Cloudflare's Monetization Gateway uses the x402 protocol to charge for API calls, datasets, and content access. CEO Prince calls it a marketplace for an AI-driven internet.
Cloudflare turned its global web infrastructure into a payment processor on July 1. The company's Monetization Gateway lets customers charge for access to APIs, datasets, tools, and content using crypto-native payment rails built with Coinbase.
The system uses the x402 protocol, a collaboration between Cloudflare and Coinbase, to resurrect HTTP status code 402. That code has been sitting unused in the HTTP specification for decades, reserved for future use. Now it has a job.
When an AI agent or automated tool hits a protected resource, it gets a 402 response instead of the content. The payment clears programmatically, and the content is delivered. No login screens, no API key negotiations, no invoice emails.
Cloudflare acts as the merchant of record, managing all payments and payouts on behalf of customers. The company's edge infrastructure handles verification at low latency so the payment step doesn't become a bottleneck.
Customers set flat per-request pricing under the Monetization Gateway model. The feature is currently waitlisted.
In July 2025, Cloudflare launched Pay per Crawl in private beta, which let publishers set pricing for AI bot access to their content. The Monetization Gateway generalizes that concept. Where Pay per Crawl was specifically about AI bots crawling websites, the new gateway applies to any resource behind Cloudflare, both AI and non-AI assets. A developer could charge for API calls. A data provider could price individual dataset queries. A media company could monetize individual article reads without requiring a full subscription.
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince has said this is about building a new marketplace for an internet dominated by AI agents and automated tools.
The Monetization Gateway has a sibling. Cloudflare launched its own stablecoin, the NET Dollar, in September 2025, designed specifically for AI transactions. The two systems are built to work together: content protection, access control, payment processing, and a settlement currency all from the same vendor.
The x402 protocol ties the system into the broader crypto ecosystem through Coinbase, which brings exchange infrastructure, wallet technology, and regulatory relationships.
NET, the company's ticker, has an Alpha Score of 33 from AlphaScala, rated Weak. The stock sits in the Technology sector.
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