bolthub puts a price on any MCP tool or HTTP endpoint. Agents pay per call over Lightning and settle straight to your wallet. No KYC, no middleman holding your funds.
Python, TypeScript, CLI, curl, and MCP examples below.
01who it’s for
Card processors won't touch a charge that small. Pay-per-call needs a rail built for it: Lightning settles sub-cent in under a second, whether the buyer is a developer or an autonomous agent.
card minimum ≈ $0.50 · 1 sat ≈ $0.001 · 500× below the card floor
Charge per call for any MCP tool or API endpoint. Card processors won't touch anything under fifty cents. You will. Agents pay you directly over Lightning, straight to your wallet.
Give your app or agent a budget instead of a hundred vendor accounts. One config line and it can call any listed tool, paying per call. Payments settle directly between client and provider.
02the hosted platform
The hosted gateway puts a paywall in front of an existing API, and every hosted seller can list in the API Hub, where agents shop. One subscription covers both.
Point us at your origin. We terminate TLS, return 402 + BOLT-11, verify payment, and proxy only after settlement. Funds go to your wallet, not ours.
Optional public listing with search and tags. Builders preview pricing, copy integration snippets, and pay from the playground. Ideal for AI agents.
03why http 402
HTTP 402 (Payment Required) attaches the price to the request itself, so any client can pay per call with a Lightning invoice (L402). No accounts, no API tokens, no manual setup. Card processors weren't built for that.
Read the full L402 explainer| bolthubPay-per-call (HTTP 402) | TraditionalMost API providers | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum transaction | 1 sat | ≈ $0.50 |
| Custody | Non-custodial | Custodial |
| Account required | No | Yes |
| API keys / tokens | Not needed | Per-provider |
| AI agent compatible | Native (HTTP 402) | Manual setup |
| Settlement speed | Instant | Days |
04start
No code on the hosted gateway, or a few lines with the open-source Pay SDK. Either way, agents pay per call and the funds land in your wallet.
Hosted gateway · no code
Enter your existing API endpoint. We verify connectivity and configure your hosted gateway in seconds.
Choose per-request, per-KB, token-bucket, time-pass, or metered pricing. Full flexibility.
Connect your Lightning wallet, or deploy one in minutes with Node Launcher. Your wallet issues the invoices. Clients pay your wallet directly. We stay out of the path.
From zero to earning in under five minutes. Start your free trial
Pay SDK · in code
import { createPaywall, l402Rail } from "@bolthub/pay";
const pay = createPaywall({ rails: [l402Rail({ secret: process.env.PAY_SECRET!, invoiceProvider })],});
// 21 sats per call, straight to your wallet:pay.tool(server, "get_forecast", "Weather lookup", schema, { price: { amount: 21 } }, handler,);Free to self-host, no account needed. Read the 60-second quickstart
Pick a side. Sell: wrap a tool with the bolthub Pay SDK and name a price. Buy: Python or TypeScript clients, CLI commands, a raw curl probe, or Registry MCP config for Cursor and Claude Desktop.
Read the docsThe seller side: wrap an MCP tool with the open-source Pay SDK, name a price, and agents can pay it. Free to self-host, no account needed.
import { createPaywall, l402Rail } from "@bolthub/pay";
const pay = createPaywall({ rails: [l402Rail({ secret: process.env.PAY_SECRET!, invoiceProvider })],});
// Charge 2000 sats per call:pay.tool(server, "get_satellite_image", "Recent imagery", schema, { price: { amount: 2000 } }, async (args) => ({ content: [{ type: "text", text: await img(args) }] }),);Hosted platform
Your customers pay you directly in Bitcoin over the Lightning Network. We charge a fixed 5,000 sats/month base fee, plus usage that scales with your traffic. Self-hosting the bolthub Pay SDK is free; this fee only applies when bolthub runs the infrastructure.
Client payments go straight to your Lightning wallet. We never hold your funds.
A fixed 5,000 sats/month base fee, plus per-request rates that drop as your volume grows.
We adjust sat amounts as Bitcoin's price moves, so your cost stays predictable in real terms.
Quick answers to help you decide. For anything else, reach out directly.
A sat (satoshi) is the smallest unit of Bitcoin: 1 Bitcoin = 100,000,000 sats. At recent prices, 1 sat is roughly $0.001. We price the platform in sats because they're the natural unit for Lightning micropayments. USD estimates are shown alongside for reference.
You don't need the hub to start earning. Your hosted gateway works the moment it's live: point your existing customers or your own agents straight at your gateway URL, and the L402 pay-per-call flow works for any HTTP client. The hub adds discovery on top of that over time. It's upside, not a dependency. We're growing it deliberately, prioritizing quality APIs over volume.
On the hosted platform, any client that can pay a BOLT-11 invoice works. No signup or API keys needed. For AI agents, our MCP server (@bolthub/mcp) handles L402 payments automatically. Third-party options like Alby MCP, Fewsats MCP, and Lightning Faucet MCP also work.
If you don't have a node yet, use the built-in Node Launcher to deploy your own LND node in minutes (from ~$3.50/month). If you already run LND, connect it directly, it creates invoices in under 200ms. LNbits and always-on NWC wallets (Alby Hub, CoinOS) work too. Phone wallets aren't a fit for receiving: buyers hit your API while you're away, so the wallet creating invoices must be online 24/7.
L402: HTTP 402 paired with a Lightning invoice and a macaroon token. Payments settle bitcoin over Lightning, peer-to-peer to your wallet, with no facilitator holding funds. You price a tool in sats and any client that can pay a Lightning invoice can buy it. bolthub is never in the funds path.
Yes. In the hosted gateway dashboard, the pricing model, price, rate limits, caching, and any other setting can be changed at any time. Changes apply immediately. Active sessions from the previous model continue until they expire naturally. Pricing a tool with the SDK is a one-line change in your code.
Every gateway publishes .well-known/openapi.json, .well-known/mcp.json, and .well-known/l402-gateway.json automatically. You can also opt in to appear in the public API Hub with search and tag filtering.
The agent pays the 402 challenge the tool offers: a Lightning invoice. L402 is just HTTP. Our Python and TypeScript SDKs and MCP servers handle the challenge-pay-retry loop automatically: the agent calls a URL with a budget, the SDK negotiates payment with the provider's wallet, and the response comes back. bolthub never sits in the middle of the funds. Third-party options like Alby MCP, Fewsats MCP, and Lightning Faucet MCP are also compatible.
start selling
Self-host the SDK free, or start on the hosted platform: 1-month free trial, usage-based billing after that.