# Agentcard vs Kite Agent Passport

> Agentcard scores 56.5 (C) to Kite Agent Passport's 51.5 (D) for card payments. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-kite-agent-passport
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-kite-agent-passport.md (~2,450 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-kite-agent-passport.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-kite-agent-passport.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-10

Agentcard scores 56.5 (C) on agent readiness against Kite Agent Passport's 51.5 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Kite Agent Passport leads on reliability, agent ergonomics and transparency & trust. Both do card payments.

- Agentcard: grade C, 56.5/100, rank #637 of 961. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/agentcard.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agentcard.json
- Kite Agent Passport: grade D, 51.5/100, rank #755 of 961. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/kite-agent-passport.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/kite-agent-passport.json
- Best agent wallets and spending controls: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-wallets/index.md
- All 30 wallets comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-wallets/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Agentcard (C)

Good for: A company building a shopping or purchasing agent that needs users to pay with their own cards under passkey approval, or needs capped virtual Visa cards per task.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 80 against 64
- Payments & pricing, 42 against 35

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- No incidents deducted, where Kite Agent Passport loses 5 points for them

Watch for: No status page or incident history was found on the site or in the docs. An SLA is listed for Enterprise plans only, with no published text

### Kite Agent Passport (D)

Good for: Coding agents such as Claude Code or Codex that need to pay x402 or MPP services within budgets a person approves by passkey.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 35 against 29
- Agent ergonomics, 68 against 63
- Transparency & trust, 56 against 44

Watch for: A person signs up by email, clicks a verification link and creates a passkey in a browser before any agent can spend


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Agentcard | Kite Agent Passport | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 29 | 35 | Kite Agent Passport +6 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 64 | Agentcard +16 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 68 | Kite Agent Passport +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 68 | 72 | Kite Agent Passport +4 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 42 | 35 | Agentcard +7 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 71 | Agentcard +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 44 | 56 | Kite Agent Passport +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -5 | |
| **Total** | | **56.5 · C** | **51.5 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Agentcard | Kite Agent Passport |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | Platform |
| Vendor | Agentcard Corporation | Kite AI |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.agentcard.sh` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Agentcard's terms of use. The `agent-cards` CLI on npm declares no licence, `@agent-cards/checkout` is marked as having none, and the repository they name is private | Closed service under terms from Datalego Inc. dated 29 April 2026. The Passport Skills repository is MIT. The kpass CLI is distributed as binaries and its source repository is private. |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-09 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-07-10 |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked |  |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | 33k npm/wk | none |

## Verdicts

**Agentcard.** Purchases need the user's passkey approval by default, cards carry spending rules, and card creation takes an idempotency key. No status page, published rate limits beyond the token endpoint, or privacy policy of Agentcard's own was found, and the Trust Centre could not be read. Issuing costs $5,000 a month.

**Kite Agent Passport.** Spending sessions with per-transaction and total caps, a lifetime and passkey approval are enforced by the service, with step-up checks and an audit log. A person must sign up by email and create a passkey before an agent can pay. No published fee rate, OpenAPI file or Passport status page was found.

## Before you call either

### Agentcard

1. Mint a platform token with `POST /api/v2/oauth/token` and cache it for its one hour. The endpoint allows 30 requests per 5 minutes per IP
2. Send the same `Idempotency-Key` on every retry of `POST /api/v2/cards`, and the same `idempotency_key` on every retry of `buy_checkout`
3. Pass `source: "issued"` to the MCP `create_card` tool for a card number. Without it the tool may start Vault setup and return a link
4. Call `get_card_details` only at the payment form and never log the result. Each read notifies the member and may return `approval_required`
5. Treat `transaction.authorized` and `order.*` webhooks as the record of a payment, and deduplicate deliveries on the event `id`

### Kite Agent Passport

1. Run `kpass` with `--output json --no-interactive` and branch on the exit code and `error_code`. Exit 6 is a session policy breach, so request a new session rather than logging in again
2. Pass `--idempotency-key` on every `kpass session execute` so a retry after a timeout does not pay twice
3. Ask the person for a session with a small per-transaction cap and a short `--ttl`, and confirm the merchant URL before executing
4. Use `kpass sandbox` test mode and the faucet to try a payment flow without real funds. Scoped cards are not available in sandbox
5. Check the kite-passport skill's trigger rules before installing it, since it directs the agent to paid services ahead of free tools

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Agentcard or Kite Agent Passport?

Agentcard scores 56.5 (C) on agent readiness against Kite Agent Passport's 51.5 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Kite Agent Passport leads on reliability, agent ergonomics and transparency & trust.

### Can an agent call Agentcard and Kite Agent Passport without installing anything?

Agentcard has a hosted endpoint at https://api.agentcard.sh. No hosted endpoint is listed for Kite Agent Passport.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-kite-agent-passport.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-kite-agent-passport.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "agentcard", "b": "kite-agent-passport"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare agentcard kite-agent-passport`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agentcard.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/kite-agent-passport.json

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- [Agentcard vs Sponge Wallet](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-sponge-wallet.md)
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- [Kite Agent Passport vs Sponge Wallet](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kite-agent-passport-vs-sponge-wallet.md)
- [Kite Agent Passport vs Turnkey Agentic Wallets](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kite-agent-passport-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.md)
- [Agentcard vs Circle Wallets (Agent Wallets, Programmable Wallets)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-circle-wallets.md)
- [Agentcard vs Coinbase Developer Platform (Agentic Wallet, AgentKit, CDP MCP)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-coinbase-cdp-agentkit.md)
- [Agentcard vs Openfort](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-openfort.md)
- [Agentcard vs Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-privy.md)
- [Agentcard vs Turnkey Agentic Wallets](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.md)