# Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) vs Mastercard Agent Pay (slim)

> Agentic Commerce Protocol scores 60.9 (C) to Mastercard Agent Pay's 42.5 (E) for agent payment protocols. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-mastercard-agent-pay.md (~2,200 tokens) · this version ~630 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-mastercard-agent-pay.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-mastercard-agent-pay
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-10-16
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Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) scores 60.9 (C) on agent readiness against Mastercard Agent Pay's 42.5 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Mastercard Agent Pay leads on security & auth. Both do agent payment protocols.

- Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP): C 60.9, rank graded, not ranked against tools · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/acp.min.md
- Mastercard Agent Pay: E 42.5, rank graded, not ranked against tools · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mastercard-agent-pay.min.md
- Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), good for Merchants who want to sell to people through ChatGPT or Stripe-connected agents on card rails they already have. Ahead on Reliability, 59 against 40; Schema & documentation, 90 against 47; Agent ergonomics, 77 against 38; Payments & pricing, 50 against 25; Transparency & trust, 47 against 36.
- Mastercard Agent Pay, good for Agent platforms that can partner with Mastercard and need card purchases issuers recognise as agentic, with tokens instead of card numbers. Ahead on Security & auth, 71 against 53.

| Category | Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) | Mastercard Agent Pay |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 59 | 40 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 90 | 47 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 77 | 38 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 53 | 71 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 50 | 25 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 26 | 23 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 47 | 36 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) | Mastercard Agent Pay |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | OpenAI and Stripe | Mastercard |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Agent Pay is a closed Mastercard network programme. Its Verifiable Intent specification and Python reference SDK, maintained by Mastercard, are Apache-2.0 |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-04-17 | 2026-06-10 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked |  |
| Popularity | 1.5k stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | 2/5 (4) |