# Mercury API vs Ramp

> Mercury API scores 63.8 (B) on agent readiness against Ramp's 57.3 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Ramp leads on schema & documentation, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do spend transactions. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mercury-vs-ramp
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mercury-vs-ramp.md (~2,150 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mercury-vs-ramp.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mercury-vs-ramp.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

Mercury API scores 63.8 (B) on agent readiness against Ramp's 57.3 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Ramp leads on schema & documentation, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do spend transactions.

- Mercury API: grade B, 63.8/100, rank #293 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mercury.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mercury.json
- Ramp: grade C, 57.3/100, rank #478 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ramp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/ramp.json

## Which one, for what

### Mercury API (B)

Good for: A company that banks with Mercury and wants an agent to read balances and transactions, set notes and categories, upload receipts, issue virtual cards with spend limits and queue payments for human approval.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 59 against 30
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 25

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

Watch for: No rate limits with numbers and no 429 handling were found in the reviewed documentation

### Ramp (C)

Good for: A finance team already on Ramp that wants an agent to read transactions, upload receipts, code and split expenses, issue funds with limits, create bills and work with purchase orders and procurement requests.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 86 against 72
- Maintenance & community, 74 against 64
- Transparency & trust, 70 against 63

Watch for: No public status page was found. status.ramp.com doesn't resolve, and no status link appears in the docs, help centre or trust centre pages read


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Mercury API | Ramp | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 59 | 30 | Mercury API +29 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 86 | Ramp +14 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 66 | Mercury API +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 82 | 79 | Mercury API +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 25 | Mercury API +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 64 | 74 | Ramp +10 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 70 | Ramp +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **63.8 · B** | **57.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Mercury API | Ramp |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Mercury Technologies, Inc. | Ramp Business Corporation |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.mercury.com/api/v1` | `https://api.ramp.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Mercury's Terms of Use. The Mercury CLI on GitHub is Apache-2.0 | Proprietary service under the Ramp Platform Agreement and the API Agreement. The ramp-cli repository is MIT |
| Tools exposed | 35 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-08-12 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | none | 53 stars |

## Verdicts

**Mercury API.** Custom tokens take per-endpoint scopes, write tokens need an IP allowlist, and payments can be queued for approval in the dashboard through `POST /account/{accountId}/request-send-money`. No rate limits, error catalogue or SLA were found in the reviewed documentation, the changelog carries no dates, and the MCP server is beta.

**Ramp.** OAuth 2.0 scopes split read from write across about 40 resources, a 260-operation OpenAPI spec is public, and an audit log endpoint records actions by user and agent. No public status page was found, 89 operations are marked beta, the API Agreement allows changes without notice, and idempotency keys cover only eight write operations.

## Before you call either

### Mercury API

1. Ask for a Custom token with only the scopes the task needs. Scopes can't be edited later, and a token unused for 45 days is deleted.
2. Without a fixed IP address, send payments through `POST /account/{accountId}/request-send-money`. Direct sends through `POST /account/{accountId}/transactions` need an allowlisted IP.
3. Send a stored `idempotencyKey` with every payment. The same recipient, account, amount and method within 24 hours returns 400 even with a new key.
4. Set `limit` on list calls. `GET /transactions` returns up to 1,000 rows by default.
5. Test against `https://api-sandbox.mercury.com/api/v1/` with a sandbox token. Webhooks aren't available in the sandbox.

### Ramp

1. Send `scope` on the client credentials token request. Without it Ramp issues a token with no scopes and every resource call fails with 403
2. Follow the full URL in `next` to page. `page_size` defaults to 20 and stops at 100, and the cursor is opaque
3. Stay under 200 requests in any 10 seconds per source IP and back off 1, 2 then 4 seconds on 429. No Retry-After header is documented
4. Don't use `synced_after` or `from_created_at` to find changed records. Bills and transactions have no updated-at filter, so subscribe to webhooks
5. Send `X-Idempotency-Key` when creating funds or procurement requests. Elsewhere a retried POST can create a duplicate, so read back before retrying

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Mercury API or Ramp?

Mercury API scores 63.8 (B) on agent readiness against Ramp's 57.3 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Ramp leads on schema & documentation, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

### Do Mercury API and Ramp need an API key?

Mercury API takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Ramp uses an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Mercury API and Ramp without installing anything?

Yes. Mercury API has a hosted endpoint at https://api.mercury.com/api/v1 and Ramp at https://api.ramp.com.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Mercury API or Ramp

- [Airwallex Spend and Issuing vs Mercury API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airwallex-vs-mercury.md)
- [Airwallex Spend and Issuing vs Ramp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airwallex-vs-ramp.md)
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- [BILL vs Ramp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bill-vs-ramp.md)
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- [Ramp vs Spendesk API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ramp-vs-spendesk.md)