Questions worth answering.
AI is reading the web, and software is starting to pay for what it uses. Short, honest answers to what site owners and developers ask about it, including the options that aren't Penni.
How do I stop AI bots from scraping my website?
You can block them with robots.txt or a firewall, but blocking also keeps you out of AI answers. The alternative is to let AI bots in on your terms: they pay a small fee per page with x402, people keep reading for free, and search engines keep indexing.
How can I get paid when AI uses my content?
Unless you are a large publisher with a licensing deal, the practical way is to charge per request: your site asks AI agents and crawlers for a small payment before serving a page, using the open x402 standard. They pay in stablecoins, straight to your wallet, and people keep reading for free.
How can I charge a few cents online without card fees eating it?
Card payments have a fixed fee per transaction, so a €0.05 charge loses most or all of it. Micropayments work with stablecoins on low-cost blockchains: with x402 each request is paid separately, the network cost is a fraction of a cent, and a facilitator such as Penni charges a fixed €0.002.
How do I charge per API call without subscriptions or API keys?
Use x402: your API answers an unpaid request with 402 Payment Required and a price, the client pays that exact amount in a stablecoin and retries, and your server responds once the payment is settled. No sign-up, no API keys for customers, no monthly plans. One middleware line adds it to an existing API.
How can AI agents pay for my API, tool or MCP server?
Give your endpoint an x402 price. Agents with an x402 client and a stablecoin wallet read the price from the 402 response, pay it and retry in the same round trip, without signing up or using an API key. A facilitator such as Penni verifies and settles each payment to your wallet.
How do I make AI crawlers pay to read my WordPress site?
Install a WordPress plugin that answers AI crawlers and agents with an x402 price instead of the page. The Penni plugin does this: people and search engines read for free, known AI bots and scripts get 402 Payment Required, and those that pay get the page, with the money going straight to your wallet.
What is HTTP 402 Payment Required, and how is it used today?
402 Payment Required is an HTTP status code reserved in 1997 for paying for content over the web, but never standardised. Today it is used by x402, an open standard where a server answers 402 with a price, the client pays in a stablecoin and retries, and the server returns the content. It is built for AI agents and apps that pay per request.
How can a European business accept stablecoin payments?
Choose MiCA-regulated stablecoins such as Circle's EURC and USDC, receive them in a wallet you control, and use a payment service that settles them on a low-cost network like Base or Solana. For per-request payments from AI agents and apps, an x402 facilitator such as Penni does the settling without ever holding your money.
What is an x402 facilitator, and how do I choose one?
An x402 facilitator is the service your server calls to check a payment and put it on the blockchain, so you don't run a wallet with gas or a blockchain node yourself. When choosing one, compare the networks and tokens it supports, whether it ever holds your money, its fee model, where it is based, and the integrations and dashboard that come with it.