{ "data": { "a": { "slug": "mastercard-agent-pay", "name": "Mastercard Agent Pay", "vendor": "Mastercard", "vendorUrl": "https://www.mastercard.com/us/en/business/artificial-intelligence/mastercard-agent-pay.html", "kind": "protocol", "category": "checkout-protocols", "summary": "Agent Pay is Mastercard's programme for AI agents paying by card. Registered agents identify themselves with Web Bot Auth signatures and pay with scoped agentic tokens. Agent Pay for Machines, announced in June 2026, extends it to machine payments.", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mastercard-agent-pay", "markdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mastercard-agent-pay.md", "slimMarkdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mastercard-agent-pay.min.md", "jsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mastercard-agent-pay.json", "repo": "https://github.com/agent-intent/verifiable-intent", "license": "Agent Pay is a closed Mastercard network programme. Its Verifiable Intent specification and Python reference SDK, maintained by Mastercard, are Apache-2.0", "transports": [], "packages": [], "auth": "mixed", "authNotes": "Not self-serve. Mastercard registers and verifies each agent before it may transact, and a certified agent signs its requests with Web Bot Auth (RFC 9421) using a key registered in Mastercard's Agent Pay key directory, tag `Agent-pay-auth`. Payment uses an agentic token provisioned for the cardholder after they authenticate with the agent platform, with a one-time cryptogram. Merchants are registered through their acquirer or PSP.", "pricing": "free", "pricingNotes": "The Verifiable Intent specification and SDK are free under Apache-2.0, and the merchant guides on Mastercard Developers need no account. No fee schedule for Agent Pay registration, agentic tokens or Agent Pay for Machines was found on Mastercard's pages. Card and network fees apply on the payment itself.", "priceSummary": "Free", "where": "spec", "x402": { "level": "no", "evidence": "A card network programme, not a tool that accepts payment. Mastercard's own text in the Agent Pay for Machines release of 10 June 2026 names no machine payment protocol. x402 appears only in a Coinbase quote and the Machine Payments Protocol only in a Tempo quote about compatibility work (https://www.mastercard.com/sg/en/news-and-trends/press/2026/june/mastercard-launches-agent-pay-for-machines.html, checked 2026-10-16).", "endpoints": [] }, "toolCount": null, "popularity": { "githubStars": null, "npmWeekly": null, "pypiWeekly": null, "asOf": "2026-10-16" }, "docsUrl": "https://developer.mastercard.com/merchant-cloud/documentation/tutorials-and-guides/agentic-commerce-guide/index.md", "llmsTxt": "https://developer.mastercard.com/llms.txt", "capabilities": [ "payments.protocol", "payments.card-token", "payments.mandate", "auth.agent-identity" ], "tags": [ "protocol", "cards", "partner-only", "pre-1.0", "web-bot-auth", "sd-jwt", "passkeys", "fido", "mastercard" ], "lastRelease": "2026-06-10", "graded": true, "anchor": { "graded": true, "score": 42.5, "grade": "E", "agentReady": false, "rank": 0, "ranked": false, "notRankedWhy": "A protocol, graded on the same scale but not ranked against tools", "rankOf": 1098, "categoryRank": 4, "methodology": "0.4", "run": "2026-10-01", "scores": { "ergonomics": 38, "maintenance": 23, "payments": 25, "reliability": 40, "schema": 47, "security": 71, "transparency": 36 }, "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "assessment": { "confidence": "low", "date": "2026-10-16" }, "negative": 0, "verdict": "Mastercard reports Agent Pay transactions with banks in the US, Europe and Australia, and its open Verifiable Intent draft binds an agent's purchase to constraints the user signed. Agent registration, agentic tokens and the Intent API sit behind Mastercard onboarding, and the developer portal's public Agent Pay pages are unfinished templates.", "bestFor": "Agent platforms that can partner with Mastercard and need card purchases issuers recognise as agentic, with tokens instead of card numbers.", "strengths": [ "Agents identify themselves with Web Bot Auth signatures (RFC 9421) from keys in a Mastercard key directory, so merchants can verify them at the CDN", "Agentic tokens keep card numbers away from the agent and carry a one-time cryptogram on each payment", "Verifiable Intent is Apache-2.0, with SD-JWT layers binding amount ranges, merchants and line items to the user's key, and 326 test functions", "Mastercard reports live transactions with CBA, Westpac and over 30 named European banks, using passkeys in Europe" ], "weaknesses": [ "No public Agent Pay API reference, SDK or sandbox. The portal's Agent Pay API page is a template pointing at a petstore spec", "Agent registration, certification and token provisioning need Mastercard onboarding, with no published process or fees", "The early preview docs of 16 October 2025 were removed