Hey everyone 👋 My co-founder and I have been deep in the agentic payments space and wanted to share what we’re building to get real feedback from people who actually use AI agents daily.

# The problem we kept hitting:

Every time we asked our agents to help us buy something — a flight, a subscription, a product — we hit the same wall. Either:

* **You do everything yourself anyway** (copy the link, open the site, enter your card, click confirm) — which completely defeats the purpose of having an agent
* **You hand your full card details to the AI** and just... hope for the best

Neither option made sense to us. Agents can *find* amazing deals, compare prices, and reason about what we need. But the moment money needs to move, they’re useless.

# What we built:

**Pay AI** (agentpayit.ai)— payment infrastructure that sits between AI platforms (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Cursor, etc.) and the payment networks. The taglines we keep coming back to: *Made for agents. Controlled by humans.* / *The Human Authorization Layer for Agentic Commerce.*

Here’s the actual flow:

1. You tell your agent: “Book me a flight to NYC under $400”
2. The agent finds a $385 United flight and calls our API with the merchant, amount, and reason
3. You get a push notification + SMS on your phone — “Claude wants to purchase from United Airlines — $385.00”
4. You review the details and approve with Face ID / fingerprint (you have 2 minutes to decide — if the window expires, the request dies automatically)
5. Pay.ai’s secure checkout executor completes the purchase — the agent never sees your card data
6. You get an instant receipt with merchant, amount, and status. Your balance returns to $0.

# The security model (this is what we obsessed over):

* **Zero-balance virtual card** — your card starts at $0 (Plus or Pro). Funds only load after you approve a specific purchase. No standing balance = nothing to steal
* **Every purchase is bound** — each approval is locked to a specific merchant, exact amount, and tight time window. If anything changes, the transaction is automatically rejected
* **Fail closed by default** — wrong merchant, different amount, expired approval window? Automatic decline. No fallback, no retry. Your money stays put
* **Agent never touches payment credentials** — the agent sends merchant + price, and that’s where its role ends. A vault handles card data. Zero exposure to the AI
* **Biometric approval on every transaction** — no one moves money without your fingerprint or Face ID (or password if biometric not enabled)

**Platform-agnostic via MCP** — one server, works with Claude Desktop, Claude Code, ChatGPT, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code + Copilot. Connect in about 60 seconds by dropping a config snippet into your MCP settings.

# Why we think the timing is right:

Mastercard literally launched their own “Agent Pay” program. Visa, PayPal, Stripe, and Google are all making big moves in agentic payments. The rails are being built, but there’s no consumer-facing layer that actually connects your AI agent to those rails with proper human-in-the-loop approval. That’s the gap we’re filling.

# Pricing is simple:

**Free tier** at $0/month ($0.99 per transaction, 1 agent, $1000 monthly limit, pre-loaded funds required). **Plus** at $19.99/month (no per-transaction fees, 3 agents, $3K limit). **Pro** at $29.99/month (unlimited agents, $10K limit, smart approval rules).

# What we’d love feedback on:

* Does this solve a real pain point for you, or do you not trust agents enough yet to let them anywhere near purchases?
* What’s the first purchase you’d want an agent to handle for you?
* Is the 2-minute approval window the right balance between safety and convenience, or would you want more/less time?
* Are we missing anything obvious on the safety/trust side?

If you’re interested in trying it when we launch, we have an early access waitlist at **agentpayit.ai**. No spam, just a heads-up when it’s ready.

Happy to answer any questions — roast us, challenge us, whatever. That’s why we’re here. 🙏

We built the missing payment layer for AI agents — your agent finds the deal, you approve on your phone, it pays. Looking for honest feedback.