- Cloudflare announces the Monetization Gateway, enabling customers to charge for assets like web pages, datasets, APIs, or MCP tools.
- It provides a control plane for payment policies and access controls, handling verification and enforcement at the edge, with payments settling in stablecoins via the x402 protocol.
- The web's traditional ad/subscription model is breaking as AI agents become dominant users, driving need for usage-based pricing for requests, tokens, or outcomes.
- Usage-based billing has been difficult historically due to high implementation costs, but stablecoins enable low-fee, sub-second micropayments suitable for agents.
- The Monetization Gateway simplifies usage-based billing by integrating payment validation into requests, offloading metering and settlement from the origin.
- x402 is an open protocol for payments over HTTP, using the 402 status code for payment gating, allowing small, account-less transactions ideal for machine payments.
- Features include charging for specific REST verbs, variable pricing, and intercepting unauthenticated calls, managed via dashboard, API, or Terraform.
- It initially supports stablecoin payments, allowing agents to pay without signup or API keys, and can integrate with identity verification like Web Bot Auth.
- The goal is an agent-first Internet where software pays for resources automatically, monetizing currently free or underpriced API calls and tool invocations.
- A waitlist is open for Cloudflare customers to join early access for monetizing web assets with usage-based pricing.