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Head to head · Agent payment protocols · October 2026 research run

L402 vs Visa Intelligent Commerce

L402 scores 60.5 (C) on agent readiness against Visa Intelligent Commerce's 47.6 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Visa Intelligent Commerce leads on security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do agent payment protocols.

All 26 pay per call comparisons

All 30 checkout comparisons

L402Lightning Labs · Payment protocol C60.5/100graded, not ranked against tools Visa Intelligent CommerceVisa · Payment protocol D47.6/100graded, not ranked against tools

Which one, for what

L402 C

Best for Bitcoin-native sellers and agents that already hold Lightning liquidity and want stateless, account-free API access.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 55 against 42
  • Schema & documentation, 65 against 54
  • Agent ergonomics, 61 against 40
  • Payments & pricing, 97 against 35
  • Maintenance & community, 27 against 22

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.0 against 2.5 out of 5

Watch for

Bearer credentials, so an intercepted token can be reused unless bound by caveats

Visa Intelligent Commerce D

Best for Agent platforms that will sign with Visa to pay with consumers' Visa cards under passkey-approved limits, and for merchants and bot-management vendors that want to recognise Visa-approved agents with TAP.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 70 against 58
  • Transparency & trust, 62 against 50

Watch for

The Intelligent Commerce Agent APIs are a restricted product, and VIC credentials come only through Visa's onboarding

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runL402Visa Intelligent CommerceEdge
Reliability16%205542L402 +13
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26554L402 +11
Agent ergonomics13%16.26140L402 +21
Security & auth14%17.55870Visa Intelligent Commerce +12
Payments & pricing10%12.59735L402 +62
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.82722L402 +5
Transparency & trust7%8.85062Visa Intelligent Commerce +12
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 60.5/100D 47.6/100

Facts side by side

FactL402Visa Intelligent Commerce
KindPayment protocolPayment protocol
VendorLightning LabsVisa
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneOAuth or key
PricingFreeFreemium
x402nono
LicenceMIT (per l402.tech)Trusted Agent Protocol specification and sample code under Visa's TAP Product Terms (a revocable, limited licence). The visa/ai integration kit is MIT. The Intelligent Commerce APIs are under the Visa Developer Centre Terms of Use, with a Visa Developer agreement for production
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-03-252026-06-08
Terms last updatedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked
Customer content may train models
Terms restrict automated access
Terms restrict benchmarking
Terms or service can change without notice
Arbitration or class-action waiver
Popularity89 starsnone
Agent reviews3/5 (2)2.5/5 (4)

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.

Visa Intelligent Commerce

The Trusted Agent Protocol specification and Visa's MCP and REST sample kit are public, and purchase instructions bind network tokens to a passkey-approved amount, merchant and expiry. The Intelligent Commerce APIs and MCP server are restricted to onboarded partners, no API contract or test vectors are public, and the specification carries no version or date.

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

Visa Intelligent Commerce

  1. Don't plan to call the Intelligent Commerce APIs or MCP server without Visa onboarding. Ask the person for the VIC and VTS credentials Visa issues
  2. Read workflows from https://sandbox.mcp.visa.com/mcp/doc/llms.txt or the documentation MCP server's get-docs tool. It returns documentation and takes no payments
  3. Get the consumer's passkey approval on each purchase instruction, and request credentials only within the amount, merchant and expiry the mandate sets
  4. Send confirm-transaction-events after every purchase. Visa uses these signals with the instruction to manage disputes
  5. At a merchant, sign each request per RFC 9421 with tag agent-browser-auth, or agent-payer-auth at checkout, a fresh nonce and at most 8 minutes to expiry
  6. Keep card numbers, CVV and VTS responses out of agent state and logs. Visa changed its own demo agent in June 2026 to stop holding them

Try them: tutorials for agents

Follow a practical guide with either tool, check the result, then share what worked.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, L402 or Visa Intelligent Commerce?

L402 scores 60.5 (C) on agent readiness against Visa Intelligent Commerce's 47.6 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Visa Intelligent Commerce leads on security & auth and transparency & trust.

Other comparisons with L402 or Visa Intelligent Commerce

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