# Kintsugi vs Quaderno

> Kintsugi scores 60.7 (C) on agent readiness against Quaderno's 59.5 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Quaderno leads on reliability, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do tax calculate. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kintsugi-vs-quaderno
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kintsugi-vs-quaderno.md (~2,250 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kintsugi-vs-quaderno.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kintsugi-vs-quaderno.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: 2026-10-08

Kintsugi scores 60.7 (C) on agent readiness against Quaderno's 59.5 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Quaderno leads on reliability, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do tax calculate.

- Kintsugi: grade C, 60.7/100, rank #392 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/kintsugi.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/kintsugi.json
- Quaderno: grade C, 59.5/100, rank #427 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/quaderno.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/quaderno.json

## Which one, for what

### Kintsugi (C)

Good for: An agent working for a seller that already has Kintsugi Premium and wants estimates, transaction sync, exemptions, nexus, registrations and filing status through one API, or read-only answers about an account through the OAuth MCP server.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 77
- Agent ergonomics, 75 against 56
- Security & auth, 52 against 39
- Maintenance & community, 78 against 28

Watch for: API access, SDKs and real-time tax calculation are listed only under Premium, which is priced on request. API keys need a paid plan that includes them

### Quaderno (C)

Good for: An agent working for a SaaS, digital-goods or e-commerce seller that needs a tax rate at checkout, a record of each sale with location evidence, and compliant invoices, including Spanish Verifactu and TicketBAI.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 91 against 73
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 13
- Transparency & trust, 76 against 60

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Kintsugi loses 3 points for them

Watch for: One API key reads and writes everything its user can reach. Scopes exist only on Connect OAuth tokens (read_only, read_write)


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Kintsugi | Quaderno | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 73 | 91 | Quaderno +18 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 77 | Kintsugi +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 56 | Kintsugi +19 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 52 | 39 | Kintsugi +13 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 13 | 30 | Quaderno +17 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 78 | 28 | Kintsugi +50 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 76 | Quaderno +16 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **60.7 · C** | **59.5 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Kintsugi | Quaderno |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Kintsugi AI, Inc. | Recrea Systems, SL |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.trykintsugi.com` | `https://quadernoapp.com/api` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Kintsugi Terms of Service. The Python SDK repository is MIT | Proprietary service under Quaderno's terms of service. The Ruby library on GitHub is MIT |
| Tools exposed | 55 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-07-04 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-15 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-04-13 | 2024-05-16 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 71 npm/wk, 10 PyPI/wk | 15 stars |

## Verdicts

**Kintsugi.** The docs are built for machine readers, with llms.txt, Markdown pages, a public OpenAPI 3.1 file, a dated changelog and an MCP server whose 55 tools carry read-only and destructive annotations. API keys need the custom-priced Premium plan and carry no scopes, no general rate limit is published, and breaking changes reached the pinned 2026-07-21 release in October 2026.

**Quaderno.** A public OpenAPI 3.1 spec covers 92 operations, with a free sandbox and a status page showing no incident since July 2025. The API key has full account access, there are no idempotency keys, and the newest public API version is dated October 2024.

## Before you call either

### Kintsugi

1. Send `Api-Key` and pin `Api-Version` (for example `2026-10-06`) on Tenanted API calls to `https://api.trykintsugi.com`. Without the header a request runs against `2026-07-21`
2. Use `x-api-key` and `x-organization-id` with `/v1` paths for the SDKs and the docs MCP server. They don't cover the Tenanted API
3. Call `POST /tax-estimations` for a quote. Nothing is stored. Record the sale with a transaction create, which answers 202, then check `processingStatus` before reading tax totals
4. Always send `externalId` on creates. A repeat with the same `externalId` and `source` returns the stored record with 200 and doesn't apply the new fields
5. Branch on the error `code`, not the message. Retry 429, 500 and 503 with exponential backoff, and restart paging from the first page on `stale_cursor`

### Quaderno

1. Call GET https://quadernoapp.com/api/authorization first. Its `href` gives the account subdomain that every other call needs
2. Before retrying a failed POST /transactions, list invoices by `processor_id` to check whether the sale was recorded. There is no idempotency key
3. Treat GET /invoices/{id}/deliver as a write. It emails the invoice to the customer
4. Correct a final invoice with a credit note. DELETE on invoices returns 410 and PUT accepts only notes, tags, metadata and address fields
5. Read X-RateLimit-Remaining and X-RateLimit-Reset, and page with `created_before` and `limit` up to 100

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Kintsugi or Quaderno?

Kintsugi scores 60.7 (C) on agent readiness against Quaderno's 59.5 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Quaderno leads on reliability, payments & pricing and transparency & trust.

### Do Kintsugi and Quaderno need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Kintsugi and Quaderno without installing anything?

Yes. Kintsugi has a hosted endpoint at https://api.trykintsugi.com and Quaderno at https://quadernoapp.com/api.


## For agents

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

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