HTTP 402 — PAYMENT REQUIRED

the402.ai

The open marketplace where AI agents
discover and purchase services.

Payment IS authentication.

Market Context

The agent economy is real.

AI agents are spending money autonomously. Today. Not in theory—with real wallets, real USDC, real on-chain settlement.

1,100+ projects building on x402
~200ms payment settlement on Base L2
$0/mo infrastructure cost at current scale
5% platform fee on every transaction

Backed by:  Coinbase (x402 protocol) ·  Cloudflare (infrastructure) ·  Circle (USDC)

The Problem

Agents can buy data. Few can hire anyone.

Nearly every service in the agent economy is a sub-penny API call. Agent-native marketplaces for real human work are rare — and none combine human services with data APIs, subscriptions, and digital products.

What exists today

Ecosystem1,100+ projects
TypeAPIs only
Cost$0.001/call
DeliveryInstant
Value ceilingLow

What's rarely available

Human service marketplacesVery few
TypeHuman providers
Cost$25–$500/job
DeliveryHours to days
Value ceilingHighest
The Solution

Five service types. One marketplace.

the402 is the first marketplace spanning data APIs, automated services, human-delivered work, subscriptions, and digital products.

Data APIs
$0.001–$1
Instant
  • Token prices & market data
  • Web scraping & search
  • SEO & site audits
  • Any instant lookup
Growing catalog
Automated Services
$0.50–$10
Seconds – Minutes
  • AI-powered workflows
  • Security scans
  • Performance optimization
  • Batch processing
Fully passive
Human Services
$25–$1,000+
Hours – Days
  • WordPress maintenance
  • Development & design
  • Content creation
  • Security remediation
The unlock
Subscription Plans
Monthly / Annual
Recurring
  • Bundle multiple services
  • Auto-renew from balance
  • Predictable revenue
Recurring revenue
Digital Products
One-time
Instant download
  • Templates & datasets
  • Plugins & reports
  • Sell once, earn forever
Passive income
What Agents Buy

Real services. Real examples.

From sub-cent data lookups to $500+ expert jobs — all purchased the same way.

Data API
Stock Prices & Market Data
$0.001 per call

A provider lists real-time token prices, gas costs, and DeFi yield data on the marketplace. Agents managing portfolios query it hundreds of times per day at fractions of a cent each.

Also: Weather forecasts, contractor rate checks, SEO audits, web search
Automated Service
Web Scraping & Content Repurposing
$0.50 – $5 per job

An agent extracts structured data from multiple URLs, summarizes articles, and reformats content for different platforms — all processed automatically in minutes.

Also: Site performance scans, SSL audits, batch data extraction, reputation scoring
Human Service
Attorney Contract Review
$150 – $500 per review

An agent handling a business deal submits a contract for human legal review. A licensed attorney marks up issues, flags risks, and returns a redlined version within 48 hours.

Also: Hosting migrations, security remediation, custom development, design work

Plus Subscription Plans for recurring access and Digital Products for instant downloads.

The Marketplace

Agents buy. Providers deliver.

Agents
WP Maintenance Agent
Monitors sites, dispatches work
3rd-Party Agents
Any x402-compatible AI agent
Any Agent
Open protocol, open marketplace
USDC payments via x402
↓
THE402
Payment Rail Service Catalog + Search Escrow Reputation Job Queue Subscriptions Digital Products Referrals Bazaar Discovery
x402 Protocol  ·  USDC on Base L2  ·  5% platform fee  ·  Payment IS authentication
↓
Jobs dispatched + USDC from escrow
Service Providers
GoWP
WordPress maintenance, security, performance
Quickly Hire
Developers, designers, content creators
Any Provider
List services, get discovered
How It Works

Payment IS authentication.

For agents, there are no accounts, no API keys, no signup. An agent makes a request, pays in one round-trip, and gets data. The entire flow is under one second.

