How to cap what an AI agent spends

PayAPI Market does not issue a card or a spend mandate. The practical cap is the USDC you put in a dedicated wallet, plus a per-call ceiling in the agent or x402 client. Every unpaid call returns HTTP 402 with the exact amount before any money moves, so the agent can refuse a call that is too expensive. There are no subscriptions or recurring charges.

Last updated: 13 November 2026

Use a dedicated wallet

Give the agent a wallet that holds only the USDC you can afford to lose on that agent. Spend cannot exceed the balance. When the balance is gone, the next payment cannot settle. That is the hard cap, and it does not depend on a platform remembering a policy.

Fund the network the listing offers. Provider listings settle USDC on Base, Solana or Algorand. Read the 402 before you sign so the wallet you funded is the network named in the challenge. A dedicated wallet also keeps this agent's calls separate from a treasury you use for something else. Top it up only when you have decided the agent may spend more.

Set a per-call cap

Read the 402. It states the exact USDC amount before any money moves. Refuse the call when the amount is above the ceiling you set in the agent or the x402 client. The client should not sign a challenge it has not compared with that ceiling.

get_api also returns price_min and price_max for the listing. Those figures are a preview, read from the live challenge when the catalogue was built. The challenge on the call is the amount you will be asked to sign. If the two disagree, trust the challenge for that call and treat the listing as stale. There is no subscription and no recurring charge to cancel.

Prefer settlement-verified routes when you want a receipt already on file

Settlement-verified means PayAPI paid one specific route from its own wallet, got a real product response, and links the on-chain USDC receipt. It is evidence about that past call, not a guarantee of future behaviour, and it does not cover the other routes on the listing. How we verify says what the badge proves and what it does not.

A 402 check is weaker. It means the unpaid request asked for Circle USDC. Nobody bought the product. Prefer a settlement-verified route when the job matters and you want a receipt you can open before you spend your own USDC. The badge is still not a promise that the next call will succeed.

What PayAPI does not do

PayAPI Market does not enrol a card, does not enforce a platform mandate, and does not sell credit packs. It is a catalogue. You control spend with the wallet you fund and with a per-call cap. The payment goes to the provider's wallet. PayAPI takes 0% of each job and does not hold the funds.

If you need a delegated card or a merchant-side mandate, that is a different category of tool. The wallet method on this page is enough to buy a settlement-verified route. The same limits are also answered on the FAQ, under "Can I cap what my agent spends?" and "How do we control what our agents spend?".

A note on spend mandates

Nevermined publishes spend mandates, with an amount, a purchase count and an expiry, on https://nevermined.ai/ when that page was fetched on 13 November 2026. That is a payments-infrastructure feature. It is not required to buy a settlement-verified route on PayAPI Market.

You can read the product difference, with sources and dates, on x402 marketplaces compared. The payment itself is explained at AI agent payments. The x402 marketplace explainer is what an x402 marketplace is.

Live counts

At this render (13 November 2026) the same catalogue query that writes llms.txt counted 1,616 settlement-verified APIs, 2,812 listed. /api/catalogue is that catalogue, and it includes imported_unclaimed listings by default. llms.txt always has the latest pair. A 402 check is a separate label and is not the settlement-verified badge.

Frequently asked questions

How do I let my AI agent pay for things without overspending?

Give the agent a dedicated wallet funded with a bounded USDC balance, and set a per-call cap in the client. On PayAPI Market every provider 402 states the exact price before any money moves, so the agent can stop before it signs. PayAPI does not hold the funds and takes 0% of each job.

Can I cap what my agent spends?

Yes. Total spend cannot exceed the USDC in the wallet you fund, and your client can refuse any 402 above a per-call limit. There are no subscriptions or recurring charges.

Does PayAPI issue a spend mandate or a card for my agent?

No. PayAPI Market is a catalogue. You control spend with the wallet you fund and with a per-call cap. The payment goes to the provider's wallet.

What an x402 marketplace is · Browse x402 APIs · AI agent marketplace guide · x402 marketplaces compared · AI agent payments · How to cap agent spend