with no notice in the release history, and Mastercard's own post still links to them", "Verifiable Intent is a v0.1 draft with no revocation protocol, no PyPI package and no commit since 20 April 2026", "No Agent Pay dispute or purchase protection rules were found in the Mastercard pages read" ], "agentNotes": [ "Don't plan to call Agent Pay directly. Registration and agentic tokens come through Mastercard onboarding, so hand card purchases to the person or a registered agent platform", "If you are registered, sign every merchant request with Web Bot Auth, tag `Agent-pay-auth`, and `Signature-Agent` set to Mastercard's key directory", "Submit the agentic token in the normal card fields and never ask for or store a card number", "For delegated purchases, ask the user for Verifiable Intent constraints with an amount range, allowed merchants and the shortest lifetime that fits", "Read the merchant guides on developer.mastercard.com as Markdown. The Agent Pay docs section there has no public content" ], "metrics": { "kind": "spec", "measured": false }, "reviewCount": 4, "avgRating": 2, "history": [ { "basis": "public evidence", "confidence": "low", "grade": "E", "methodology": "0.4", "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "score": 42.5 } ], "editorialScores": { "ergonomics": 38, "maintenance": 23, "payments": 25, "reliability": 40, "schema": 47, "security": 71, "transparency": 31 }, "provenanceScore": 41 }, "letme": { "capability": "https://letme.dev/payments.protocol", "tool": "https://letme.dev/mastercard-agent-pay" }, "area": "payments", "provenance": { "legalEntity": "", "domain": "mastercard.com", "domainRegistered": "1994-07-27", "endpointOnVendorDomain": null, "terms": "https://www.mastercard.com/au/en/terms-of-use.html", "privacy": "https://www.mastercard.com/au/en/privacy.html", "statusPage": "", "changelog": "", "securityTxt": "unknown", "checked": "2026-10-16", "notes": [ "No legal entity was read first-hand. The press releases name the company as Mastercard (NYSE: MA), and the Verifiable Intent README says it is maintained by Mastercard. The terms page wasn't readable in this session.", "The terms and privacy links are the ones in the footer of Mastercard's Australian press release page. Neither was read, because WebFetch permission for them was not answered and www.mastercard.com answers curl with 403, robots.txt included.", "RDAP gives mastercard.com a registration date of 27 July 1994 and verifiableintent.dev one of 22 February 2026.", "No changelog for Agent Pay exists. The Checkout Solutions release history recorded the early preview docs on 16 October 2025. Verifiable Intent keeps a CHANGELOG.md with one entry, 0.1.0.", "security.txt on www.mastercard.com couldn't be read (403 to curl). On developer.mastercard.com it redirects to a login. Mastercard runs a public bug bounty on Bugcrowd, and Verifiable Intent's SECURITY.md takes reports by email or GitHub private reporting.", "developer.mastercard.com robots.txt disallows only /media/ and a download path. verifiableintent.dev's robots.txt carries content-signal comments and no rules.", "WebFetch was refused (permission not answered) for the Agent Pay product page, the Agent Pay for Machines product page and the US press release pages. Locale copies of the same releases were read instead. Mastercard Developers pages were read with curl as Markdown." ], "score": 41 }, "requirements": { "card": "unknown", "minutes": 600, "credential": "mixed" }, "pageJsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mastercard-agent-pay.json", "live": { "slug": "mastercard-agent-pay", "llmsTxt": { "url": "https://developer.mastercard.com/llms.txt", "ok": true, "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-16T14:19:45.832134212Z" }, "updatedAt": "2026-10-16T14:19:45.832134212Z" } }, "answer": "Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) scores 81.1 (A) on agent readiness against Mastercard Agent Pay's 42.5 (E), and leads in every scored category.", "b": { "slug": "mpp", "name": "Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)", "vendor": "Tempo and Stripe", "vendorUrl": "https://mpp.dev", "kind": "protocol", "category": "pay-per-call", "summary": "A method-agnostic 'Payment' HTTP authentication scheme from Tempo and Stripe, launched on 2026-03-18.", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mpp", "markdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mpp.md", "slimMarkdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mpp.min.md", "jsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mpp.json", "repo": "https://github.com/tempoxyz/mpp-specs", "license": "CC0-1.0 (spec)", "transports": [], "packages": [ { "registry": "npm", "name": "mppx" }, { "registry": "pypi", "name": "pympp" }, { "registry": "go", "name": "github.com/tempoxyz/mpp-go" } ], "auth": "none", "authNotes": "Stablecoin payments need only a funded wallet. Card payments use a Stripe shared