Developers can get paid for quick technical questions by using an asynchronous, text-based offer instead of a scheduled consulting call. A follower submits one specific question and pays upfront; the developer replies in writing on their own time, with no calendar coordination, video setup, or live meeting required. Paid Questions let a follower pay upfront to ask one private question, and you send one written reply on your own time — no live call or scheduling.
Clients can pay by card without creating an account, Brillay charges 8% when a follower pays for work and 5% on tips and goals, and creators in 41 countries can receive payouts (pricing).
If you post tutorials, build in public, or answer coding questions on social platforms, some of that inbound is small and specific: "should I use a queue or a cron job here," "is this SQL index doing anything," "why is this hook re-rendering." None of that needs 30 minutes on a call — it needs one clear answer from someone who already knows the pattern.
Two figures from the same primary source frame why that answer is worth paying for. The 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, which collected over 49,000 responses from 177 countries, found that 84% of respondents are using or planning to use AI tools in their development process, up from 76% in 2024 (2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, AI section). The same 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey found that more developers actively distrust the accuracy of AI tool output (46%) than trust it (33%), and only 3.1% "highly trust" it, across 33,244 responses — the gap a named human's paid verdict fills.
The demand for a human answer, by the numbers:
- Google Cloud's 2025 DORA report, State of AI-Assisted Software Development, found that 90% of survey respondents use AI at work and more than 80% believe it has increased their productivity, while 30% report little or no trust in the code generated by AI (2025 DORA report announcement, Google Cloud).
- JetBrains' State of Developer Ecosystem 2025, based on 24,534 developers across 194 countries, found that 85% of developers regularly use AI tools for coding and development and 62% rely on at least one AI coding assistant, agent, or code editor.
- The 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey found that 70% of professional developers agree they know where to go to find answers to their questions, but only 56% agree they can do so quickly (2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, Professional Developers section).
- The 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey found that 82% of developers visit Stack Overflow at least a few times per month and 25% visit daily or more often.
What counts as "async paid help" instead of a call?
Async paid help means a client pays for a written answer to one question, delivered on the developer's own schedule, with no live meeting attached. The client writes out the question in text; the developer replies in writing whenever they get to it, instead of both people finding a shared 30-minute slot on a calendar.
With Paid Questions, a client pays upfront to send one typed question and the developer answers once in writing, privately (how it works). You set the price and the reply window.
A Paid Question is a narrower promise than open-ended mentoring or "pick my brain" access: one bounded question, answered once, for one fixed price. Paying a named human for a verdict is a documented preference rather than a niche one. The 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey found that the top reason developers would still ask another person for help in a future with advanced AI is "When I don't trust AI's answers," selected by 75.3% of 31,476 respondents. In that same 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey question, 54.6% of respondents said they would still ask a person "when I'm stuck and can't explain the problem," and 49.8% "when I need help fixing complex or unfamiliar code".
How is a Paid Question different from a consulting call?
A consulting call trades on real-time back-and-forth: the client can interrupt, redirect, and ask a follow-up the moment something is unclear. A Paid Question trades on precision and speed of delivery — the client writes the sharpest version of the question up front, and the developer answers it once, in writing, without live discussion.
Live calls fit better when a problem is still fuzzy or a client needs real mentorship over an hour. A text question fits better when the client already knows exactly what they're asking and just needs an expert's answer, not a conversation.
| Dimension | Paid Question (async) | Consulting call (live) |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduling | None — no calendar, no shared slot | Both parties book a shared time |
| Client input | Text only, written up front | Spoken, refined during the call |
| Developer reply | Written, inside a stated window | Real time, for the booked duration |
| Follow-up | None — one question gets one written reply | Whatever fits inside the booked hour |
| Best when | The question is already specific | The problem is still fuzzy |
| Available on Brillay | Yes | No — Brillay has no live calls or scheduling |
The Brillay rows in the comparison table above reflect the product format: a written answer, no live call, no scheduling.
The cost a client is really paying to avoid is the wait, not the meeting. The 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey found that 53% of professional developers agree or strongly agree that "waiting on answers to questions often causes interruptions and disrupts my workflow," across 28,747 responses. A paid text answer removes the scheduling delay entirely, because Brillay offers no live 1:1 video calls and no booking or scheduling system — every Paid Question is answered asynchronously.
