# Agent Vault by Self vs Turnkey Agentic Wallets

> Turnkey Agentic Wallets scores 76 (BB) to Agent Vault by Self's 52.4 (D) for wallet spend limits. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/self-agent-vault-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/self-agent-vault-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/self-agent-vault-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.min.md (~830 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/self-agent-vault-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.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
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-17

Turnkey Agentic Wallets scores 76 (BB) on agent readiness against Agent Vault by Self's 52.4 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do wallet spend limits.

- Agent Vault by Self: grade D, 52.4/100, rank #823 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/self-agent-vault.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/self-agent-vault.json
- Turnkey Agentic Wallets: grade BB, 76/100, rank #45 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/turnkey-agentic-wallets.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/turnkey-agentic-wallets.json
- Best agent wallets and spending controls: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-wallets/index.md
- All 38 wallets comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-wallets/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Agent Vault by Self (D)

Good for: A person or developer who wants an agent to buy and sign in on ordinary websites with the holder's own card and logins, without the agent seeing them.

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

Watch for: The home page and launch post say cards are revealed only in an attested enclave. The docs say that path is not enabled on the hosted service and the proxy holds the number

### Turnkey Agentic Wallets (BB)

Good for: A company that wants agents to sign from its own wallets under rules checked in an enclave, with a person co-approving large transactions, across EVM, Solana, Bitcoin, Tron and other chains.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 75 against 40
- Agent ergonomics, 77 against 66
- Security & auth, 85 against 76
- Payments & pricing, 58 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 83 against 48
- Transparency & trust, 72 against 47

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- No incidents deducted, where Agent Vault by Self loses 4 points for them

Watch for: Documented policy conditions cap value per transaction only. Rolling-window Velocity Controls appear in the SDK clients but not in the docs


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Agent Vault by Self | Turnkey Agentic Wallets | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 40 | 75 | Turnkey Agentic Wallets +35 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 76 | 79 | Turnkey Agentic Wallets +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 77 | Turnkey Agentic Wallets +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 76 | 85 | Turnkey Agentic Wallets +9 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 58 | Turnkey Agentic Wallets +28 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 48 | 83 | Turnkey Agentic Wallets +35 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 47 | 72 | Turnkey Agentic Wallets +25 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **52.4 · D** | **76 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Agent Vault by Self | Turnkey Agentic Wallets |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | SocialConnect Labs, Inc. (Self Labs) | Turnkey Global, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.agentvault.io/mcp` | `https://api.turnkey.com` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted service. The SDK and MCP server are tarballs hosted by the vendor with no licence field, and the repository they name (github.com/selfxyz/agent-vault) is not public. The checkout recipe registry, selfxyz/agent-checkout-skill, is MIT | Proprietary service under Turnkey's terms of service. The SDKs, the CLI and the agent skills on GitHub are Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 30 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-17 | 2026-10-16 |
| Terms last updated |  | 2026-08-06 |
| Privacy policy last updated |  | 2026-06-29 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | none | 304k npm/wk, 12k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.8/5 (4) | 3/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**Agent Vault by Self.** Scoped, revocable keys, OAuth on the hosted MCP server, spending caps, approvals and a documented threat model are designed to keep real card numbers and passwords out of the agent's context. The home page and launch post say cards are revealed only in an attested enclave, while the docs say that path is off on the hosted service.

**Turnkey Agentic Wallets.** An agent gets a non-root user that can sign nothing until a policy allows it, with DENY rules taking precedence and human co-approval available. Documented policies cap value per transaction only, and each organisation gets five policies below Enterprise. Signing endpoints returned elevated errors for five hours on 27 August 2026.

## Before you call either

### Agent Vault by Self

1. Pass the `session` handle from each hosted MCP result on every later call. Without it a page tool is refused or a new signed-out browser opens
2. On a `pending` answer, call `get_pending_result` with its `wait` id in the same turn. Repeating the original call starts a second one
3. Tell the user when `waiting_on_owner` is true. A first fill on a new site waits up to 15 minutes for the holder's approval
4. Before retrying a fill after an unknown outcome, check the merchant's order state or `get_run_report`. Some failures keep a recorded spend
5. Ask the holder to add an agent card to every card the agent may use. A card marked No limits accepts any amount on authorised sites

### Turnkey Agentic Wallets

1. Use a non-root user's key. Refuse root credentials for unattended work, because root bypasses every policy
2. Scope every signing ALLOW policy by `wallet.id` or `wallet_account.address`, or it covers every key the user can reach
3. Check the activity status on each response. `ACTIVITY_STATUS_CONSENSUS_NEEDED` means a person must approve within 24 hours
4. Retry with the identical body to stay idempotent. Changing `timestampMs` creates a new activity
5. Back off with jitter on 429 and poll `get_activity` sparingly, since polling counts against the same 1 to 3 requests a second

## Tutorials

- [List agent wallets with the Turnkey server SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tutorials/turnkey-agentic-wallets/), for Turnkey Agentic Wallets

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Agent Vault by Self or Turnkey Agentic Wallets?

Turnkey Agentic Wallets scores 76 (BB) on agent readiness against Agent Vault by Self's 52.4 (D), and leads in every scored category.

### Do Agent Vault by Self and Turnkey Agentic Wallets need an API key?

Agent Vault by Self takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Turnkey Agentic Wallets needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Agent Vault by Self and Turnkey Agentic Wallets without installing anything?

Yes. Agent Vault by Self has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.agentvault.io/mcp and Turnkey Agentic Wallets at https://api.turnkey.com.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Agent Vault by Self or Turnkey Agentic Wallets

- [Agentcard vs Agent Vault by Self](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-self-agent-vault.md)
- [Circle Wallets (Agent Wallets, Programmable Wallets) vs Turnkey Agentic Wallets](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circle-wallets-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.md)
- [Coinbase Developer Platform (Agentic Wallet, AgentKit, CDP MCP) vs Turnkey Agentic Wallets](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/coinbase-cdp-agentkit-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.md)
- [Kite Agent Passport vs Turnkey Agentic Wallets](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kite-agent-passport-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.md)
- [Openfort vs Turnkey Agentic Wallets](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openfort-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.md)
- [Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine) vs Turnkey Agentic Wallets](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/privy-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.md)
- [Sponge Wallet vs Turnkey Agentic Wallets](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sponge-wallet-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.md)
- [Agentcard vs Turnkey Agentic Wallets](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcard-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.md)
- [Circle Wallets (Agent Wallets, Programmable Wallets) vs Agent Vault by Self](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circle-wallets-vs-self-agent-vault.md)
- [Coinbase Developer Platform (Agentic Wallet, AgentKit, CDP MCP) vs Agent Vault by Self](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/coinbase-cdp-agentkit-vs-self-agent-vault.md)
- [Kite Agent Passport vs Agent Vault by Self](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kite-agent-passport-vs-self-agent-vault.md)
- [Openfort vs Agent Vault by Self](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openfort-vs-self-agent-vault.md)
- [Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine) vs Agent Vault by Self](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/privy-vs-self-agent-vault.md)
- [Agent Vault by Self vs Sponge Wallet](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/self-agent-vault-vs-sponge-wallet.md)

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