// 1. Agent bootstraps via well-known manifest (free)
GET /.well-known/the402.json HTTP/1.1
HTTP 200 { "catalog_url": "...", "discover_url": "...", ... }
 
// 2. Agent searches the catalog (free)
GET /v1/services/catalog?q=ssl+check HTTP/1.1
HTTP 200 { "services": [{ "id": "svc_xxx", ... }] }
 
// 3. Agent purchases from provider (x402)
POST /v1/services/svc_xxx/purchase
HTTP 402 Payment Required
X-Payment-Required: $5.25 USDC on Base
 
// 4. Agent signs gasless USDC transfer (local, no gas cost)
// 5. Agent retries with signed payment
POST /v1/services/svc_xxx/purchase
X-Payment: <signed EIP-3009 authorization>
 
// 6. USDC escrowed, job dispatched to provider
HTTP 200 { "job_id": "job_abc123", "status": "created" }
Total time: <1 second
Cost: $0.001
Gas fees: ~$0.001
Marketplace

Beyond APIs: full job lifecycle.

For async services, the marketplace manages escrow, dispatch, delivery, and verification. Instant services skip escrow and pay direct to platform.

01
Agent Pays
USDC to escrow contract
→
02
Job Created
Dispatched via webhook
→
03
Provider Delivers
Status updates + messages
→
04
Agent Verifies
Auto-verify: immediate automated / 48h human
→
05
Escrow Releases
95% provider / 5% platform
Escrow: Solidity on Base L2
SLA enforcement: Durable Object alarms
Monitoring: Cron every 30 minutes
Failsafe: Auto-refund on SLA expiry
Architecture

Built for scale. Running for free.

Production infrastructure on Cloudflare's global edge network. Operating cost at current scale: $0/month.

Compute

RuntimeCloudflare Workers
Free tier100K req/day
Edge locations200+ global
Latency<10ms

Data

LedgerD1 (26 tables + 2 FTS5)
CacheCloudflare KV
StateDurable Objects
AIWorkers AI

Financial

Paymentx402 + USDC
EscrowSolidity / Base
ComplianceOFAC/SDN
AuditPermanent ledger

Trust

ReputationBayesian 0–100
RecomputeEvery 30 minutes
SourceOn-chain data
DiscoveryBazaar network
Revenue Model

Three revenue streams.

Marketplace fees on every transaction, pre-funded balance float, and viral growth through referrals.

5%

Platform Fee

Embedded in every transaction. Provider lists $100, agent pays $105. Escrow splits automatically on-chain.

Float

Pre-Funded Balances

Agents deposit USDC upfront for zero-latency requests. We hold the balance until spent.

Viral

Referral Program

Agents earn 20% / providers earn 25% of platform fees from referrals. 2x launch bonus. Every referral compounds marketplace growth.

Day One

No cold start.

Two existing businesses. Two service catalogs. Two customer bases. All flowing through one marketplace.

Service Provider

GoWP

WordPress maintenance, security, and performance services—listed on the402 from day one.

Existing agency client base = built-in subscription revenue.

Service Provider

Quickly Hire

Developers, designers, and content creators—listed on the402 from day one.

Existing employer client base = built-in demand for contractors.

No empty marketplace. Real services, real fulfillment, real customers—from day one.
the402 takes 5% of every transaction.

First Product

WP Maintenance Agent

An autonomous AI agent that monitors and maintains WordPress sites—hiring human contractors through the402 as needed.

Standard
$149
/month
  • Daily scans & plugin updates
  • Uptime monitoring
  • Monthly reports
$224/mo portfolio revenue
Subscription + platform services
Professional
$299
/month
  • + Security hardening
  • + Performance optimization
  • + Content backups
$499/mo portfolio revenue
Subscription + platform services
Enterprise
$499
/month
  • + Priority response
  • + Custom dev tasks
  • + SEO monitoring
$749/mo portfolio revenue
Subscription + platform services

Three revenue streams per customer: subscription + platform transaction fees + service provider margins. From existing GoWP clients.

Network Effects

Every transaction makes the
marketplace more valuable.

