AxLabs has launched Ax402, a payment gateway that allows AI agents to pay for goods and services on a per-request basis. It is aimed at enabling AI agents to purchase access to data, content, and tools using tokens, without the hassle of maintaining things like accounts, subscriptions, and checkout pages.
Ax402 is built on x402, an open protocol that repurposes the HTTP 402 Payment Required status code as the trigger for machine-to-machine payments. The 402 code was reserved in the 1990s for future payment use cases but has sat dormant since. The x402 protocol was originally created by Coinbase and open-sourced in May 2025. In April 2026, the protocol moved to the Linux Foundation under the newly established x402 Foundation, which now counts more than 40 member organizations including Coinbase, Circle, and Stripe.
x402 targets a structural mismatch between the web’s business model and how AI agents behave. The web’s dominant revenue models, advertising and subscriptions, assume human users who can be targeted, retained, and upsold. Agents do not view ads, and they are unlikely to subscribe to every service they may use only once. AxLabs describes the alternative in its release announcement:
AI agents will not always click buttons, create accounts, or subscribe to every service they use once. They will request access, pay when it makes sense, and move on.
The team calls this model the Value-per-Request Economy, positioning it as the successor to the ad-funded Attention Economy.
What this enables
With Ax402, developers can gate any digital resource behind a small per-request payment rather than a login or subscription. AxLabs gives pricing examples of US $0.01 to call an API endpoint and $0.05 to unlock a premium article. The team outlines several use cases for Ax402:
- Agentic tooling: Agents pay to use tools and capabilities on demand, acting as autonomous economic participants.
- High-value data: Datasets, market signals, and research outputs can be sold per query, letting agents buy exactly the data they need.
- Content and paywalls: Agents can unlock gated articles, reports, and files mid-task without a human having to log in.
Other unexplored opportunities include monetized developer tools and agent-friendly digital commerce flows among the supported scenarios.
How it works
The payment flow follows four steps. An agent requests a resource, and the server responds with an HTTP 402 challenge containing the price and payment token. The agent settles the payment through the x402 protocol, and the server delivers the resource once payment is verified.
AxLabs said, “In the x402 protocol, the payment is the credential.”
There are no redirects, no checkout pages, and no account creation. The protocol is stateless and identity-agnostic, meaning it works for machines that have no persistent accounts or sessions.
Ax402 supports settlement on EVM-compatible chains, with Neo X integrated through xGAS, a wrapped $GAS token built for on-chain payments in the x402 stack. USDC is the primary settlement token across the x402 protocol.
While x402 defines the payment handshake, Ax402 provides the production tooling to deploy it. The tech stack includes a gateway, a facilitator service, and SDKs for integration.
Developer resources
Developers can access the gateway, facilitator, and SDKs at ax402.io, with documentation available at docs.ax402.io.
Neo ecosystem context
Ax402 integrates Neo X through xGAS, a wrapped $GAS token deployed by Bane Labs specifically for x402 payments. The integration positions $GAS as a utility token for agent commerce and is aligned with Da Hongfei’s vision for Neo X as an AI-agent-native blockchain.
The full announcement can be found at the link below:
https://axlabs.com/editorial/introducing-ax402-the-payment-gateway-for-the-agentic-web
