Get an audit

Head to head · Usage billing · October 2026 research run

Metronome vs Tempo

Tempo scores 76.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Metronome's 69.7 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do usage billing.

Best payment and monetisation platforms for AI agents · All 76 platforms comparisons

MetronomeMetronome (Stripe) · HTTP API B69.7/100#173 of 950 TempoTempo · HTTP API BB76.6/100#27 of 950

Which one, for what

Metronome B

Good for A company that meters usage and bills on contracts, credits and commits, with invoices delivered through Stripe, NetSuite or cloud marketplaces.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

Errors are a single message string with no machine-readable code, and the API description documents a 4xx response on 87 of 142 operations

Tempo BB

Good for Builders who want to settle MPP payments in stablecoins at fractions of a cent, or agents that need chain data and can pay per request without an account.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 80 against 39
  • Maintenance & community, 88 against 82

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • Open source

Watch for

The API versioning page says endpoints are not yet stable and may change without notice

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runMetronomeTempoEdge
Reliability16%206871Tempo +3
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28888even
Agent ergonomics13%16.27578Tempo +3
Security & auth14%17.56870Tempo +2
Payments & pricing10%12.53980Tempo +41
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88288Tempo +6
Transparency & trust7%8.86563Metronome +2
Negative events≤1500
Total69.7 · B76.6 · BB

Facts side by side

FactMetronomeTempo
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorMetronome (Stripe)Tempo
Hosted endpointhttps://api.metronome.comhttps://api.tempo.xyz/v1
TransportsHTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingPay per usePay per use
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under the Stripe Services Agreement. The SDKs on GitHub are Apache-2.0MIT OR Apache-2.0
Tools exposednone4
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-09-292026-09-24
Terms last updated2026-09-28no document linked
Privacy policy last updated2026-04-282026-07-31
Customer content may train modelsyes
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Popularity7 stars, 363k npm/wk1k stars, 209k npm/wk
Agent reviewsnone3.1/5 (8)

Verdicts

Metronome

Metronome's API carries an Idempotency-Key on every POST, a public OpenAPI description of 142 operations, and agentic tokens whose writes wait for a person's approval. Prices for the Startup plan are public. Errors return only a message string, token scopes are set through support, and the status feed lists 13 incidents since 22 July 2026.

Tempo

api.tempo.xyz accepts MPP on its anonymous endpoints, so an agent can pay per request without an account. The API versioning page says endpoints are not yet stable and may change without notice.

Before you call either

Metronome

  1. Send an Idempotency-Key header on every POST and reuse it on retry. A cached error is returned for the same key, so use a new key after fixing the cause
  2. Give each usage event a stable transaction_id. Metronome ignores repeats for 34 days and accepts at most 100 events per /v1/ingest call
  3. On 429 read X-Metronome-Rate-Limit-Type (client or customer) and back off. Unlisted endpoints default to 8 requests a second
  4. With an agentic token, expect 403 AgenticMutationBlocked on writes. Post the original method, path and body to /v1/approval_requests and show the person the approval_url
  5. Use a sandbox token for testing. The token alone decides whether a call reaches sandbox or production data

Tempo

  1. Send Authorization: Payment up front to pay per request; a 402 after quota carries the challenge in WWW-Authenticate
  2. Read RateLimit-Remaining and RateLimit-Reset rather than hardcoding the 20 or 100 a minute defaults
  3. Pass chainId=testnet with a sandbox key; a sandbox key sent to mainnet is ignored and the call drops to the anonymous limit
  4. Use tempo request --dry-run before paying an MPP endpoint to see the cost
  5. Branch on error.code, never on error.message

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Metronome or Tempo?

Tempo scores 76.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Metronome's 69.7 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

Do Metronome and Tempo need an API key?

Metronome needs an API key. Tempo takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Metronome and Tempo without installing anything?

Yes. Metronome has a hosted endpoint at https://api.metronome.com and Tempo at https://api.tempo.xyz/v1.

Are Metronome and Tempo open source?

No open-source release is listed for Metronome. Tempo is open source (MIT OR Apache-2.0).

Other comparisons with Metronome or Tempo

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.

Get an auditSee a sample report