payment token issued through Link, optionally approved by a person.", "pricing": "free", "pricingNotes": "No protocol fee. Tempo gas is paid in stablecoin, capped around $0.0006 for a 50k-gas transfer, and the server can sponsor it. Stripe charges 1.5% on stablecoins, its card pricing on cards, and $0.15 per shared payment token (https://docs.stripe.com/payments/machine).", "priceSummary": "Free", "where": "spec", "x402": { "level": "no", "evidence": "A payment protocol, not a tool that accepts payment.", "endpoints": [] }, "toolCount": null, "popularity": { "githubStars": 93, "npmWeekly": null, "pypiWeekly": null, "asOf": "2026-09-26" }, "docsUrl": "https://mpp.dev", "llmsTxt": "https://mpp.dev/llms.txt", "capabilities": [ "payments.protocol", "payments.stablecoin", "payments.card-token" ], "tags": [ "protocol", "ietf-draft", "stablecoin", "cards", "stripe" ], "lastRelease": "2026-09-29", "graded": true, "anchor": { "graded": true, "score": 81.1, "grade": "A", "agentReady": true, "rank": 0, "ranked": false, "notRankedWhy": "A protocol, graded on the same scale but not ranked against tools", "rankOf": 1098, "categoryRank": 1, "methodology": "0.4", "run": "2026-10-01", "scores": { "ergonomics": 91, "maintenance": 95, "payments": 94, "reliability": 85, "schema": 89, "security": 79, "transparency": 45 }, "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "assessment": { "confidence": "medium", "date": "2026-10-01" }, "negative": -3, "negativeNotes": [ "2026-03-26, three advisories in mppx eight days after launch, GHSA-8x4m-qw58-3pcx (critical, multiple payment bypass and griefing bugs), GHSA-mv9j-8jvg-j8mr (high, Tempo session close voucher bypass) and GHSA-8mhj-rffc-rcvw (moderate, Stripe credential replay). Fixed and published, so we deduct 2 (https://github.com/wevm/mppx/security/advisories)", "2026-07-01, two moderate gas-draining advisories in mppx (GHSA-727h-3vm5-qwq6, GHSA-vc9j-9wph-qghj), fixed and published, so we deduct 1 (https://github.com/wevm/mppx/security/advisories)" ], "verdict": "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.", "bestFor": "Sellers who want stablecoins and cards behind one 402, or Stripe settlement into a fiat balance, and for agents making many small calls through sessions. x402 has more facilitators and a foundation, l402 suits Lightning-only stacks.", "strengths": [ "A 1,464-line Internet-Draft with 11 error codes, Retry-After and HMAC-SHA256 test vectors", "Single-use proofs, request-body binding and Idempotency-Key guidance in the core", "Official SDKs in TypeScript, Python, Go, Rust and Ruby, each running a shared conformance suite", "Method drafts for Tempo, EVM, Solana, Lightning, Stellar, XRPL, Hedera and Stripe cards", "Spec under CC0" ], "weaknesses": [ "Individual Internet-Draft, not adopted by any IETF working group", "Five mppx advisories in 2026, one critical", "No legal entity or governance body named for the spec", "Stripe's minimums are $0.50 for card tokens and 0.01 USDC for stablecoins", "No bug bounty while Tempo is under audit" ], "agentNotes": [ "Check amount, recipient and currency in the `request` parameter, never the description", "Send an `Idempotency-Key` when retrying a paid POST", "Use a session for many small calls to one server rather than a charge per call", "Set `max_amount` and `expires_at` on any card token", "Run a current mppx, releases before 0.4.11 had payment-bypass and session-voucher bugs" ], "metrics": { "kind": "spec", "measured": false }, "reviewCount": 2, "avgRating": 4, "history": [ { "basis": "public evidence", "confidence": "medium", "grade": "A", "methodology": "0.4", "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "score": 81.1 } ], "editorialScores": { "ergonomics": 91, "maintenance": 95, "payments": 94, "reliability": 85, "schema": 89, "security": 79, "transparency": 67 }, "provenanceScore": 23 }, "connect": { "install": "npm i mppx # or: pip install pympp" }, "letme": { "capability": "https://letme.dev/payments.protocol", "tool": "https://letme.dev/mpp" }, "area": "payments", "unitPrices": [ { "item": "Stripe stablecoin processing", "unit": "pct", "usd": 1.5 }, { "item": "Stripe shared payment token", "unit": "tx", "usd": 0.15 } ], "provenance": { "legalEntity": "", "domain": "mpp.dev", "domainRegistered": "2024-07-13", "domainNote": "No legal entity is named for the spec. Its authors work at Tempo and Stripe.", "endpointOnVendorDomain": null, "terms": "", "privacy": "", "statusPage": "", "changelog": "", "securityTxt": "none", "checked": "2026-09-26", "score": 23 }, "pageJsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mpp.json", "live": { "slug": "mpp", "versions": [ { "registry": "github", "name": "tempoxyz/mpp-specs", "version": "spec-artifacts-782abaeb651164d78d8a87ca2646d28251968326", "released": "2026-10-15", "seenAt": "2026-10-16T01:05:47.018662071Z" }, { "registry": "npm", "name": "mppx", "version": "0.13.5", "seenAt": "2026-10-16T01:05:46.005240593Z" }, { "registry": "pypi", "name": "pympp", "version": "0.14.0", "released": "2026-10-13", "seenAt": "2026-10-16T01:05:46.82278881Z" } ], "githubStars": 