How does pay-per-crawl work with Xenarch?

Publishers install Xenarch middleware (WordPress plugin, FastAPI decorator, Express middleware, or Cloudflare Worker). When an AI agent requests a gated page, the server returns HTTP 402 with the price. The agent signs a USDC payment, retries, the middleware verifies on-chain, and the content is served. Payment goes directly from agent wallet to publisher wallet — Xenarch never holds funds, takes 0% fee.

How is Xenarch gating different from Cloudflare Pay-Per-Crawl?

Cloudflare Pay-Per-Crawl only works behind Cloudflare's CDN, is custodial (Cloudflare receives the money first), and takes a cut. Xenarch works on any host, is non-custodial (payment direct to publisher wallet), and takes 0% fee.

An open standard for machine-readable pricing at /.well-known/pay.json. AI agents read it to discover how much each resource costs before making a request. Robots.txt for payments.

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Q: How is Xenarch gating different from TollBit?

TollBit serves enterprise publishers (NYT, Bloomberg) via manual licensing contracts, fiat invoicing, and direct sales. Minimum viable publisher = millions of monthly visitors. Xenarch is self-serve, works for the WordPress blogger with 50K visitors, and settles per-request in USDC.

Q: Can I charge different prices for different paths?

Yes. Per-path pricing is supported — your homepage can be free while /api/premium-data costs $0.001, /research/* costs $0.01, etc. Configure via pay.json or the dashboard. Each URL is priced independently.

Detect crawler traffic, return HTTP 402, get paid in USDC per request. Direct to your wallet. 0% Xenarch fee. Works on any host.

Get started

->  GET /api/premium-data

<-  402 Payment Required
    X-Price:     0.001 USDC
    X-Recipient: 0xab12...ef56
    X-Network:   base (8453)

->  GET /api/premium-data
X-Payment:   eyJhbGciOiJFUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6Ikp...

<-  200 OK
✓ $0.001 settled  ·  direct to publisher  ·  no ETH needed

Xenarch fee

Gas for agents

Settlement

<1s

To the publisher

100%

Detection

AI client identification

GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, AppleBot, automated agents — identified by user-agent and request-pattern signals. Returns 402 to bots only. Human traffic passes through.

Per-path pricing

Different prices for different URLs

Homepage free, /api/premium at $0.001, /research/* at $0.01. Each path priced independently via pay.json or the dashboard.

Non-custodial

Direct to publisher

Agent pays your wallet directly. Xenarch verifies on-chain. Never holds, touches, or signs for anyone's funds.

Open standard

pay.json — robots.txt for payments

Machine-readable pricing at /.well-known/pay.json. Agents read it to discover costs before requesting. Open spec, no vendor lock-in.

Integrate

CMS / no-code

plugin WPWordPress J!Joomla

worker Cloudflare Worker template

pay.json Drop a JSON file at /.well-known/pay.json

Server middleware

fastapi xenarch[fastapi]

flask xenarch[flask]

cli npx xenarch

Landscape

xenarchUSDC · 0% · non-custodial · any host · per-path pricing · self-serve

cloudflare ppccloudflare-only · custodial · takes a cut

tollbitenterprise licensing · manual contracts · no micropayments

stripe MPPclosed protocol · Tempo L1 · custodial · Stripe pricing

Questions

How does pay-per-crawl work?

Install Xenarch middleware (WordPress, FastAPI, Express, or Cloudflare Worker). When an AI agent requests a gated page, the server returns HTTP 402 with the price. Agent signs a USDC payment, retries, middleware verifies on-chain, content served. Payment goes directly from agent wallet to your wallet — Xenarch never holds funds, takes 0% fee.

Xenarch vs Cloudflare Pay-Per-Crawl?

Cloudflare PPC only works behind Cloudflare's CDN, is custodial (Cloudflare receives the money first), takes a cut. Xenarch works on any host, is non-custodial, takes 0%.

Xenarch vs TollBit?

TollBit serves enterprise publishers via manual licensing contracts, fiat invoicing, direct sales. Minimum viable publisher = millions of monthly visitors. Xenarch is self-serve, works for the WordPress blogger with 50K visitors, settles per-request in USDC.

Can I charge different prices for different paths?

Yes. Per-path pricing — your homepage free, /api/premium-data at $0.001, /research/* at $0.01. Configure via pay.json or the dashboard. Each URL priced independently.

What is pay.json?

Open standard for machine-readable pricing at /.well-known/pay.json. AI agents read it to discover costs before requesting. Robots.txt for payments. Open spec.

Which network and asset?

USDC on Base mainnet, chain 8453. Direct wallet-to-wallet settlement. Verifiable on Basescan.

Available on

wordpress / joomla / cloudflare worker / pypi / npm cli / pay.json spec

Charge AI bots for yoursite or API