Payguard

Settle first.
Release safely.

Payguard is a seller-side x402 loss-protection gateway for paid APIs and MCP tools on Base.

It verifies and settles the exact payment before paid work is released, then durably caches the result for safe replay.

Open merchant console Read the protocol
  1. VerifyBind the request and exact payment.
  2. SettleConfirm settlement on Base.
  3. CacheEncrypt the delivered response.
  4. ReleaseReturn paid work after settlement.
RequestOutcomeHTTP
POST /v1/report HTTP/1.1
PAYMENT-SIGNATURE: [bounded]
Idempotency-Key: pg_…

network  eip155:8453
asset    native USDC
amount   10000000
state       Released
settlement  0x8f3c…a1b2
response    encrypted cache
evidence    sha256:5c0f…

No release before settle.

Three real operator outcomes.

Clear states. Predictable handling. No ambiguous success.

SettlementUnknown

Do not release paid work. Reconcile the onchain outcome before retrying settlement.

SettledDeliveryFailed

Payment settled, but delivery failed. Keep evidence and send the attempt to operator review.

Exact replay

Serve the same encrypted cached response for the bound request. Never run paid work twice.

Simple operating plans.

Pricing hypotheses — not booked revenue.

Launch

$99/month

For one paid API surface.

Scale

$299/month

For growing route operations.

Enterprise

$999/month

For custom operating controls.

Protected volume is not revenue or profit.

Contribution reporting excludes taxes, payroll, acquisition costs, and unallocated overhead.