Aug 12, 2026How to get paid when an AI agent wants to buy from you12 min readVybe Blog
How money should work— written down.
How-tos and what-is notes on Collect, Pay, Wallet, and Developers—each with a checklist, then a path into the product.
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Notes
Start here. Then open the product.
Five notes per pillar. Every one ends in a checklist and a real action: claim @you, pay by name, or wrap a 402 route.
How to get paid when an AI agent wants to buy from you
Agents can already spend. Most sellers still can’t take the payment. Collect is the inbound rail—same catalog for humans and agents.
Read the noteHow to get paid when an AI agent wants to buy from you
Agents can already spend. Most sellers still can’t take the payment. Collect is the inbound rail—same catalog for humans and agents.
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What is a machine-readable price list?
If an agent can’t read your prices, it can’t pay you. A catalog with ids, locked amounts, and receipts is the difference between a DM and a sale.
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How to publish a freelance service page that actually gets paid
A pretty /s/@you page that still dumps people into DMs is a brochure. Book & pay — locked offerings, one balance — is the job.
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Invoice vs payment link vs catalog: what to send a client
One-off amount, locked link, or a public list of offerings. Pick the inbound tool that matches the job—don’t paste a wallet into all three.
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How to price a session so humans and agents pay the same
“From $150” isn’t a price. Lock the SKU, skip the AI surcharge, and let both buyers settle the same row on your catalog.
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Stop pasting wallet addresses in Slack
Every wrong paste is a nightmare. Pay is P2P by @username: find the person, confirm the amount, send. That’s the whole product.
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What is a payment request?
A shareable link with a locked amount and a memo. They open it, pay, your balance goes up—no “what’s your wallet?” thread.
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How to pay someone by username
Find @them, enter the amount, confirm, send. No gas token, no 42-character paste, no “which network.”
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How to split a bill without sharing wallet addresses
Dinner, tickets, a weekend house. Pay @name, confirm, done. Group chats should talk about the plan—not Base vs Ethereum.
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Payment link vs wallet address vs invoice
Three ways people ask to get paid. Only one belongs in a chat with a stranger. Here’s how to choose without a hex string.
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You don’t need a crypto wallet and a bank app
Invoices, transfers, and bank deposits should credit the same number. Wallet is that number—not a trading terminal, not a second send button.
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What is a spendable balance?
Not a pile of tokens. Not “pending 12 confirmations” as the UI. The number you can use to pay @someone after Collect or a request lands.
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Gas fees explained for people who just want to get paid
Gas is a side quest traders accepted. You shouldn’t buy ETH to invoice a client or pay @kemi for dinner. Here’s the plain version.
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Seed phrase vs email login: what you actually need
A 12-word phrase is a backup format for traders. A money app for getting paid should open with email or Google—and recover the same way.
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Crypto wallet vs money app: how to tell the difference
Token lists, seed phrases, and gas are wallet kit. Names, invoices, and one spendable number are a money app. Use the one that matches the job.
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Charge for an API call without a checkout form
Card swipe fees kill small calls. Agents don’t do 3DS. HTTP 402 + session keys on the Vybe ledger is how APIs get paid.
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What is HTTP 402 Payment Required?
402 is the status code for “pay, then retry.” For APIs and agents it’s a handshake—not a checkout page and not a paywall overlay.
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How to meter an API with micropayments
Don’t bill a $0.05 call like a card swipe. Pick a SKU, wrap the route, cap the key, and let settlement happen before the handler.
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Session keys and spend caps for AI agents
Agents loop. Caps, expiry, domain locks, and revoke are the product—not a spreadsheet after the drain. Here’s the policy that belongs before settlement.
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Wrap one API route with HTTP 402 this weekend
Don’t rebuild billing. Pick /v1/enrich, put express-vybe-402 in front, and watch unpaid vs paid in your logs. That’s the whole MVP.
Read the noteDone reading. Open the balance.
Sign in, claim @you, and take the next payment on one number—humans and agents, same catalog.