$ virdl: Reach Developers ▌
Your ad, where
devs never close the tab.
Developers ignore banner ads, block your retargeting, and skip your YouTube pre-roll. But their editor is open eight hours a day. Virdl puts your product in the sidebar of VS Code and IntelliJ — quiet, native, and impossible to scroll past.
No minimum contracts to talk. Real humans reply, usually same day.
// building something
export function ship() {
return "done";
}
// their attention is here
// all day, every day
Ship faster with 10x parallel CI
Cut your pipeline from 22 min to 90 seconds. Free for open source.
Start free build →
8 hrs
a day your buyer stares at their editor
100%
developer audience — no accidental clicks
Verified
dwell-confirmed views, not bot traffic
2
editors today: VS Code + IntelliJ
watch the pitch
Fifty seconds on why the editor is the last ad space that works.
why you're here
Developers are the audience everyone wants and nobody can reach.
They run ad blockers by default. They're skeptical of influencers. They mute sponsorships, skip newsletters, and smell a hard sell from a mile away. Your CAC on this crowd is brutal, and you know it.
Meanwhile the one surface they trust and never close — their editor — has never had advertising that respects them. So we built it. Small, relevant, dismissable, and paid for by results, not impressions of a bot farm.
of developers run an ad blocker
Your display and search spend never even loads.
conference booths & sidebar web ads
Trained to ignore anything that looks like an ad on a webpage.
the editor stays open
It's the last high-attention, low-noise space they have.
how it works
From brief to live campaign in a few days.
Send us your brief
Tell us the product, the audience you want, and a budget. We reply with a plan and a CPM — no lengthy sales dance.
We build the creative
Send a headline and link, or we write it with you. Ads are native to the editor — clean text, one link, no heavy media.
Target the right devs
Pick languages, frameworks, editor, and countries. Your Go ad reaches Go developers, not everyone.
Go live & watch results
Verified impressions and clicks report in real time. Adjust targeting or spend whenever you want.
targeting
Spend every dollar on the developers who'd actually buy.
Virdl reads a coarse tech-stack signal from each developer's workspace — the language and framework they're working in — never their code. That means you reach the Rust shop, the Next.js team, the Django devs, without wasting impressions on everyone else.
- ▸Language & framework — 27 stack tags, from TypeScript to Flutter
- ▸Editor — VS Code, IntelliJ, or both
- ▸Country — geo-target by CPM tier for global or high-value markets
- ▸Category-vetted inventory — no crypto, gambling, or sketchy neighbors
target by stack
Stack tags are detected from manifest files (package.json, go.mod, Cargo.toml…). We never read source code, file names, or keystrokes.
placements
Native to the editor. Never in the way.
Sidebar card
Your headline, one line of body, and a single call-to-action, in a clean card in the editor's sidebar. It rotates every 40 seconds alongside a second slot. This is your primary, high-visibility placement — the developer sees it while they think, read, and debug.
Status bar
A subtle one-liner in the status bar for lighter, always-present brand exposure.
Text-first, always
No autoplay video, no popups, no interstitials. The format that developers tolerate is the one that performs — so that's all we offer.
You keep the click
Every CTA links straight to your URL with your UTMs intact. Track conversions in your own analytics, end to end.
We help with copy
Developers can smell marketing-speak. We'll help you write a line that reads like a tip from a peer, not a billboard.
your spend is protected
You pay for developers who actually saw your ad. Full stop.
Dwell-confirmed impressions
An impression only counts once the ad has actually been on screen, visible, for a real dwell window — with the developer present at the keyboard. A hidden sidebar or an idle machine doesn't bill you.
Fraud detection built in
Every serve is fingerprinted with a salted, one-way IP hash to catch multi-account farming from a single machine. AFK detection pauses serving the moment a developer walks away.
Real people, real editors
The audience is authenticated developers running a real plugin in a real IDE, signed in with GitHub or Google. There is no incentivized clicking — publishers earn on verified views, not clicks.
Transparent reporting
A live campaign dashboard breaks impressions and clicks down by editor, stack, and country — so you see exactly where your budget went.
Brand-safe by design
Your ad sits next to other vetted dev tools and roles — never crypto schemes, gambling, or adult content. We approve every advertiser on the network.
Aligned incentives
Developers keep half of every dollar you spend. They want the plugin installed and the ads relevant — which keeps your audience engaged instead of resentful.
vs. everything else
Where else does your budget go?
| Channel | Reaches devs directly | Survives ad blockers | Stack-level targeting | Verified attention |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virdl | Yes — in-editor | Yes | Yes | Yes, dwell-confirmed |
| Google / display | Rarely | No | Keyword-only | No |
| Twitter / LinkedIn | Sometimes | Yes | Job-title guess | Scroll-past |
| Newsletters | Yes | Yes | Coarse | Open-rate only |
| Conferences | Yes | Yes | By event | Booth luck |
Not a knock on other channels — use them all. But none of them catch a developer in the focused, trusting moment their editor does.
questions advertisers ask
Answered straight.
What does it cost to advertise?
You buy on a CPM basis — you pay per thousand verified, dwell-confirmed impressions. The exact rate depends on your targeting (country tiers, stack, editor). Tell us your budget and we'll size a campaign around it. There's no mandatory long-term contract to run a first campaign.
What kinds of products fit best?
Developer tools, APIs, SaaS, cloud infrastructure, dev-focused hardware, technical courses, and engineering job listings. If a working developer is your buyer or your user, you fit. If your pitch needs a landing page and a docs link, even better.
How do I know the impressions are real?
An impression only bills when the ad has been genuinely visible for a dwell window with the developer active — not minimized, not idle. Every serve is fingerprinted to catch multi-account fraud, and your dashboard reports impressions and clicks broken down by editor, stack, and country in real time.
Can I target a specific tech stack or country?
Yes. Target by language and framework (27 stack tags), by editor (VS Code, IntelliJ, or both), and by country. Your Postgres tool can reach backend devs; your React component library can reach front-end teams; your EU launch can stay in the EU.
Will developers actually see it, or just tune it out?
The whole model depends on staying non-annoying — developers keep the plugin installed because it's quiet and pays them. That's exactly why the ad slot holds attention: it's a rare, respectful placement in a space with almost no competing noise. Relevant, well-written copy performs unusually well here.
How do I get started?
Email malay@virdl.com with your product and rough budget, or hop into our Discord. We'll come back with a plan and a rate, usually the same day.
Get in front of the
devs who build things.
One email. A plan and a rate back the same day.