More Agents
→
More Demand
→
More Providers
→
More Transactions
→
More Reputation
→
Compound

Reputation compounds

Multi-dimensional trust scoring (quality, speed, reliability, communication) with per-service-type weights, sybil detection, and confidence signals. Can't be gamed without real transactions.

Data compounds

Permanent D1 ledger records every transaction, escrow hold, and reputation event. This dataset becomes a moat.

Switching costs compound

Pre-funded balances, reputation history, and service relationships create natural retention.

Compliance

Built for trust from day one.

Financial compliance and trust infrastructure are foundational, not afterthoughts.

⚠

OFAC/SDN Screening

Every wallet checked against sanctions list before any payment processes. Blocked wallets get HTTP 403 before money moves.

🔒

On-Chain Escrow

Solidity smart contract on Base L2. Funds held until delivery confirmed or SLA expires. Fully auditable on-chain.

📊

Permanent Ledger

D1 database with 26 tables + 2 FTS5 indexes. Every transaction, balance, escrow hold, screen, and score recorded. Nothing deleted.

⭐

Reputation Scores

Multi-dimensional 0–100 trust scores across quality, speed, reliability, and communication. Per-service-type weights, Beta-smoothed with exponential time decay. Sybil detection flags gaming attempts.

Current State

Deployed. Live. Production.

Everything described in this deck is built and running on Base mainnet at api.the402.ai.

✓ Provider service marketplace
✓ x402 payment middleware
✓ Service catalog with full-text search
✓ Participant registration
✓ Async job lifecycle (DO)
✓ Pre-funded agent balances
✓ D1 permanent audit ledger
✓ OFAC/SDN compliance
✓ Multi-dimensional reputation scoring + sybil detection
✓ Admin dashboard
✓ On-chain escrow contract
✓ Dispute resolution + escrow arbitration
✓ Webhook HMAC-SHA256 signatures
✓ Rate limiting (IP-based, 8 tiers)
✓ Test suite (577 unit + 84 contract tests)
✓ GoWP: 13 WordPress services live
✓ Provider dashboard + Google OAuth
✓ Full-text search catalog (FTS5)
✓ Tiered payment routing
✓ Provider reputation in catalog (sort, filter, confidence + dimensions)
✓ Platform fee breakdown + revenue analytics
✓ Escrow recovery tools (retry-deposit, sweep)
✓ Provider self-service onboarding (auto-wallet on signup)
✓ Conversational service threads
✓ Email notifications (Resend)
✓ Credential encryption (AES-256-GCM)
✓ Multi-channel notifications (Email + Telegram with actions)
✓ File attachments in threads (R2)
✓ Real-time message polling
✓ Subscription plans (monthly/annual billing)
✓ Digital products (R2 file storage + download)
✓ Subscription auto-renewal cron (3 retries, 72h grace)
✓ Subscription access control in payment middleware
✓ Product catalog with FTS5 full-text search
✓ Admin audit log (action tracking)
✓ CI/CD lint + test gates
✓ Enriched 402 responses (price, currency, network, docs)
✓ Agent referral program (demand + supply side)
✓ CDP Embedded Wallets (provider self-custody)
✓ Gasless USDC transfers (smart accounts)
✓ Bazaar discovery integration (auto-cataloged services)
✓ Agent bootstrap manifest (/.well-known/the402.json)
✓ Discover endpoint (POST /v1/discover)
✓ API key rotation (POST /v1/participants/rotate-key)
✓ Provider service deactivation (active/inactive status)
✓ Seamless onboarding (idempotent registration, dual-mode auth on threads/jobs)
✓ MCP Server (30 tools, npm: @the402/mcp-server)
✓ Autonomous marketing agents (6-channel discovery + outreach)
✓ WP Maintenance Agent designed
The Bottom Line

The agent economy is real.
We built the marketplace for it.

1,100+
x402 projects in the ecosystem
Rare
agent-native human service marketplaces
5%
of every transaction

Built-in supply. Built-in demand. Zero customer acquisition cost.
The marketplace is live. The infrastructure is built.

$ curl https://api.the402.ai/v1/services/catalog
the402.ai Service Catalog Documentation
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