More developers actively distrust the accuracy of AI tools (46%) than trust it (33%), and only a fraction (3%) report "highly trusting" the output. — 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey
What kinds of dev questions actually fit a quick paid answer?
The best-fit questions are narrow, text-describable, and answerable without seeing a whole repo or file — if the client can type the question in a few sentences, it's a good match. Anything requiring the developer to open a file, run code, or review a pull request fits Custom Requests, which accepts attached files from the client.
Examples that fit well:
- "Should I use a message queue or a scheduled job for this?"
- "Is this database index actually helping, based on this query plan I'm describing?"
- "What's the tradeoff between these two auth approaches for a small app?"
- "Why might this React hook be causing extra re-renders, based on this description?"
Narrow, text-describable questions are exactly the kind of lookup developers already do unpaid every day. The 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey found that 61% of respondents spend more than 30 minutes a day searching for answers or solutions to problems, with 7.6% spending over 120 minutes a day, across 28,911 responses — time a client can pay to skip by asking someone who already knows the answer.
The 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey found that 66% of developers name "AI solutions that are almost right, but not quite" as their single biggest frustration with AI tools, out of 25,332 responses. In that same frustration question, the 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey recorded 20% of developers saying they have "become less confident in my own problem-solving" and 16.3% saying "it's hard to understand how or why the code works" — both are one-question, text-shaped doubts a paid human answer can settle.
In a future with advanced AI, the #1 reason developers would still ask a person for help is "When I don't trust AI's answers" (75%). — 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey
How much should a quick technical answer cost?
There is no published market rate for a single async technical answer, so the price varies: a developer sets whatever number they want on a Paid Question. A fair price reflects the judgment and risk in the answer, not how long the reply takes to type, and typically scales from a quick opinion up to a harder architecture call.
Every price in the table below is illustrative, not a guarantee of demand or income — actual results depend on audience, positioning, and the specificity of the offer.
| Question type | Illustrative price | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Fast opinion ("A or B?") | $10–$20 | Low ambiguity, quick to answer |
| Debug-by-description | $15–$35 | Requires reasoning through a described error |
| Architecture / tradeoff call | $20–$50 | Higher-stakes decision, more context to weigh |
Two documented costs come off the top of any price set above. Brillay charges an 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work and 5% on tips and goals, with no monthly fee to start, and Stripe's published pricing lists 2.9% + 30¢ per successful domestic card transaction for standard online card payments (Stripe pricing).
Pricing expert answers directly is not unfamiliar territory for a meaningful slice of the field: the 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey found that 13.9% of developers describe themselves as an independent contractor, freelancer, or self-employed, across 48,178 responses (2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, Work section).
When does a question need to become a custom request instead?
Route any attachment-shaped request to Custom Requests, which accepts attached files from the client.
With Custom Requests, the client can attach up to five files of 50 MB each and include a repo link; the developer delivers text plus files and/or links within the delivery time they set, up to 5 days.
| Signal | Right offer |
|---|---|
| Client can describe it in a sentence, no attachment needed | Paid Question |
| Client needs to send a file, repo link, or error log | custom request |
| Client wants a recorded walkthrough or marked-up code | custom request |
| Client wants real-time back-and-forth debugging | Not offered on Brillay — there are no live calls |
Attachment-shaped work is increasingly created by AI output itself. The 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey found that 45.2% of developers name "debugging AI-generated code is more time-consuming" as a frustration with AI tools, the second-most-cited problem out of 25,332 responses. JetBrains' State of Developer Ecosystem 2025 reported that the single biggest concern developers name about AI in software development is "the inconsistent quality of AI-generated code," ahead of limited understanding of complex code and logic and privacy and security risks — a doubt that usually arrives attached to a file. A file-based code review — where the client sends a repo link or a code file and gets written notes back — is covered in selling a code review online.
What should a paid-question listing say before a client pays?
A paid-question listing should tell the client exactly what one question covers before they pay, so the request that arrives matches what was priced and fits inside one written reply. Vague listings — "ask me anything about code" — invite vague or oversized requests that a written answer can't cleanly resolve.
