# L402 vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)

> Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) has a score of 81.1 (A) against L402's 60.5 (C). Both do agent payment protocols. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 68 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-05

Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) has a score of 81.1 (A) against L402's 60.5 (C). Both do agent payment protocols. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 68 points.

- L402: grade C, 60.5/100, rank graded, not ranked against tools. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/l402.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/l402.json
- Machine Payments Protocol (MPP): grade A, 81.1/100, rank graded, not ranked against tools. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mpp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mpp.json

## Which one, for what

Pick L402 for transparency & trust (+5).

Pick Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) for reliability (+30), schema & documentation (+24), agent ergonomics (+30), security & auth (+21), maintenance & community (+68).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | L402 | Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 85 | Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) +30 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 89 | Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) +24 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 61 | 91 | Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) +30 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 58 | 79 | Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) +21 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 97 | 94 | L402 +3 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 27 | 95 | Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) +68 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 50 | 45 | L402 +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **60.5 · C** | **81.1 · A** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | L402 | Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Payment protocol | Payment protocol |
| Vendor | Lightning Labs | Tempo and Stripe |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (per l402.tech) | CC0-1.0 (spec) |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-03-25 | 2026-09-29 |
| Popularity | 89 stars | 93 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 4/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**L402.** Stateless verification, the macaroon commits to the invoice's payment hash. Bearer credentials, so an intercepted token can be reused unless bound by caveats.

**Machine Payments Protocol (MPP).** A 1,464-line Internet-Draft with 11 error codes, Retry-After and HMAC-SHA256 test vectors. Individual Internet-Draft, not adopted by any IETF working group.

## Before you call either

### L402

1. Run lnget with `--max-cost` and `--max-fee` set
2. Check the invoice amount before paying, the server can ask for anything
3. Accept both `LSAT` and `L402` in challenges, servers still send both
4. Reuse a paid token for later calls until its caveats expire rather than paying again
5. Keep macaroons and preimages out of logs, they're bearer credentials

### Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)

1. Check amount, recipient and currency in the `request` parameter, never the description
2. Send an `Idempotency-Key` when retrying a paid POST
3. Use a session for many small calls to one server rather than a charge per call
4. Set `max_amount` and `expires_at` on any card token
5. Run a current mppx, releases before 0.4.11 had payment-bypass and session-voucher bugs

## Other comparisons with L402 or Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)

- [Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) vs L402](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-l402.md)
- [Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-mpp.md)
- [Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) vs L402](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ap2-vs-l402.md)
- [Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ap2-vs-mpp.md)
- [L402 vs x402](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/l402-vs-x402.md)
- [Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) vs x402](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mpp-vs-x402.md)