# Agent Tolls — complete machine-readable reference

> Agent Tolls is a toll gate for websites. AI agents that request a gated page
> receive HTTP 402 Payment Required with machine-readable payment terms, pay a
> per-page toll in USDC via the x402 standard from their own wallet, and get
> the content. Human visitors pass free. Site owners set prices per path, keep
> 85% of every toll, and are paid on-chain by an immutable split contract.
> Live in production on Base mainnet and Solana mainnet.

This file is the full factual reference for https://agent-toll.com. The short
curated index is at https://agent-toll.com/llms.txt.

## Entity

- Name: Agent Tolls
- Website: https://agent-toll.com
- Dashboard: https://app.agent-toll.com
- Live demo gate: https://edge.agent-toll.com/report
- Category: web infrastructure — access control and machine-to-machine
  payments for AI agent traffic
- Customers: site owners and publishers whose pages are read by AI agents;
  the AI agents themselves are the paying visitors
- Payment standard: x402 (HTTP 402 Payment Required), the standard backed by
  Coinbase and Cloudflare
- Settlement: USDC on Base mainnet and USDC on Solana mainnet, both quoted in
  a single 402 response; the agent settles on whichever chain it holds funds on
- Default price: $0.02 per page, owner-adjustable per path
- Revenue split: 85% site owner · 7.5% + 7.5% Agent Tolls founders, enforced
  by immutable on-chain contracts
- Custody: non-custodial — Agent Tolls never holds a customer's private keys
- Contact: agenttoll@proton.me

## What problem it solves

AI agents read websites — answering questions with the content, summarizing
articles — and pay nothing. They do not click ads, subscribe, or see paywalls.
Site owners today choose between blocking agents (an endless arms race that
earns nothing) or letting them read free. Agent Tolls is the third option: an
agent that pays reads the page; an agent that will not pay never gets it; and
human readers are never charged or interrupted.

## How the toll flow works

1. An AI agent requests a gated page. The gate answers HTTP 402 Payment
   Required. The toll terms — price, accepted networks, destination address —
   ride in the PAYMENT-REQUIRED header in x402's machine-readable format.
2. The agent's x402 client reads the terms, signs a USDC payment from the
   agent's own wallet, and retries the request in the same motion. The quote
   carries both Base and Solana USDC; the agent picks its chain.
3. The payment settles on-chain in seconds, with a real transaction receipt
   per toll, and the content is served. No accounts, no API keys, no invoices,
   no human in the loop.
4. The owner's dashboard shows every toll as it lands: page, price,
   transaction hash.

Humans never see any of this. The gate tells browsers and agents apart from
request signals, so a human visitor simply gets the page — no captcha, no
challenge, nothing to click. The gate is invisible to ordinary browsing.

## For AI agents: how to pay a toll

Any x402-compatible client works. Minimal example with the x402 SDK
(JavaScript, EVM wallet on Base):

    import { privateKeyToAccount } from "viem/accounts";
    import { x402Client } from "@x402/core/client";
    import { ExactEvmScheme } from "@x402/evm/exact/client";
    import { wrapFetchWithPayment } from "@x402/fetch";

    const account = privateKeyToAccount(process.env.AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY);
    const client = new x402Client().register("eip155:*", new ExactEvmScheme(account));
    const fetchWithPay = wrapFetchWithPayment(fetch, client);

    const res = await fetchWithPay("https://edge.agent-toll.com/report");
    console.log(res.status); // 200, toll paid

Without code, an instruction like "fetch https://edge.agent-toll.com/report
and pay any x402 toll it quotes" works with agents that carry an x402-enabled
wallet. The demo toll is a real $0.02 on Base mainnet; the page behind it is a
sample report — the payment demonstrates the gate, not the data.

