Skip to main contentCore responsibilities of a merchant
- Advertise payment requirements: Clearly specify which resources or routes require payment and what the pricing is.
- Verify payments: When a buyer requests a protected resource, the merchant checks for valid payment proof.
- Fulfill requests: If payment is proven, the merchant serves the requested content or API response.
- Settle payments: The merchant’s server interacts with a facilitator (either self-hosted or third-party) to verify and settle the on-chain payment, so the merchant doesn’t have to handle underlying payment logic.
Key benefits for merchants
- No need for account management tools
- Universal compatibility: Any agent, any payment method.
- Sub-second settlement: Receive finalized payments in under 1 second
- Composable, drop-in integration: Keep your existing server stack and workflows. Just add x402 to existing routes/endpoints with minimal code.
- Discovery: Your endpoints are automatically discoverable by programmatic buyers (AIs, agents, platforms), opening up additional revenue streams.
How merchants fit the payment flow
- The merchant advertises paid resources, detailing payment requirements and supported chains.
- When an agent requests access, the merchant middleware detects if payment is required and returns a structured
402 Payment Required response.
- Upon receiving a payment proof, the merchant calls the facilitator to verify and settle the payment according to protocol standards.
- Once payment is confirmed, the merchant fulfills the resource request—delivering the API response, content, or data directly to the agent.
- All payment logic, verification, and blockchain settlement is orchestrated by the facilitator, enabling rapid and secure monetization for the merchant.
