# Mastercard Agent Pay vs x402 (slim)

> x402 scores 79.7 (A) to Mastercard Agent Pay's 42.5 (E) for agent payment protocols. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-10-16
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x402 scores 79.7 (A) on agent readiness against Mastercard Agent Pay's 42.5 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent payment protocols.

- Mastercard Agent Pay: E 42.5, rank graded, not ranked against tools · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mastercard-agent-pay.min.md
- x402: A 79.7, rank graded, not ranked against tools · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/x402.min.md
- Mastercard Agent Pay, good for Agent platforms that can partner with Mastercard and need card purchases issuers recognise as agentic, with tokens instead of card numbers. Also No incidents deducted, where x402 loses 3 points for them.
- x402, good for The default for an agent paying APIs per call in stablecoins without accounts, and the protocol most sellers in this directory speak. Ahead on Reliability, 87 against 40; Schema & documentation, 86 against 47; Agent ergonomics, 84 against 38; Payments & pricing, 97 against 25; Maintenance & community, 93 against 23; Transparency & trust, 65 against 36. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; No key needed to call it; Open source; Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 4.5 against 2.0 out of 5.

| Category | Mastercard Agent Pay | x402 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 40 | 87 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 47 | 86 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 38 | 84 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 71 | 67 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 25 | 97 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 23 | 93 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 36 | 65 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Mastercard Agent Pay | x402 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Mastercard | x402 Foundation (Linux Foundation) |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Licence | Agent Pay is a closed Mastercard network programme. Its Verifiable Intent specification and Python reference SDK, maintained by Mastercard, are Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Last release | 2026-06-10 | 2026-09-30 |
| Terms last updated |  | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated |  | no document linked |
| Popularity | none | 6.4k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (4) | 4.5/5 (2) |