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mcp-pay View on GitHub

Developers who want their MCP tools to earn without a checkout page

Monetizing an agent tool server

Turn a useful MCP tool server into a paid service that agents can discover and pay automatically, using a static manifest and the standard 402 flow.

The problem

Agents transact autonomously, so a human checkout flow does not fit. You need machine-discoverable pricing and a payment handshake an agent can complete on its own.

How mcp-pay helps

Publish pay.json so agents discover pricing before calling, and let the 402 flow handle payment in-band. The agent budgets, pays, and gets the result — no human in the loop.

What that looks like in practice

  • Pricing is discoverable at /.well-known/ before the first paid call.
  • The 402 + X-PAYMENT handshake is fully machine-completable.
  • Settlement metadata comes back with the result for the agent to log.
  • Draft-stage and open, so you can shape the schema to your billing model.

Build this flow

See the 402 handshake, browse more use cases, or follow a guide.