---
title: "x402: plain-language definition | Am I Ready for Agents?"
description: "x402: A way for a site to ask for payment inside the web request itself, so an agent can pay a small amount and retry without an account. Dated and sourced."
canonical: https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/x402
site: "Am I Ready for Agents?"
last_updated: 2026-11-04
section: "Glossary"
---

# x402: plain-language definition | Am I Ready for Agents?

> x402: A way for a site to ask for payment inside the web request itself, so an agent can pay a small amount and retry without an account. Dated and sourced.

Source: https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/x402
Site: Am I Ready for Agents?
Last reviewed: 2026-11-04

# x402

## In short

x402 suits per-request payments, which is a separate decision from shopping checkout. Whether to accept agent payments is the next stop after x402. Compare it with ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol) and Pay per crawl. Ora counts x402, MPP, ACP, UCP and AP2 so that supporting any one is enough.

## Definition

A way for a site to ask for payment inside the web request itself, so an agent can pay a small amount and retry without an account.

## A dated example

-   Read 4 Nov 2026
    
    Ora counts x402, MPP, ACP, UCP and AP2 so that supporting any one is enough.
    
    Vendor claim. [Ora llms.txt](https://ora.ai/llms.txt?utm_source=amireadyforagents.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=glossary), read 4 Nov 2026
    

## Where it matters

It suits per-request payments, which is a separate decision from shopping checkout.

-   [Whether to accept agent payments](https://amireadyforagents.com/decisions/agent-payments)

## Related terms

-   [ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol)](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/acp-agentic-commerce-protocol)An open standard from OpenAI and Stripe for agents to check out with merchants; the basis of ChatGPT's commerce features.
-   [Pay per crawl](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/pay-per-crawl)Charging AI crawlers a fee for each page they fetch, collected through your CDN.

## Sources

1.  [Ora llms.txt](https://ora.ai/llms.txt?utm_source=amireadyforagents.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=glossary) (ora.ai/llms.txt), read 4 Nov 2026. Vendor claim.

Last reviewed 4 November 2026

Reviewed 4 November 2026. [1 source](#sources), each with the day it was read.