--- type: Article name: "AP2 and agent payments: how an agent proves it's allowed to spend on someone's behalf." id: "https://selfe.ai/insights/protocols-and-agent-checkout/ap2-and-agent-payments-how-an-agent-proves-its-allowed-to-spend-on-someones-beha" url: "https://selfe.ai/insights/protocols-and-agent-checkout/ap2-and-agent-payments-how-an-agent-proves-its-allowed-to-spend-on-someones-beha" publisher: "did:web:selfe.ai" description: "A credential proves an AI agent is who it says it is. AP2 (Agent Payments Protocol) proves something narrower and more specific: that a real person authorised this exact spend, up to this exact limit, and a business can verify that before it charges anything." datePublished: "2026-09-15T10:32:57.331Z" author: The Selfe team --- # AP2 and agent payments: how an agent proves it's allowed to spend on someone's behalf. > A credential proves an AI agent is who it says it is. AP2 (Agent Payments Protocol) proves something narrower and more specific: that a real person authorised this exact spend, up to this exact limit, and a business can verify that before it charges anything. ## In short - A credential proves identity. AP2 proves the spend itself was authorised, by a real person, up to a real limit. - A mandate is a signed, verifiable statement of what an agent is allowed to spend and on what. - Checking the mandate happens before a transaction completes, not after a dispute is raised. The instinct is to treat "the agent is verified" and "the payment is authorised" as the same fact. AP2 exists because a business that conflates them is trusting a spend limit nobody actually confirmed. ## The gap a credential alone doesn't close Knowing an agent is real answers one question. Knowing it's allowed to spend this much, right now, answers a different one entirely. An agent can be genuinely who it claims to be and still not have a specific spend approved. Identity answers "is this a real, trusted agent." It doesn't answer "did anyone agree it could spend £85 on this order, today." Those are different questions, and a business that only checks the first one is trusting the second on faith. ## What a mandate is AP2's core object is a mandate: a signed statement from the person the agent is acting for, saying this agent may spend up to this amount, on this kind of thing, by this date. It's cryptographically verifiable, so a business can confirm it was genuinely issued rather than claimed after the fact, and it can be scoped as tightly as a single transaction or as loosely as a standing weekly budget. ## What a business sees at checkout Alongside the order itself, a mandate reference arrives that the business's system checks before completing anything: does this mandate cover this amount, is it still valid, has it already been used if it was meant to be single-use. Only once that clears does the transaction proceed. ## Proof the payment was authorised before it happened. AP2 isn't a new way to pay. It's proof the payment was approved before it happened, rather than something a business has to establish after the fact through a chargeback or a phone call. That's the real value: fewer disputes, because the authorisation was checkable at the moment it mattered. ## Where the mandate gets checked Selfe verifies the mandate as part of every checkout it processes, so a business never completes a transaction on an agent's word alone. If the mandate doesn't cover the spend, the transaction simply doesn't go through. ## Can a mandate cover more than one purchase? Yes. It can be scoped to a single transaction or to a standing limit over time, depending on what the person authorised. ## What happens if the mandate doesn't cover the amount? The transaction is refused before it completes, the same as a declined card, rather than going through and being disputed later. ## Act on this - [Check whether an agent can buy from you](https://selfe.ai/agentic-commerce/buyability-check) — the free readiness scan. - [Discover venues](https://selfe.ai/api/registry/discover) — `POST`, semantic browse across the registry. - [Match a bookable answer](https://selfe.ai/api/registry/match) — `POST` with dates and party size. - [Verify Selfe's identity](https://selfe.ai/.well-known/did.json) — `did:web:selfe.ai`. - [Agent card](https://selfe.ai/.well-known/agent-card.json) — how to connect over A2A or MCP.