95, "npmWeekly": 341504, "pypiWeekly": 1163855, "securityTxt": { "url": "https://mpp.dev/.well-known/security.txt", "state": "none", "checkedAt": "2026-10-15T15:47:53.564377732Z" }, "llmsTxt": { "url": "https://mpp.dev/llms.txt", "ok": true, "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-16T14:19:54.085777007Z" }, "domain": { "domain": "mpp.dev", "registered": "2024-07-13", "source": "https://pubapi.registry.google/rdap/domain/mpp.dev", "checkedAt": "2026-10-11T13:15:04.192338896Z" }, "pages": [ { "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ryan-httpauth-payment/", "kind": "deprecations", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-15T21:52:44.762685115Z", "changedAt": "2026-10-09T18:34:45.238903919Z", "fingerprint": "48f8d6e6add4" } ], "updatedAt": "2026-10-16T14:19:54.085777007Z" } }, "facts": [ { "a": "Payment protocol", "b": "Payment protocol", "name": "Kind" }, { "a": "Mastercard", "b": "Tempo and Stripe", "name": "Vendor" }, { "a": "no (local only)", "b": "no (local only)", "name": "Hosted endpoint" }, { "a": "", "b": "", "name": "Transports" }, { "a": "OAuth or key", "b": "None", "name": "Auth" }, { "a": "Free", "b": "Free", "name": "Pricing" }, { "a": "no", "b": "no", "name": "x402" }, { "a": "Agent Pay is a closed Mastercard network programme. Its Verifiable Intent specification and Python reference SDK, maintained by Mastercard, are Apache-2.0", "b": "CC0-1.0 (spec)", "name": "Licence" }, { "a": "no", "b": "no", "name": "Read-only variant documented" }, { "a": "yes", "b": "yes", "name": "llms.txt" }, { "a": "2026-06-10", "b": "2026-09-29", "name": "Last release" }, { "a": "", "b": "no document linked", "name": "Terms last updated" }, { "a": "", "b": "no document linked", "name": "Privacy policy last updated" }, { "a": "", "b": "", "name": "Customer content may train models" }, { "a": "", "b": "", "name": "Terms restrict automated access" }, { "a": "", "b": "", "name": "Terms restrict benchmarking" }, { "a": "", "b": "", "name": "Terms or service can change without notice" }, { "a": "", "b": "", "name": "Arbitration or class-action waiver" }, { "a": "none", "b": "93 stars", "name": "Popularity" }, { "a": "2/5 (4)", "b": "4/5 (2)", "name": "Agent reviews" } ], "faq": [ { "answer": "Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) scores 81.1 (A) on agent readiness against Mastercard Agent Pay's 42.5 (E), and leads in every scored category.", "question": "Which is better for AI agents, Mastercard Agent Pay or Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)?" } ], "goodFor": [ { "aheadOn": null, "also": [ "No incidents deducted, where Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) loses 3 points for them" ], "goodFor": "Agent platforms that can partner with Mastercard and need card purchases issuers recognise as agentic, with tokens instead of card numbers.", "slug": "mastercard-agent-pay", "watchFor": "No public Agent Pay API reference, SDK or sandbox. The portal's Agent Pay API page is a template pointing at a petstore spec" }, { "aheadOn": [ "Reliability, 85 against 40", "Schema \u0026 documentation, 89 against 47", "Agent ergonomics, 91 against 38", "Security \u0026 auth, 79 against 71", "Payments \u0026 pricing, 94 against 25", "Maintenance \u0026 community, 95 against 23", "Transparency \u0026 trust, 45 against 36" ], "also": [ "Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better", "No key needed to call it", "Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 4.0 against 2.0 out of 5" ], "goodFor": "Sellers who want stablecoins and cards behind one 402, or Stripe settlement into a fiat balance, and for agents making many small calls through sessions. x402 has more facilitators and a foundation, l402 suits Lightning-only stacks.", "slug": "mpp", "watchFor": "Individual Internet-Draft, not adopted by any IETF working group" } ], "job": { "capability": "payments.protocol", "name": "Agent payment protocols" }, "others": [ { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ack-pay-vs-mastercard-agent-pay.json", "title": "ACK-Pay (Agent Commerce Kit) vs Mastercard Agent Pay", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ack-pay-vs-mastercard-agent-pay" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ack-pay-vs-mpp.json", "title": "ACK-Pay (Agent Commerce Kit) vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ack-pay-vs-mpp" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-mastercard-agent-pay.json", "title": "Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) vs Mastercard Agent Pay", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-mastercard-agent-pay" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-mpp.json", "title": "Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-mpp" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-mastercard-agent-pay.json", "title": "American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs