Introducing the Machine Payments Protocol
March 19, 2026
However, the tools of the current financial system were built for humans, so agents struggle to use them. Making a purchase today can require an agent to create an account, navigate a pricing page, choose between subscription tiers, enter payment details, and set up billing—steps that often require human intervention.
To help eliminate these challenges, we’re launching the Machine Payments Protocol (MPP), an open standard, internet-native way for agents to pay—co-authored by Tempo and Stripe. MPP provides a specification for agents and services to coordinate payments programmatically, enabling microtransactions, recurring payments, and more.
I’ve said more than once recently that I believe an increasingly significant percentage of all the visitors to your site will not be people but will be agents. and this proposed new protocol for agent payments from Stripe and others is the plumbing we will need to enable that.
