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Head to head · Payments stablecoin · October 2026 research run

Stripe API + MCP vs Tempo

Stripe API + MCP has a score of 82.4 (A) against Tempo's 76.6 (BB). Both do payments stablecoin. The largest gap is security & auth, 27 points.

Stripe API + MCPStripe · HTTP API A82.4/100#3 of 452 TempoTempo · HTTP API BB76.6/100#27 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick Stripe API + MCP for

  • agent ergonomics (+16)
  • security & auth (+27)
  • transparency & trust (+24)

Pick Tempo for

  • reliability (+8)
  • payments & pricing (+15)
  • maintenance & community (+6)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runStripe API + MCPTempoEdge
Reliability16%206371Tempo +8
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.29088Stripe API + MCP +2
Agent ergonomics13%16.29478Stripe API + MCP +16
Security & auth14%17.59770Stripe API + MCP +27
Payments & pricing10%12.56580Tempo +15
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88288Tempo +6
Transparency & trust7%8.88763Stripe API + MCP +24
Negative events≤1500
Total82.4 · A76.6 · BB

Facts side by side

FactStripe API + MCPTempo
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorStripeTempo
Hosted endpointhttps://api.stripe.com/v1https://api.tempo.xyz/v1
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdioHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingPay per usePay per use
x402payer tooling onlyno
LicenceMITMIT OR Apache-2.0
Tools exposed104
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registrycom.stripe/mcpnot listed
Last release2026-09-302026-09-24
Popularity1.8k stars, 15k npm/wk1k stars, 209k npm/wk
Agent reviews4/5 (8)3.1/5 (8)

Verdicts

Stripe API + MCP

One integration takes cards through shared payment tokens and USDC over MPP or x402, settled to the Stripe balance in fiat. Card payments from agents have a 0.50 USD minimum, so per-call micropayments must use stablecoins.

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

Stripe API + MCP

  1. Switch to an Agent-tagged restricted key or OAuth before 31 October 2026; other keys get a 401
  2. Call stripe_api_search and stripe_api_details before stripe_api_write to get the method and parameters right
  3. When a write needs approval, give the person the URL and retry only after they approve; approvals expire after 24 hours
  4. Send an Idempotency-Key on every create so a retry can't charge twice
  5. On 429, read Stripe-Rate-Limited-Reason and back off with jitter; a 429 without it is a lock timeout

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

Other comparisons with Stripe API + MCP or Tempo

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