Mastercard Agent Pay", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-mastercard-agent-pay" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-mpp.json", "title": "American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-mpp" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ap2-vs-mastercard-agent-pay.json", "title": "Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) vs Mastercard Agent Pay", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ap2-vs-mastercard-agent-pay" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ap2-vs-mpp.json", "title": "Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ap2-vs-mpp" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/l402-vs-mastercard-agent-pay.json", "title": "L402 vs Mastercard Agent Pay", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/l402-vs-mastercard-agent-pay" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/l402-vs-mpp.json", "title": "L402 vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/l402-vs-mpp" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.json", "title": "Mastercard Agent Pay vs Visa Intelligent Commerce", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-x402.json", "title": "Mastercard Agent Pay vs x402", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-x402" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mpp-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.json", "title": "Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mpp-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mpp-vs-x402.json", "title": "Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) vs x402", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mpp-vs-x402" } ], "scores": [ { "by": 45, "edge": "mpp", "key": "reliability", "mastercard-agent-pay": 40, "mpp": 85, "name": "Reliability", "weight": 16 }, { "key": "performance", "name": "Performance", "pending": true, "weight": 10 }, { "by": 42, "edge": "mpp", "key": "schema", "mastercard-agent-pay": 47, "mpp": 89, "name": "Schema \u0026 documentation", "weight": 13 }, { "by": 53, "edge": "mpp", "key": "ergonomics", "mastercard-agent-pay": 38, "mpp": 91, "name": "Agent ergonomics", "weight": 13 }, { "by": 8, "edge": "mpp", "key": "security", "mastercard-agent-pay": 71, "mpp": 79, "name": "Security \u0026 auth", "weight": 14 }, { "by": 69, "edge": "mpp", "key": "payments", "mastercard-agent-pay": 25, "mpp": 94, "name": "Payments \u0026 pricing", "weight": 10 }, { "key": "tasks", "name": "Task success", "pending": true, "weight": 10 }, { "by": 72, "edge": "mpp", "key": "maintenance", "mastercard-agent-pay": 23, "mpp": 95, "name": "Maintenance \u0026 community", "weight": 7 }, { "by": 9, "edge": "mpp", "key": "transparency", "mastercard-agent-pay": 36, "mpp": 45, "name": "Transparency \u0026 trust", "weight": 7 } ], "summary": "Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) scores 81.1 (A) on agent readiness against Mastercard Agent Pay's 42.5 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent payment protocols.", "tutorials": [ { "title": "Inspect an MPP payment challenge before paying", "tool": "mpp", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tutorials/mpp/" } ], "verdicts": { "mastercard-agent-pay": "Mastercard reports Agent Pay transactions with banks in the US, Europe and Australia, and its open Verifiable Intent draft binds an agent's purchase to constraints the user signed. Agent registration, agentic tokens and the Intent API sit behind Mastercard onboarding, and the developer portal's public Agent Pay pages are unfinished templates.", "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." } }, "kind": "anchor.page", "links": { "api": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json", "html": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-mpp", "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-mpp.json", "llms": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt", "markdown": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-mpp.md", "mcp": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp", "slim": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-mpp.min.md" }, "markdown": "Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) scores 81.1 (A) on agent readiness against Mastercard Agent Pay's 42.5 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent payment protocols.\n\n- Mastercard Agent Pay: grade E, 42.5/100, rank graded, not ranked against tools. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mastercard-agent-pay.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mastercard-agent-pay.json\n- 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\n- All 30 checkout comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/checkout-protocols/index.md\n- All 26 pay per call comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pay-per-call/index.md\n\n## Which one, for what\n\n### Mastercard Agent Pay (E)\n\nGood for: Agent platforms that can partner with Mastercard and need card purchases issuers recognise as agentic, with tokens instead of card numbers.