The payment layer for the
agentic economy
Stilebase lets AI agents pay your website or API per request, in USDC on Base, with the open x402 standard. You decide which agents pay, and what. You get paid.
APIs were built for humans.
AI agents need a new way to pay.
Agents don’t have credit cards. They can’t fill out forms or sign contracts. But they can sign transactions. Stilebase bridges that gap: your site asks agents to pay with a standard HTTP 402, through one Cloudflare Worker or a few lines of code.
The agentic economy is already paying
The rails for AI agents to pay are being built right now. What’s missing is a simple way for websites to get paid by them.
Agents already pay
AI agents made about 176 million on-chain payments, worth over $73M, between May 2025 and April 2026. 98.6% settled in USDC.
Source: BeInCrypto ↗Paying per request is becoming a standard
x402, the open standard for paying over HTTP 402, moved to the x402 Foundation under the Linux Foundation in April 2026. Stilebase is built on x402: any x402 agent can pay.
Source: Linux Foundation ↗Payment networks are shipping for agents
XDC Network launched XDC AI in July 2026: agents find services and pay per request in USDC, with gasless settlement.
Source: GNcrypto ↗Who's behind the agent is answerable
Agents can now carry an on-chain badge proving a verified person or business stands behind them, e.g. Concordium for XDC AI (October 2026).
Source: The Next Web ↗The web is already closing the door
We checked more than 11,000 websites, including over 6,000 listings, jobs, cars, travel and price-comparison sites. About a quarter already keep AI agents out.
Already telling the major AI crawlers to stay out
Each blocks GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot in its own robots.txt
- Amazon
- The New York Times
- CNN
- X
- REUTERSReuters
- WSJThe Wall Street Journal
- IMDb
Logos are trademarks of their owners, shown to illustrate their public robots.txt policies. No affiliation or endorsement.
Bigger sites block more often
Sites grouped by popularity rank (#1 = most visited site on the web)
| Site size | Sites checked | Block AI agents |
|---|---|---|
| Very large (top 10K) | 5,947 | 39% |
| Large (10K–50K) | 513 | 39% |
| Mid-size (50K–250K) | 3,018 | 29% |
| Smaller (250K–500K) | 4,166 | 21% |
| Small (500K–1M) | 1,897 | 19% |
Blocking is a yes-or-no switch: the agents that would pay leave, and the scrapers that get through take it for free. Stilebase adds a third option — let agents in, and get paid for every request.
Stilebase scans, October 2026: 11,741 domains, mostly listings, jobs, travel and price sites (9,784 answered), plus all of the 10,000 most visited domains: 5,947 websites once CDN, ad and API hosts are excluded, counting sites that ban all unknown bots while letting search engines in (36% counting only the 5,683 sites we could open). Named sites: their own robots.txt blocks GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot, as checked 13 Oct 2026. “Block” means bot protection on content pages or AI crawlers disallowed in robots.txt. Category figures: 1,308 car sites and 103 classifieds sites. Popularity rank from the Tranco list; the top-10K row covers all 5,947 websites.
Not every “GPTBot” is GPTBot
Scrapers put AI crawler names in their user agent to get past allowlists. A real GPTBot comes from the IP ranges OpenAI publishes, but most sites never check. Find out who’s really taking your data.
Who's really visiting
Every AI agent that came, and whether it's verified or only borrowing a name, checked against the IP ranges and signatures the AI companies publish.
What they took
Pages and bandwidth per agent, and what serving that traffic costs you.
What it could earn
The same traffic priced per request, at the price you set.
Create a free account and send us one day of your access logs. We’ll reply with your report. OpenAI’s published crawler IPs ↗
How It Works
Three steps. No crypto operations on your end.
Register your API
Add your domain and a price per request. Drop in our Cloudflare Worker or a few lines of code. Your service itself doesn't change.
Agents pay on-chain
AI agents get a standard x402 402 and pay in USDC on Base. Stilebase checks the payment, settles it on-chain and your site serves the request.
You get paid
Every payment is logged in your ledger, with the agent and the request it paid for. We handle the crypto: no wallets, no token management.
Know who’s paying
Any x402 paywall can take money from an agent. Stilebase also tells you who it is, and lets you decide who may pay, and what.
Verified agents
Every agent is checked against the IP ranges and signatures AI companies publish. A scraper calling itself GPTBot is caught, and agents hiding behind a browser are asked to pay too.
Your rules
Free passes for agents that bring you visitors, like AI search. Only verified agents may pay. Block or allow any agent, wallet or company, and set a price per agent.
Know every payer
A profile for every paying wallet: what it paid, how its requests identified, and the company behind it, verified once it registers and proves its wallets.
Safe by design
People and search engines are never touched. If Stilebase is unreachable, your site works as usual. We check your integration every few hours and refuse sanctioned wallets before any money moves.
Works with any x402 agent
The official x402 clients for Python and JavaScript pay Stilebase sites as they are. See it on our demo site: people read it free, AI agents are asked to pay.
$ curl -i -A GPTBot https://demo.stilebase.com/listings/2
HTTP/2 402
payment-required: eyJ4NDAyVmVyc2lvbiI6Mi… (0.01 USDC on Base)Built for both sides
Whether you’re building AI agents or monetizing APIs, Stilebase works for you.
For site and API owners
Unlock a new revenue stream from AI agents without changing your service.
- Your price per request, or a price per agent
- One Cloudflare Worker or a few lines of code
- Free passes for agents that send you visitors
- Only verified agents pay, if you like; block anyone
- Every payer and agent visit in your dashboard
For agent builders
Any site behind Stilebase speaks x402, the open HTTP 402 standard your agent may already support.
402with the price inPAYMENT-REQUIRED- Sign a USDC authorization: no gas, no transaction to send
- Retry with
PAYMENT-SIGNATUREand get the response - No API keys, no OAuth, no contracts
The Protocol
Standard x402. One signature from the agent. That’s it.
# 1. Your site asks AI agents to pay
GET api.yoursite.com/listings?city=x
Response: 402 Payment Required
PAYMENT-REQUIRED: { price, USDC on Base, pay to }
# 2. Agent signs a USDC authorization, repeats the request
GET api.yoursite.com/listings?city=x
PAYMENT-SIGNATURE: { signed EIP-3009 transfer }
# 3. Stilebase settles it on-chain; your site answers
Response: 200 { your site's response }
PAYMENT-RESPONSE: { tx hash }The Crawler Tax
AI scrapers hit your API for free, and you pay AWS for every byte they take. See what that costs you, and what the same traffic earns behind an HTTP 402.
$ configure --traffic
Assumes AWS data transfer out at $0.09/GB and a 30-day month. 1 GB = 1,024 MB.
$ crawler-tax --report
Start earning from AI agents
Create a free account, register your API and get your gateway URL in minutes.