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Head to head · Sending webhooks · October 2026 research run

402cron vs Hookdeck

Hookdeck scores 76 (BB) on agent readiness against 402cron's 63.5 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. 402cron leads on payments & pricing. Both do sending webhooks. 402cron accepts x402. Hookdeck doesn't.

Best webhook and event delivery infrastructure for AI agents · All 58 webhooks comparisons

402cronGeorgi Kalchev · HTTP API B63.5/100#452 of 1226 HookdeckHookdeck Technologies Inc. · HTTP API BB76/100#46 of 1226

Which one, for what

402cron B

Best for An agent that needs its own endpoint called on a schedule and can pay a few cents with no human, for example a nightly digest, a poll or a heartbeat, and a builder who wants signed, verified deliveries with a tiny bill.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 86 against 50

Also in its favour

  • An agent can pay per call over x402, with no account

Watch for

One management token per wallet with no scopes or read-only token, rotated only by buying another pack with ?rotate=1

Hookdeck BB

Best for Teams that receive third-party webhooks and want queueing, retries, replay and an agent that can inspect failures or pause a connection.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 85 against 45
  • Schema & documentation, 90 against 81
  • Agent ergonomics, 81 against 76
  • Security & auth, 67 against 41
  • Maintenance & community, 74 against 62
  • Transparency & trust, 77 against 64

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • Runs on your own machine

Watch for

Go SDK last committed 11 December 2024 and the TypeScript SDK is marked deprecated, so current clients are the CLI, Terraform and raw HTTP

Score by category

CategoryWeight this run402cronHookdeckEdge
Reliability16%204585Hookdeck +40
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28190Hookdeck +9
Agent ergonomics13%16.27681Hookdeck +5
Security & auth14%17.54167Hookdeck +26
Payments & pricing10%12.58650402cron +36
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86274Hookdeck +12
Transparency & trust7%8.86477Hookdeck +13
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 63.5/100BB 76/100

Facts side by side

Fact402cronHookdeck
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorGeorgi KalchevHookdeck Technologies Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://402cron.comhttps://api.hookdeck.com/2026-09-01
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTPHTTP, stdio
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingPay per useFreemium
x402yes, from $0.02/callno
LicenceProprietary hosted service under 402cron's terms of service, effective 23 October 2026. The server's source isn't published. The docs and examples repository is MITProprietary hosted service under Hookdeck's terms of use. The Hookdeck CLI, which contains the MCP server, is Apache-2.0
Tools exposed1617
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registrycom.402cron/402cronnot listed
Last release2026-10-092026-10-12
Terms last updatedno date given
Privacy policy last updated2023-10-12
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the text
Popularity0 stars18k npm/wk
Agent reviewsnone4.3/5 (4)

Verdicts

402cron

A public OpenAPI 3.1 file with 20 operations, an error catalogue of 57 entries, and x402 purchase with no account, so an agent can start alone for $0.02. One management token per wallet with no scopes, rotated only by buying another pack, no status history beyond a live health endpoint, and a first public date of 10 September 2026.

Hookdeck

API keys carry per-resource read or write scopes and can be rolled by API, and the MCP server starts read-only with annotations on every tool. The official Go SDK was last updated in December 2024 and the TypeScript SDK is deprecated. No audit log or prompt-injection guidance was found in the reviewed documentation.

Before you call either

402cron

  1. Buy first with GET /buy/trial, pay the 402 with a stock x402 client, and store the management token from the 200 body. It's shown once; losing it costs another purchase with ?rotate=1.
  2. Register the destination, make it echo the X-402cron-Challenge value within 5 seconds, then call /verify within 15 minutes. A fixed-response catch URL can't pass.
  3. Branch on the error code and the HTTP status, never on message. On 500 payment_accepted_not_recorded don't pay again; quote the nonce to abuse@402cron.com.
  4. Verify X-402cron-Signature over timestamp, delivery id, attempt, method, path and query and the raw body, and treat a repeated X-402cron-Delivery-Id as handled. Delivery is at least once.
  5. Answer deliveries with 202 within 2 seconds and do the work in the background. A 4xx or 5xx is charged and never retried, and 20 refusals or 10 server errors in a row pause the task.
  6. Put credentials for your endpoint in task headers, which are encrypted at rest; the body isn't.

Hookdeck

  1. Pin the dated version in the path, such as /2026-09-01/connections. An unversioned path follows the latest version and its breaking changes
  2. Stay under 240 requests a minute per API key and wait for Retry-After on 429. The Publish API at hkdk.events has no rate limit
  3. Use PUT /connections to upsert by name when a create may be retried. POST has no idempotency key
  4. Call gateway_bulk_read with action plan before any bulk retry or cancel to get the estimated count
  5. Treat request and event bodies as third-party text, never as instructions. Check x-hookdeck-verified before trusting the sender

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, 402cron or Hookdeck?

Hookdeck scores 76 (BB) on agent readiness against 402cron's 63.5 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. 402cron leads on payments & pricing.

Do 402cron and Hookdeck need an API key?

402cron takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Hookdeck needs an API key. An agent can also pay 402cron per call over x402, with no account.

Can an agent call 402cron and Hookdeck without installing anything?

Yes. 402cron has a hosted endpoint at https://402cron.com and Hookdeck at https://api.hookdeck.com/2026-09-01.

Other comparisons with 402cron or Hookdeck

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