VaibhavSisinty/status/2084897236278981038). I didn't see a paid label on this one, but the wording matches the earlier post almost line for line ("can't read your chats," "open source," "It's cents"), so it's likely paid. Unverified. Reels from AI accounts like Nitesh Rajak on Instagram and Facebook videos use the same script.
- Reddit self-promotion: Around 8-10 the founder posted "I built a browser extension that pays you cash back for waiting on ChatGPT" on r/SideProject. Someone also shared the idea in an r/ChatGPT thread about the "Absolutely!" meme (from Brave search results; the Reddit post body couldn't be retrieved).
- Mid-October: a burst of Indian make-money YouTube videos: Using the YouTube Data API to search "chatwait" and pull the top 50 by views, 40 of them actually cover Chatwait. 38 of them were posted on 2026-10, clustered between 10-13 and 10-18. Together those 40 videos have about 198k views, and 15 of them have the chatwait.com/r/ invite link in the description. Titles follow the same formula: "Chatwait se paise kaise kamaye," "REAL or FAKE," "Earning Proof," "Withdrawal Setup." Most channels are small Hindi and Telugu accounts (build with mps 23k, Your Tech Aman 21k, Devesh AI 19k, DOTS POINT 18k...). Descriptions say "$1 free sign-up (₹95)." The terms of service also say "Referral bonuses are void if either account is found to be fraudulent" (chatwait.com/terms). The referral reward is confirmed. One channel also packaged it as a "hidden Whop money method." I found no direct evidence that Chatwait paid for views through Whop Content Rewards.
- Store reviews confirm the user base: The latest few dozen Chrome reviews captured on Extpose are almost all from South Asian names (Hrithik Solanki, Ritik Nautiyal, Baloch Bro, Hassan Awan...). They say things like "how do I withdraw to an Indian bank," "stuck at $0.4, only see refer a friend," and "lately it only shows their own ads, no earnings." The rating count is climbing, mostly driven by this crowd.
- Channels not found: Not on Product Hunt (not in our PH library) or Hacker News. TikTok search for "chatwait" returned no relevant videos (TikHub). Press coverage is limited to aggregator and AI-directory sites.
4. Why it took off
- The hook explains itself: "AI is thinking, you're earning" makes sense in one line. The launch post borrowed ChatGPT's "Absolutely!" meme, which people already recognize.
- Real money spent at launch: $1,000 sign-up giveaway plus paid KOLs. The cold-start money came out of the founder's pocket.
- Referral rewards turned the "make money online" crowd into distributors: Indian and Pakistani make-money YouTubers earn from invite links, so they produced tutorials on their own. This crowd doesn't see "$3–8/month" as small. Locally, that's a real side income. Competitors targeted developers and productivity users and didn't touch this audience.
- Trust messaging targets the biggest worry of this audience: "Not points, cash," "open source code," "only 4 site permissions," "we can't read your chats." In a category where most people assume it's a scam, this works. Many video titles are literally "REAL or FAKE," and commenters point to "the entire code is on github that shows transparency."
- Restrained product: One line of text, can be turned off, and it automatically steps aside when the host page has ads. That kept the rating around 4.2 instead of getting buried in bad reviews.
5. Differentiation: there is some, but it isn't why it took off
- Versus uwait: uwait is more complex (real-time bidding, a 30% revenue share to cited sites, support for 8 AI sites). Chatwait is simpler: it only covers 3 sites, shows one line of text, and rotates self-serve CPM-weighted ads.
- Versus YapCash and Meanwhile: Chatwait pays cash, while they pay gift cards or points.
- Versus Idlen: Chatwait targets everyday consumers, not just developers.
- The "open source" claim is a bit of a stretch: the Firefox page lists the license as PolyForm Strict License 1.0.0 (modified). The source is viewable, but it isn't open source in the OSI sense.
- Conclusion: These differences (cash, minimalism, auditability) are good enough, but they aren't what drove growth. What set it apart was distribution: paid KOLs, launch giveaways, and referral rewards landed together in India's make-money video ecosystem. uwait has the same tagline and more detail, and reached #7 on the PH daily chart, but only has 3,000 users. That's the counterexample.
