Payments

Nevermined has three payment types: three ways money reaches a merchant. Pick the type first, because it decides who the buyer is, what they pay with, and how much you integrate. The rest of this page covers the card mechanics that agent payments run on.

Three payment types

Catalog

AI agents discover your listed service and pay per call in stablecoin over x402 + mpp. You enroll nothing.

Embedded Web Flow

A person pays any cart total by card through a checkout embedded on your site. No plan, no buyer account, no delegation.

Merchant Plans

AI agents buy credits, time, or pay-as-you-go access to your service at a fixed price, paying by card or stablecoin.

	Catalog	Embedded Web Flow	Merchant Plans
Who pays	An AI agent or harness	A person, in a browser	An AI agent or harness
Pay with	Stablecoin	Card (fiat)	Card or stablecoin
Pricing	Dynamic — quoted per request	Dynamic — any cart total	Fixed — set per plan
Merchant enrolls?	No — Nevermined discovers and lists your service	Yes — you control an Org	Yes — you integrate NVM

The full comparison (rails, plans, buyer accounts, who integrates what) is on Monetize Your AI.

Card payments for agents

Everything below is the mechanism behind card-paid agent payments, which is how a Merchant Plan gets paid by card. Enroll a Visa, Stripe, or Braintree card. Create a delegation that caps how much can be spent. Your agents charge it directly via x402 — no checkout pages, no human in the loop.

Three payment types and three card networks are different things. Catalog, Embedded Web Flow, and Merchant Plans are what you sell and who buys. Visa, Stripe, and Braintree are card networks: the providers an enrolled card and its delegation settle through. Delegations apply to Merchant Plans paid by card. The Embedded Web Flow settles through the same PSPs, but the buyer confirms each charge in the browser, so there is no enrollment and no delegation. Catalog payments are stablecoin and never touch a card.

Manage everything at nevermined.app.

Card Enrollment

Enroll Visa, Stripe, or Braintree cards

Delegations

Set spending limits and expiration

Delegation Selection

Auto-resolve which card to charge

How It Works

Enroll a card

Add a Visa, Stripe, or Braintree card at nevermined.app. Card data is tokenized in the browser by the provider’s PCI-compliant capture (VGS Collect for Visa and Stripe, Braintree Drop-in for Braintree). Nevermined never stores raw card numbers.

Create a delegation

Set the spending limit, duration, and (optionally) max transactions. Visa delegations also require a per-delegation passkey approval that binds the limits to your device. Optionally link the delegation to a specific API key for automatic routing.

Agents charge it

Agents call the Nevermined API with their API key. Nevermined resolves the right delegation and generates an x402 token. The resource server verifies, executes, and settles.

Payment Flow

Agent (no token)
  |
  |-> Resource Server returns 402 + payment-required header
  |
  |-> Agent calls Nevermined: POST /api/v1/x402/permissions
  |     |-> Resolves delegation -> generates x402 token (scheme: nvm:card-delegation)
  |
  |-> Agent retries with payment-signature header
  |
  |-> Resource Server:
        |-> POST /verify -> validates token, delegation, usage
        |-> Executes workload
        |-> POST /settle -> charges card, returns payment-response

One delegation model, three card networks

All three providers share the same nvm:card-delegation x402 scheme and the same POST /api/v1/delegation/create endpoint. The network field on the delegation (stripe, braintree, or visa) is set by the card you choose and routes settlement to the right PSP.

Visa

PAN tokenized by VGS Credential Management Platform (CMP) into a Visa Agentic Token. Each delegation requires a one-time WebAuthn/passkey device-binding ceremony enforced by Visa VTS. Settlement runs through Stripe Connect against the seller’s connected account.

Stripe

Card captured via VGS Collect and confirmed against a Stripe SetupIntent. No passkey. Settlement runs through Stripe PaymentIntents directly.

Braintree

Card captured via Braintree Drop-in, exchanged for a vaulted paymentMethodToken. Settlement runs through transaction.sale against the seller’s per-currency OAuth-connected Braintree merchant account.

The Visa Agentic Tokens flow replaces the earlier VTS/VIC + mandate endpoints. There is no longer a separate “mandate” object — a Visa delegation is just a nvm:card-delegation record with provider: 'visa'.

