Cloudflare puts two AI payment products into beta

Cloudflare put two AI payment products into beta on 30 September 2026, according to its own Monetization Gateway and Pay Per Use posts. Search Engine Journal reported the move on 1 October. Both are aimed at getting paid when AI systems use what you publish or run.

What is Monetization Gateway?#

It lets a seller charge an AI agent for each request to an API, MCP tool, dataset or site behind Cloudflare. When an agent asks for a protected resource, it receives payment terms over HTTP 402, signs a payment authorization and retries. Cloudflare’s docs say payment is verified before the seller’s origin responds.

Each rule sets a domain, URL, price and audience: everyone, or only verified bots identified through BotBase. Fixed prices charge the same amount per request, while variable prices authorize a maximum and the origin reports the actual amount. The documented minimum settlement is $0.001 and the maximum price is $100. Payments use USDC on the Base blockchain.

Who can use the Gateway now?#

Only US-based sellers and buyers, in a closed beta where access is requested in the dashboard. The eligibility page also asks for a credit card on file, a verified email, an account older than 60 days, and a zone that is proxied through Cloudflare and older than 30 days. Cloudflare says support for new geographies is on the way.

How does Pay Per Use work?#

An AI company sets up a program, names the use it will pay for and sets a price. Publishers review offers under Monetize, Pay Per Use in the dashboard and accept or decline, and each program’s terms define what the buyer may do with the content, including any training restrictions.

The buyer then reports each use with a timestamp, the source URL and an event ID. Cloudflare says usage is self-reported, checks that each use maps to an enrolled publisher, charges the buyer and pays publishers monthly.

What is still unknown?#

During the beta, Cloudflare is working directly with each buyer and with publishers who opt in, and it does not name the buyers. Neither post reports transaction counts or payouts. Ideas such as countering a buyer’s price or pricing by use are described as things the beta will help it work out.

For a publisher, the practical first step is knowing which AI crawlers you currently allow. Our robots.txt and llms.txt generator shows those rules, and the AI contribution pilot report covers a comparable payment program from Google.