Tollstile vs Stripe
Why not just use Stripe to charge AI agents? How Tollstile and Stripe fit together.
Stripe moves money. Tollstile works the gate.
Stripe can accept agent payments through its machine payments products. If Stripe is your only provider and you are happy to build access rules, refunds on handler failure, and records yourself, Stripe alone is enough.
Tollstile is for when you want:
- Any 402 rail — Stripe's included — on the same route.
- Subscribers, credits, and spend limits evaluated before anyone pays.
- A ledger in your own database that survives changing providers.
- Reconciliation that resolves timeouts by asking the provider.
Tollstile charges nothing and never holds funds. Your provider still charges its own fees.
Tollstile vs MPP SDKs
What the Machine Payments Protocol SDK covers, and what Tollstile adds for merchants.
When not to settle probabilistically
Pre-release. We built probabilistic micropayments for x402, measured them against every active resource in the largest public index, and found they pay for 25 of 11,630. The more useful result is a rule for choosing how to settle.