# Orb vs Paid

> Orb scores 66.5 (B) to Paid's 55.1 (C) for usage billing. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orb-vs-paid
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orb-vs-paid.md (~2,400 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orb-vs-paid.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orb-vs-paid.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: 2026-10-09

Orb scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Paid's 55.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Paid leads on security & auth and payments & pricing. Both do usage billing.

- Orb: grade B, 66.5/100, rank #289 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/orb.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/orb.json
- Paid: grade C, 55.1/100, rank #669 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/paid.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/paid.json
- Best payment and monetisation platforms for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/payment-platforms/index.md
- All 76 platforms comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/payment-platforms/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Orb (B)

Good for: A software or AI company that bills on usage and needs event metering, plan versioning, prepaid credits, invoicing and revenue reporting behind one API, with Stripe or Adyen collecting the money.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 77 against 35
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 64
- Agent ergonomics, 84 against 70
- Maintenance & community, 82 against 77
- Transparency & trust, 65 against 51

Watch for: All three plans (Core, Advanced, Enterprise) show custom pricing only, and the pricing page sends new customers to sales

### Paid (C)

Good for: A team selling an AI agent that needs usage metering, credit balances, cost and margin tracking and invoicing in one service, with Stripe as the payment rail.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 65 against 55
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 5

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: The docs index advertises an OpenAPI 3.1 file at two addresses, and both returned 404 on 9 October 2026


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Orb | Paid | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 77 | 35 | Orb +42 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 64 | Orb +24 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 84 | 70 | Orb +14 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 55 | 65 | Paid +10 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 5 | 30 | Paid +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 77 | Orb +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 51 | Orb +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **66.5 · B** | **55.1 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Orb | Paid |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Orb, Inc. | Agent Paid Limited |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.withorb.com/v1` | `https://api.agentpaid.io/api/v2` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Orb's Platform Terms and Conditions. The SDKs on GitHub are Apache-2.0 | Proprietary service under Paid's Master Subscription Agreement. The Node and Python SDKs on GitHub are MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-09 | 2026-09-15 |
| Terms last updated | 2024-11-13 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-05-07 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 5 stars, 185k npm/wk | 24k npm/wk |

## Verdicts

**Orb.** Orb suits a company that bills on usage and wants one API for events, plans, credits and invoices. It publishes an OpenAPI 3.1 file, numeric rate limits, idempotency keys and a dry-run header. Every plan is priced on request and access starts with sales. No scope list for API keys or public sub-processor list was found.

**Paid.** Paid suits a builder who wants usage metering, credits and invoicing behind one API, with restricted and customer-bound keys, OAuth on the MCP server and a free plan that needs no card. No status page, SLA figure, API changelog or rate-limit numbers were found, both advertised OpenAPI links returned 404, and card payments need the builder's own Stripe account.

## Before you call either

### Orb

1. Call `https://api.withorb.com/v1` with `Authorization: Bearer <key>`. A person creates the key in the Orb web app under organisation settings, in test mode or live mode
2. Send an `Idempotency-Key` of at most 64 characters on every POST and PATCH. A 409 means the first request is still running or the body changed
3. Add `Dry-Run: True` to check a write first, and confirm `Orb-Dry-Run: true` in the response. Ingest, amend and deprecate event calls ignore it and run for real
4. Do not send `Idempotency-Key` with `Dry-Run`. Orb returns a validation error
5. Page with `limit` (default 20, maximum 100) and pass `next_cursor` back as `cursor` while `has_more` is true
6. Back off exponentially on 429. Test mode allows 5 writes a second and 2,000 ingested events a minute

### Paid

1. Call `https://api.agentpaid.io/api/v2` with `Authorization: Bearer <key>`. A person creates the first key at app.paid.ai. No programmatic signup was found
2. Give every signal a stable `idempotencyKey` and resend the same key on retry. Signals without one are not deduplicated
3. Send at most 500 signals a request. A 429 rejects the whole batch, so wait for `Retry-After` and resend it all
4. Read the `code` field on a 429. `CONCURRENCY_LIMIT_EXCEEDED` carries no `Retry-After` and clears when an analytics query finishes
5. Install the Python SDK as `paid-python`, the name in its README and `pyproject.toml`. The quickstart's `pip install paid` names a package we could not check

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Orb or Paid?

Orb scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Paid's 55.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Paid leads on security & auth and payments & pricing.

### Do Orb and Paid need an API key?

Orb needs an API key. Paid takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Orb and Paid without installing anything?

Yes. Orb has a hosted endpoint at https://api.withorb.com/v1 and Paid at https://api.agentpaid.io/api/v2.


## For agents

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

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