GUIDE · MICROPAYMENTS

Micropayments for APIs: the complete guide

Subscriptions force humans into plans. Agents prefer atomic prices: pay $0.001, get the JSON, move on. This guide is the operator manual.

What counts as an API micropayment?

Sub-cent to few-cent charges per request, settled fast, with machine-verifiable receipts. On ScriptMasterLabs, the public floor is $0.001 USDC on Base.

Why cards fail here

Card rails hate $0.001. Minimums, fees, chargebacks, KYC. Crypto stablecoins on cheap L2s fix the unit economics.

Reference architecture

  1. 402 challenge with accepts[]
  2. Agent wallet pays payTo
  3. Retry with proof header
  4. Server verifies on-chain or via facilitator
  5. Return payload + optional receipt
Deploy paywall See rates HTTP 402 deep dive
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Watch the agent pay x402 Launchpad $0.001 snacks Sovereign Payrails What should I charge?