Useful boundaries to state up front:
- Scope: One question, one specific problem — not an open-ended "help me with my project."
- Reply time: State the window and stay inside it.
- Bigger asks: Point to Custom Work if the client's message needs a file or a review.
Clients often reach a paid-question listing after an AI answer failed them. The 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey found that about 35% of developers report their visits to Stack Overflow are a result of AI-related issues at least some of the time. The 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey also found that 61.7% of respondents would still ask a person "when I have ethical or security concerns about code" and 61.3% "when I want to fully understand something," out of 31,476 responses — three request shapes worth naming explicitly in the listing copy.
What else can a developer sell alongside quick questions?
Paid Questions cover narrow written answers; Custom Work covers small, defined deliverables, Personalized Videos cover personal videos, and Tips cover one-time thank-yous. Put Paid Questions, Custom Requests, Tips, and your other offers on one Brillay link so clients can choose the right format.
- Custom Requests: File-based code review or bug fixes.
- Personalized Videos: Personalized Videos let a follower pay upfront for one personalized video for themselves or someone they care about: you set the price and the delivery time, then record it on your schedule.
- Tips: Tips let followers send a one-time thank-you, with nothing for you to deliver and no membership for them to join.
- Goals: A Goal is one named goal with a progress bar: followers make one-time contributions and every contribution is yours whether or not the goal is reached — no deadline unless you set one, and nothing to ship.
- Brand Collaboration Inquiries: Brand Collaboration Inquiries is a “Work with Me” form on your Brillay page that collects a brand’s budget, timeline, and deliverables into a separate brand inbox.
You can set a delivery time of up to 5 days for Personalized Videos and Custom Requests. Brillay's 8% platform fee applies when a follower pays for work, and its 5% platform fee applies to tips and goals; there is no monthly fee and no follower minimum to start. Not sure which offer fits a given request? Best Brillay offer for developers & designers breaks down the decision by request type.
How do you turn on Paid Questions without a booking calendar?
Turning on Paid Questions takes setting a price and a reply-time window — there's no calendar to configure and no availability to block off, because a Paid Question is answered asynchronously by design. The developer decides what a "question" covers, sets the price, and picks a reply window they can realistically hit.
In practice, a client finds the offer on the developer's Brillay page, pays upfront as a guest, submits one typed question, and receives the developer's written reply inside the stated window.
Written delivery on your own time also avoids the time-zone problem a live call creates, and distributed work makes that gap common: the 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey found that 32.4% of developers work fully remote, rising to 45% among US respondents, across 33,686 responses. Asking a person is already a normal first move rather than a last resort: the 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey found that 18.5% of professional developers go to a coworker first when they have a technical question at work, second only to traditional public search engines at 54.9%, across 28,807 responses. Sharing the link where relevant questions already show up — a bio, a tutorial description, a pinned post — routes that inbound to the paid page instead of a free private-message conversation. A creator redirects clients from their DMs to their Brillay link, where the request and the payment happen on the page.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers to common questions about Paid Questions: one question gets one written reply, there are no calls or follow-up messages, and Brillay charges 8% when a follower pays for work and 5% on tips and goals.
Can a client attach a code snippet or screenshot to a Paid Question?
No. Paid Questions are one typed question and one written reply. A request that needs an attachment should use Custom Requests instead.
Can a client send another message after the written reply?
No. Paid Questions include one written reply. The developer sets the price and the reply window.
Is this the same as a live pair-programming or debugging call?
No. Every Paid Question is one typed question and one written answer — an asynchronous exchange, no live 1:1 video call or scheduling.
What does Brillay charge for this?
No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid. 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work, 5% platform fee on tips and goals. Card processing is separate. There's no follower minimum, and Stripe's published pricing lists 2.9% + 30¢ per successful domestic card transaction as a typical example of that separate cost.
Do developers actually still want to ask a human when AI is available?
Yes. The 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey found that 75.3% of 31,476 respondents would still ask another person for help "when I don't trust AI's answers," the top-selected reason in that question. Google Cloud's 2025 DORA report found that 30% of respondents report little or no trust in AI-generated code even though 90% use AI at work.
Create your free Brillay page and turn the next "quick question, got a sec?" DM into a priced answer instead of a free call.
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