# Paid vs Tempo

> Tempo scores 76.6 (BB) 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/paid-vs-tempo
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/paid-vs-tempo.md (~2,250 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/paid-vs-tempo.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/paid-vs-tempo.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

Tempo scores 76.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Paid's 55.1 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do usage billing.

- 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
- Tempo: grade BB, 76.6/100, rank #27 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tempo.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tempo.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

### 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.

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

### 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:
- Reliability, 71 against 35
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 64
- Agent ergonomics, 78 against 70
- Security & auth, 70 against 65
- Payments & pricing, 80 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 88 against 77
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 51

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

| Category | Weight | Paid | Tempo | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 35 | 71 | Tempo +36 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 88 | Tempo +24 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 78 | Tempo +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 65 | 70 | Tempo +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 80 | Tempo +50 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 88 | Tempo +11 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 51 | 63 | Tempo +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **55.1 · C** | **76.6 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Paid | Tempo |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Agent Paid Limited | Tempo |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.agentpaid.io/api/v2` | `https://api.tempo.xyz/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Paid's Master Subscription Agreement. The Node and Python SDKs on GitHub are MIT | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | 4 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-24 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2026-07-31 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |
| Popularity | 24k npm/wk | 1k stars, 209k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.1/5 (8) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**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

### 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

### 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, Paid or Tempo?

Tempo scores 76.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Paid's 55.1 (C), and leads in every scored category.

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

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

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

Yes. Paid has a hosted endpoint at https://api.agentpaid.io/api/v2 and Tempo at https://api.tempo.xyz/v1.

### Are Paid and Tempo open source?

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


## For agents

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

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