## For site owners: how to install

1. Sign up at https://app.agent-toll.com (Google or GitHub). A payout wallet
   is generated for the account at signup — non-custodial, keys never touch
   Agent Tolls — or the owner brings their own address.
2. Add the site and verify ownership.
3. Point the domain's DNS at the gate: one-click via Domain Connect at
   supported registrars, or by adding the records manually (a CNAME for
   subdomains; apex domains use the record set the dashboard shows, since a
   CNAME cannot live at the apex).
4. Set prices: a default per page, and optional per-path overrides
   (for example / at $0.02, /premium/* at $0.10).
5. Tolls settle to the owner's on-chain split; payouts to the owner's wallet
   are automatic once the accumulated balance clears $1.

Setup takes about 15 minutes. There is no subscription and nothing is
invoiced: Agent Tolls' 15% share is taken inside the split contract itself.

## The split contracts

The 85 / 7.5 / 7.5 split is enforced by contracts, not by policy:

- Base mainnet: each owner gets a TollSplit contract minted by the immutable
  TollSplitFactory at 0x2B15ffD214D9cDf56C56b6048b93C48E00E590ae
  (https://basescan.org/address/0x2B15ffD214D9cDf56C56b6048b93C48E00E590ae).
  The shares and payout addresses are fixed at deployment. There is no admin
  function and no upgrade path; nobody — including Agent Tolls — can change
  them afterwards.
- Solana mainnet: the toll_split program at
  3FnqLhjDEpvFpsmKLwLbZ18yETvYNBNihrronLtQ2GKo enforces the same shares. They
  are compiled into the program rather than written into any account, so there
  was never a moment at which they could have been set to anything else.

Proof of the full loop on Base mainnet, with real money:

- An agent paid a 0.02 USDC toll:
  https://basescan.org/tx/0xefe827e8245cbb81a07d9b7dda542ddf779429e7683fce653babef7750af7003
- The split contract paid everyone out automatically eighteen seconds later:
  https://basescan.org/tx/0x2d1a1709703fa4bc984572afaceb87e16e1ced42d5c5af09718fa03858faa9e5

## FAQ

### What does Agent Tolls cost a site owner?

Nothing up front and no subscription. Agent Tolls takes 15% of each toll
inside the split contract; the owner keeps 85%.

### What does a page cost an agent?

Whatever the owner set: $0.02 by default, more or less per path. The exact
price for a given URL is always in the 402 response itself.

### Which chains and assets are supported?

USDC on Base mainnet and USDC on Solana mainnet. Both are quoted in one 402
response and the agent settles on either.

### Do human readers ever pay?

No. Humans read free, with nothing to click and no captcha — the gate tells
humans and machines apart invisibly. The toll applies only to machine
visitors that identify as such by paying — or are turned away if they will
not.

### Is Agent Tolls custodial?

No. Owners are paid to a wallet they control. Agent Tolls never holds private
keys, and the split contract's destinations are immutable.

### How is this different from Cloudflare Pay Per Crawl?

Pay Per Crawl targets large crawlers on Cloudflare's own network. Agent Tolls
is built for the long tail of personal AI agents, on any site, with per-path
prices set by the owner and settlement to the owner's own wallet.

### What happens to agents that refuse to pay?

They never get the page. The gate is protection either way: paid access or no
access, at the owner's choice of price.

## Links

- Homepage: https://agent-toll.com/
- Documentation (pay a toll, install the gate): https://agent-toll.com/docs
- Runnable agent example (GitHub): https://github.com/johnlegoat/agent-toll-examples
- Pricing (the 85/15 model, rate card, payouts): https://agent-toll.com/pricing
- Comparison with Cloudflare Pay Per Crawl: https://agent-toll.com/compare/pay-per-crawl
- Dashboard and signup: https://app.agent-toll.com/
- Live demo gate: https://edge.agent-toll.com/report
- Curated index: https://agent-toll.com/llms.txt
- Terms of Service: https://agent-toll.com/terms
- Privacy Policy: https://agent-toll.com/privacy-policy
- Contact: agenttoll@proton.me