Key Concepts

Concept	Description
Delegation	A scoped spending authorization on an enrolled card. Defines the spending limit, max transactions, and expiration. Same concept across Visa, Stripe, and Braintree.
Visa Agentic Token	The CMP-issued identifier (`vat_…`) that replaces the real PAN. Stored as the delegation’s `providerPaymentMethodId` for Visa cards.
Device binding	A per-delegation WebAuthn/passkey ceremony required by Visa VTS. Produces a single-use `assuranceData` blob bound to the spending limit, duration, and merchant context. Browser-only.
Spending Ceiling	Per-card cumulative limit across all active delegations (default $10.00).
API Key Linking	Link a delegation to a specific API key so agents automatically use the right one.
x402 Token	Payment token used in the `payment-signature` HTTP header (`nvm:card-delegation` scheme).

SDK consumption

The TypeScript and Python SDKs treat all three networks identically. Pass the delegationId to DelegationConfig and the SDK auto-resolves the scheme + network from the plan and the delegation record:

TypeScript
Python

import { Payments } from '@nevermined-io/payments'

const payments = Payments.getInstance({
  nvmApiKey: process.env.NVM_API_KEY,
  environment: 'sandbox',
})

// Works the same for Stripe, Braintree, and Visa delegations.
const token = await payments.x402.getX402AccessToken(
  'plan_abc123',
  undefined, // agentId — pass when the plan has multiple agents
  {
    delegationConfig: {
      delegationId: 'deleg-8f14e45f-ce34-4797-b88e-968374b0d4b6',
    },
  },
)

import os
from payments_py import Payments
from payments_py.x402 import DelegationConfig, X402TokenOptions

payments = Payments(
    api_key=os.environ.get("NVM_API_KEY"),
    environment="sandbox",
)

# Works the same for Stripe, Braintree, and Visa delegations.
token = payments.x402.get_x402_access_token(
    plan_id="plan_abc123",
    token_options=X402TokenOptions(
        delegation_config=DelegationConfig(
            delegation_id="deleg-8f14e45f-ce34-4797-b88e-968374b0d4b6",
        ),
    ),
)

For Visa, delegationId reuse is the only SDK path. createDelegation with provider='visa' cannot run from a non-browser context — the backend rejects it without consumerPrompt + assuranceData, both of which require the WebAuthn ceremony embedded by Visa VTS in the webapp. The SDK rejection surfaces as PaymentsError.code = 'BCK.VISA.0014'.

Environments

Sandbox — Testing and development. Visa runs against VGS sandbox + VTS test PANs; Stripe in test mode; Braintree on sandbox merchants.
Live — Production. Real payments through Visa, Stripe, and Braintree.

You need an NVM API Key. Set it as NVM_API_KEY.

What’s Next?

Enroll a Card

Set up your first payment card

Create a Delegation

Define spending limits, usage caps, and expiration

Compare the three payment types

Catalog, Embedded Web Flow, and Merchant Plans side by side

Orders: Goods & Services Checkout

The Embedded Web Flow contract, and its current availability

Learn

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Nevermined Catalog

Solutions

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Integrations

Payment Patterns

Components

Specs

Payments

Three payment types

Catalog

Embedded Web Flow

Merchant Plans

Card payments for agents

Card Enrollment

Delegations

Delegation Selection

How It Works

Payment Flow

One delegation model, three card networks

Visa

Stripe

Braintree

Key Concepts

SDK consumption

Environments

What’s Next?

Enroll a Card

Create a Delegation

Compare the three payment types

Orders: Goods & Services Checkout

​Three payment types

Catalog

Embedded Web Flow

Merchant Plans

​Card payments for agents

Card Enrollment

Delegations

Delegation Selection

​How It Works

​Payment Flow

​One delegation model, three card networks

Visa

Stripe

Braintree

​Key Concepts

​SDK consumption

​Environments

​What’s Next?

Enroll a Card

Create a Delegation

Compare the three payment types

Orders: Goods & Services Checkout

Three payment types

Card payments for agents

How It Works

Payment Flow

One delegation model, three card networks

Key Concepts

SDK consumption

Environments

What’s Next?