--- title: What Is the x402 Protocol? How HTTP 402 “Payment... description: The x402 protocol activates HTTP status code 402 'Payment Required' to let web endpoints charge sub-cent fees for content or API access. With Silex implements... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-the-x402-protocol-how-http-402-payment-required-turns-web-endpoints-into-machine-readable-roxnp1hra twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: What Is the x402 Protocol? How HTTP 402 “Payment Required” Turns Web Endpoints into Machine-Readable Tollbooths | daily.dev og:description: The x402 protocol activates HTTP status code 402 'Payment Required' to let web endpoints charge sub-cent fees for content or API access. With Silex implements... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-the-x402-protocol-how-http-402-payment-required-turns-web-endpoints-into-machine-readable-roxnp1hra og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/RoXnp1hra.png og:image:alt: What Is the x402 Protocol? How HTTP 402 “Payment Required” Turns Web Endpoints into Machine-Readable Tollbooths og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # What Is the x402 Protocol? How HTTP 402 “Payment Required” Turns Web Endpoints into Machine-Readable Tollbooths **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 9 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary The x402 protocol activates HTTP status code 402 'Payment Required' to let web endpoints charge sub-cent fees for content or API access. With Silex implements this using the feeless Nano (XNO) network, settling payments in about 350 milliseconds for as little as $0.001. Readers and AI agents pay 0% transaction fees, and creators keep 99% to 100% of each payment, with Silex billing a 1% fee via Stripe once accrued fees hit $0.50. The system runs on Cloudflare Edge Workers, issues a structured JSON payment challenge, and verifies transactions against public Nano RPC nodes before unlocking content. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is the x402 protocol and how does it use HTTP 402? The x402 protocol activates the HTTP 402 'Payment Required' status code, letting web endpoints respond to unauthenticated requests with structured JSON payment instructions in the headers. A client or AI agent reads the challenge, sends payment, and retries the request with a payment signature to unlock the content, API response, or dataset. _Developers evaluating payment-gated APIs can track x402 implementation details as they emerge on daily.dev._ ### How fast and cheap are Nano (XNO) micropayments for content unlocks compared to credit cards? Nano settles micropayments in about 350 milliseconds with 0% network fees, compared to $0.30 plus 2.9% per transaction on credit cards and 2 to 14 days for card payouts. It supports prices as low as $0.001, far below the roughly $1.00 practical minimum on cards or $0.01 to $0.05 on EVM layer-2 chains. _Teams comparing payment rails for micro-transactions can follow cost and latency benchmarks like these on daily.dev._ ### How does the With Silex platform split revenue between creators and the platform fee? Creators receive 99% to 100% of each payment directly into their self-custody Nano wallet instantly, since the platform never holds or custodies the funds. With Silex separately tracks its 1% fee in Cloudflare KV and bills it monthly via Stripe only once a creator's accrued fee reaches a $0.50 minimum threshold. _Developers weighing creator monetization platforms can compare fee structures like this on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Open Payment Standard x402 Expands Capabilities in Major Upgrade](https://daily.dev/posts/open-payment-standard-x402-expands-capabilities-in-major-upgrade-siggu72xc) · InfoQ · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [AI agents can browse the web. Now they need a way to pay for it.](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-agents-can-browse-the-web-now-they-need-a-way-to-pay-for-it--xu9muwtef) · The Next Web · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Announcing the Monetization Gateway: charge for any resource behind Cloudflare via x402](https://daily.dev/posts/announcing-the-monetization-gateway-charge-for-any-resource-behind-cloudflare-via-x402-aylb3tuzy) · Cloudflare · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Why Stack Overflow and Cloudflare launched a pay-per-crawl model](https://daily.dev/posts/why-stack-overflow-and-cloudflare-launched-a-pay-per-crawl-model-oeiqajvbz) · Stack Overflow Blog · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#cloudflare](https://daily.dev/tags/cloudflare) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-the-x402-protocol-how-http-402-payment-required-turns-web-endpoints-into-machine-readable-roxnp1hra) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"What Is the x402 Protocol? 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