# Orb vs Payman Genie MCP

> Orb scores 66.5 (B) to Payman Genie MCP's 52.5 (D) for card payments. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orb-vs-payman
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orb-vs-payman.md (~2,300 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orb-vs-payman.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orb-vs-payman.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 Payman Genie MCP's 52.5 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Payman Genie MCP leads on security & auth and payments & pricing. Both do card payments.

- 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
- Payman Genie MCP: grade D, 52.5/100, rank #735 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/payman.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/payman.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 25
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 56
- Agent ergonomics, 84 against 68
- Maintenance & community, 82 against 60
- Transparency & trust, 65 against 43

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

### Payman Genie MCP (D)

Good for: A person or small business who wants an assistant to pay bills, issue one-time cards or pay x402 APIs within hard limits.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 80 against 55
- Payments & pricing, 35 against 5

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No published pricing, status page, rate limits or changelog


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Orb | Payman Genie MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 77 | 25 | Orb +52 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 56 | Orb +32 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 84 | 68 | Orb +16 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 55 | 80 | Payman Genie MCP +25 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 5 | 35 | Payman Genie MCP +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 60 | Orb +22 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 43 | Orb +22 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **66.5 · B** | **52.5 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Orb | Payman Genie MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Orb, Inc. | Payman AI |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.withorb.com/v1` | `https://genie.paymanai.com/mcp` |
| Transports | HTTP | Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Orb's Platform Terms and Conditions. The SDKs on GitHub are Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 5 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-09 | 2026-09-19 |
| Terms last updated | 2024-11-13 | 2026-09-29 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-05-07 | 2026-09-29 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 5 stars, 185k npm/wk | 0 stars, 33 npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |

## 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.

**Payman Genie MCP.** OAuth 2.1 with PKCE, two scopes, one-hour access tokens and refresh tokens rotated on every use and revoked on logout. No published pricing, status page, rate limits or changelog.

## 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

### Payman Genie MCP

1. Pass the person's request to `ask_genie` in their own words; don't pick accounts or fill payment fields
2. On `needs_approval`, stop and tell the person; approval happens in their Genie account
3. Retry only after `NOTHING_RAN` or `BUSY`, never after `OUTCOME_UNKNOWN`
4. Treat `done` as acted, not settled; check the activity history before confirming a payment
5. Sign-ins from bridge 0.3.x lack `genie:self`; log out and sign in again to use the self-service tools

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Orb or Payman Genie MCP?

Orb scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Payman Genie MCP's 52.5 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Payman Genie MCP leads on security & auth and payments & pricing.

### Do Orb and Payman Genie MCP need an API key?

Orb needs an API key. Payman Genie MCP uses an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Orb and Payman Genie MCP without installing anything?

Yes. Orb has a hosted endpoint at https://api.withorb.com/v1 and Payman Genie MCP at https://genie.paymanai.com/mcp.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Orb or Payman Genie MCP

- [ATXP vs Orb](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atxp-vs-orb.md)
- [Lago vs Orb](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-orb.md)
- [Metronome vs Orb](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/metronome-vs-orb.md)
- [Nevermined API + MCP vs Orb](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nevermined-vs-orb.md)
- [Orb vs Paid](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orb-vs-paid.md)
- [Orb vs Stripe API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orb-vs-stripe-mcp.md)
- [Orb vs Tempo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orb-vs-tempo.md)
- [Adyen MCP server vs Orb](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adyen-mcp-server-vs-orb.md)
- [Adyen MCP server vs Payman Genie MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adyen-mcp-server-vs-payman.md)
- [Crossmint API + Docs MCP vs Orb](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crossmint-vs-orb.md)
- [Crossmint API + Docs MCP vs Payman Genie MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crossmint-vs-payman.md)
- [Lago vs Payman Genie MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lago-vs-payman.md)
- [Orb vs Skyfire API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orb-vs-skyfire.md)
- [Paid vs Payman Genie MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/paid-vs-payman.md)
- [Payman Genie MCP vs Skyfire API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/payman-vs-skyfire.md)
- [ATXP vs Payman Genie MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atxp-vs-payman.md)
- [Circle Gateway Nanopayments vs Payman Genie MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circle-gateway-nanopayments-vs-payman.md)
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