# Agentcard vs Sponge Wallet

> Agentcard scores 56.5 (C) to Sponge Wallet's 43.2 (E) for card payments. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-sponge-wallet
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-sponge-wallet.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-sponge-wallet.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-sponge-wallet.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: 2026-10-09

Agentcard scores 56.5 (C) on agent readiness against Sponge Wallet's 43.2 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Sponge Wallet leads on payments & pricing. Both do card payments.

- Agentcard: grade C, 56.5/100, rank #632 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/agentcard.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agentcard.json
- Sponge Wallet: grade E, 43.2/100, rank #884 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sponge-wallet.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sponge-wallet.json
- Best agent wallets and spending controls: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-wallets/index.md
- All 23 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:
- Reliability, 29 against 13
- Schema & documentation, 80 against 66
- Agent ergonomics, 63 against 43
- Security & auth, 68 against 48
- Maintenance & community, 74 against 27
- Transparency & trust, 44 against 39

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

### Sponge Wallet (E)

Good for: A developer who wants an agent to hold stablecoins and pay x402 or MPP endpoints within minutes, with cards, bank rails and Hyperliquid or Polymarket trading behind the same key.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 70 against 42

Watch for: No status page, SLA or numeric rate limit was found, and the terms say the service may be offered in beta


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Agentcard | Sponge Wallet | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 29 | 13 | Agentcard +16 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 66 | Agentcard +14 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 43 | Agentcard +20 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 68 | 48 | Agentcard +20 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 42 | 70 | Sponge Wallet +28 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 27 | Agentcard +47 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 44 | 39 | Agentcard +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **56.5 · C** | **43.2 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Agentcard | Sponge Wallet |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Agentcard Corporation | Sponge Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.agentcard.sh` | `https://api.wallet.paysponge.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| 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 | Proprietary service under Sponge's terms of service. The SDK and CLI packages on npm are MIT, and the repository they name is private |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-09 | 2026-07-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-07-10 | 2026-06-30 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-06-30 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 33k npm/wk | 126 npm/wk, 20 PyPI/wk |

## 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.

**Sponge Wallet.** An agent can register a wallet with one unauthenticated call and pay x402 or MPP endpoints under daily, weekly and monthly limits enforced on Sponge's servers. No status page, rate limits, fee schedule, custody statement or security contact was found, the terms run to eleven short clauses, and the SDK was last published on 7 July 2026.

## 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`

### Sponge Wallet

1. Send `Sponge-Version` on every REST request. The skill file marks it required and the API answers with version status headers
2. Use `evmTransfer` and `solanaTransfer`, the helpers the docs describe as enforcing allowlists and spending limits, not plain `transfer`
3. Store the `apiKey` from registration at once. It is returned a single time, and losing it means registering again
4. Call `GET /api/discover/{serviceId}` before `POST /api/paid/fetch`. The skill file says direct service URLs fail with auth errors
5. Treat `card details` output as secret. It returns an encrypted card number and CVC with a one-time `secret_key`

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Agentcard or Sponge Wallet?

Agentcard scores 56.5 (C) on agent readiness against Sponge Wallet's 43.2 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Sponge Wallet leads on payments & pricing.

### Do Agentcard and Sponge Wallet need an API key?

Agentcard uses an OAuth sign-in. Sponge Wallet takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Agentcard and Sponge Wallet without installing anything?

Yes. Agentcard has a hosted endpoint at https://api.agentcard.sh and Sponge Wallet at https://api.wallet.paysponge.com.


## For agents

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

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- [Sponge Wallet vs Turnkey Agentic Wallets](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sponge-wallet-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)