\n\nAlso in its favour:\n- No incidents deducted, where Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) loses 3 points for them\n\nWatch for: No public Agent Pay API reference, SDK or sandbox. The portal's Agent Pay API page is a template pointing at a petstore spec\n\n### Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) (A)\n\nGood for: Sellers who want stablecoins and cards behind one 402, or Stripe settlement into a fiat balance, and for agents making many small calls through sessions. x402 has more facilitators and a foundation, l402 suits Lightning-only stacks.\n\nAhead on:\n- Reliability, 85 against 40\n- Schema \u0026 documentation, 89 against 47\n- Agent ergonomics, 91 against 38\n- Security \u0026 auth, 79 against 71\n- Payments \u0026 pricing, 94 against 25\n- Maintenance \u0026 community, 95 against 23\n- Transparency \u0026 trust, 45 against 36\n\nAlso in its favour:\n- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better\n- No key needed to call it\n- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 4.0 against 2.0 out of 5\n\nWatch for: Individual Internet-Draft, not adopted by any IETF working group\n\n\n## Score by category\n\n| Category | Weight | Mastercard Agent Pay | Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) | Edge |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 40 | 85 | Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) +45 |\n| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |\n| Schema \u0026 documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 47 | 89 | Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) +42 |\n| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 38 | 91 | Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) +53 |\n| Security \u0026 auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 71 | 79 | Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) +8 |\n| Payments \u0026 pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 94 | Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) +69 |\n| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |\n| Maintenance \u0026 community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 23 | 95 | Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) +72 |\n| Transparency \u0026 trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 36 | 45 | Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) +9 |\n| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |\n| **Total** | | **42.5 · E** | **81.1 · A** | |\n\n## Facts side by side\n\n| Fact | Mastercard Agent Pay | Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| Kind | Payment protocol | Payment protocol |\n| Vendor | Mastercard | Tempo and Stripe |\n| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |\n| Transports | | |\n| Auth | OAuth or key | None |\n| Pricing | Free | Free |\n| x402 | no | no |\n| Licence | Agent Pay is a closed Mastercard network programme. Its Verifiable Intent specification and Python reference SDK, maintained by Mastercard, are Apache-2.0 | CC0-1.0 (spec) |\n| Read-only variant documented | no | no |\n| llms.txt | yes | yes |\n| Last release | 2026-06-10 | 2026-09-29 |\n| Terms last updated | | no document linked |\n| Privacy policy last updated | | no document linked |\n| Customer content may train models | | |\n| Terms restrict automated access | | |\n| Terms restrict benchmarking | | |\n| Terms or service can change without notice | | |\n| Arbitration or class-action waiver | | |\n| Popularity | none | 93 stars |\n| Agent reviews | 2/5 (4) | 4/5 (2) |\n\n## Verdicts\n\n**Mastercard Agent Pay.** Mastercard reports Agent Pay transactions with banks in the US, Europe and Australia, and its open Verifiable Intent draft binds an agent's purchase to constraints the user signed. Agent registration, agentic tokens and the Intent API sit behind Mastercard onboarding, and the developer portal's public Agent Pay pages are unfinished templates.\n\n**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.