6. How many people know about it, and are people copying it
- Visibility: it's being talked about in niche circles. Revenue isn't public (not on TrustMRR, and the founder hasn't shared numbers). No mainstream tech press has covered it. On X, it's been pushed mainly by Indian AI creators, at least one of them paid. In India's make-money YouTube scene, it's already a popular topic.
- Copycats: PaidPrompt (10-23 uses "Chatwait alternative" for SEO, with features copied one-for-one). There's a mirror fork at mdmahbub8739/chatwait-extension on GitHub. There's also an unrelated Reddit mini-game extension named "ChatWait" (different function, just a name clash). The core idea already had seven or eight parallel builds in late June.
7. Where the money comes from and whether it can sustain (speculation)
- Revenue = self-serve CPM ad spend from advertisers × 50%. CPMs for users in India and Pakistan are very low. Reviews already say "only shows their own ads lately, no earnings" and "stuck at $0.4." That means ad demand isn't keeping up with supply, so it controls costs with house ads and low unit pricing.
- A $10 withdrawal minimum and a 30-day payout hold, plus referral rewards, delay payouts for heavy users and protect the platform's cash flow and against fraud.
- Risks: ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini page changes break it (the v0.1.6 and v0.1.7 fixes were for exactly that). The host platforms might not tolerate it. Chrome Web Store policy risk for "paid ad-watching" extensions. Users who can't get cash out may flood the store with bad reviews.
8. What to borrow
- For a product that "hooks ordinary people with small money," first find people who care about small earnings and make their own tutorial videos (make-money YouTubers in India, Pakistan, and Southeast Asia). Then use referral rewards to turn them into distributors. Acquisition cost = referral rewards + launch giveaways, far cheaper than buying ads.
- At cold start, pay 1–2 relevant mid-tier KOLs, and pair them with a meme and a time-limited giveaway so the first wave has a reason to reply and install right away.
- In a category where people assume it's a scam, put "minimum permissions + open code + cash" in the headline and on the first screen.
- Competitors already existing doesn't matter much: with the same idea, distribution can open a gap of an order of magnitude.
9. Still unclear
- The Chrome user curve before November (the library only starts recording from 11-01), so I can't confirm whether it jumped to 70k in mid-October.
- Whether the mid-October video cluster was organic, driven by invite links, or whether Chatwait paid for views through Whop Content Rewards or another channel.
- Whether Vaibhav Sisinty's post was a paid promotion.
- Actual ad revenue and who the advertisers are (the Duolingo on the official site is just an illustration).
- Specific referral rules (whether the referrer and the new user each get $1, and whether there's a cap).
Sources
- Chrome Web Store page / our chromestore library (item, item_snap, related), 2026-11-01 to 11-06
- chatwait.com/, /advertise, /terms
- github.com/chatwait/chatwait-extension (README, releases)
- addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chatwait/ (user count, version, license)
- x.com/goceli/status/2079914397447688208 (launch post, $1,000 giveaway)
- x.com/techxutkarsh/status/2079915367057838126 (Paid partnership)
- x.com/VaibhavSisinty/status/2084897236278981038
- peerlist.io/gokhanceliker/project/chatwait-get-paid-while-ai… (2026-07-08)
- www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/1vbwy72/ (Brave search summary, 2026-08-10)
- YouTube Data API search for "chatwait" (2026-11-06 pulled); example: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBICxwBaUe4 (description includes "$1 free sign-up (₹95)" and an invite link)
- extpose.com/ext/fjbgbmkdallahjigblomfalbpblojfng (Chrome reviews)
- paidprompt.online/blog/chatwait-alternative (2026-10-23)
- www.uwait.co/en, waittoearn.com/en/uwait-review/; producthunt library (uwait 2026-06-22 #7; Idlen 2026-09-15 #17); hackernews library (Show HN: Idlen.io, 2026-01-13)