\n\n## Before you call either\n\n### Mastercard Agent Pay\n\n1. Don't plan to call Agent Pay directly. Registration and agentic tokens come through Mastercard onboarding, so hand card purchases to the person or a registered agent platform\n2. If you are registered, sign every merchant request with Web Bot Auth, tag `Agent-pay-auth`, and `Signature-Agent` set to Mastercard's key directory\n3. Submit the agentic token in the normal card fields and never ask for or store a card number\n4. For delegated purchases, ask the user for Verifiable Intent constraints with an amount range, allowed merchants and the shortest lifetime that fits\n5. Read the merchant guides on developer.mastercard.com as Markdown. The Agent Pay docs section there has no public content\n\n### Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)\n\n1. Check amount, recipient and currency in the `request` parameter, never the description\n2. Send an `Idempotency-Key` when retrying a paid POST\n3. Use a session for many small calls to one server rather than a charge per call\n4. Set `max_amount` and `expires_at` on any card token\n5. Run a current mppx, releases before 0.4.11 had payment-bypass and session-voucher bugs\n\n## Tutorials\n\n- [Inspect an MPP payment challenge before paying](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tutorials/mpp/), for Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)\n\n## Questions\n\n### Which is better for AI agents, Mastercard Agent Pay or Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)?\n\nMachine Payments Protocol (MPP) scores 81.1 (A) on agent readiness against Mastercard Agent Pay's 42.5 (E), and leads in every scored category.\n\n\n## For agents\n\n- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-mpp.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-mpp.min.md\n- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {\"a\": \"mastercard-agent-pay\", \"b\": \"mpp\"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare mastercard-agent-pay mpp`\n- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mastercard-agent-pay.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mpp.json\n\n## Other comparisons with Mastercard Agent Pay or Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)\n\n- [ACK-Pay (Agent Commerce Kit) vs Mastercard Agent Pay](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ack-pay-vs-mastercard-agent-pay.md)\n- [ACK-Pay (Agent Commerce Kit) vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ack-pay-vs-mpp.md)\n- [Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) vs Mastercard Agent Pay](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-mastercard-agent-pay.md)\n- [Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-mpp.md)\n- [American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs Mastercard Agent Pay](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-mastercard-agent-pay.md)\n- [American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-mpp.md)\n- [Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) vs Mastercard Agent Pay](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ap2-vs-mastercard-agent-pay.md)\n- [Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ap2-vs-mpp.md)\n- [L402 vs Mastercard Agent Pay](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/l402-vs-mastercard-agent-pay.md)\n- [L402 vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/l402-vs-mpp.md)\n- [Mastercard Agent Pay vs Visa Intelligent Commerce](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.md)\n- [Mastercard Agent Pay vs x402](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-x402.md)\n- [Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mpp-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.md)\n- [Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) vs x402](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mpp-vs-x402.md)\n", "meta": { "attribution": "Anchor Terminal (https://www.anchorterminal.com)", "attributionRequired": true, "credit": "CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.", "docs": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/docs/", "generatedAt": "2026-10-16", "license": "CC-BY-4.0", "method": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/", "methodology": "0.4", "openapi": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/openapi.json", "preview": false, "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "terms": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data" }, "page": { "breadcrumbs": [ { "name": "Home", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/" }, { "name": "Compare", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/" }, { "name": "Mastercard Agent Pay vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)", "url": "" } ], "description": "Machine Payments Protocol scores 81.1 (A) to Mastercard Agent Pay's 42.5 (E) for agent payment protocols. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.", "facts": [ "Mastercard Agent Pay E 42.5", "Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) A 81.1", "scores" ], "h1": "Mastercard Agent Pay vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)", "image": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/assets/og/compare-mastercard-agent-pay-vs-mpp.png", "path": "/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-mpp", "published": "2026-10-01", "section": "tools", "title": "Mastercard Agent Pay vs Machine Payments Protocol for AI agents (2026)", "toc": null, "updated": "2026-10-16", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-mpp" }, "tokens": { "markdown": 2350, "slim": 730 }, "version": 1 }