Google AP2 agent payments: what small businesses should know
What AP2 is, what it is not, and the practical steps that make your services easy for an AI agent to quote and book.
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AP2, the Agent Payments Protocol, is an open protocol from Google for payments that an AI agent starts on a person's behalf. It does not replace Stripe, PayPal or cards. It adds a signed record of what the person authorised, so a merchant can verify the purchase. For a service business, the practical step is to make your prices and checkout readable.
What AP2 is
AP2 is a protocol for agent-led payments, and Google announced it on 17 September 2025. In Google Cloud's announcement, it is described as an open protocol developed with payments and technology companies to securely start and complete agent-led payments across platforms, usable as an extension of the Agent2Agent (A2A) and Model Context Protocol (MCP).
It is payment agnostic. Google says it supports payment types from credit and debit cards to stablecoins and real-time bank transfers. AP2 does not move the money. It wraps a signed authorisation around whatever rail carries it.
Google names more than 60 organisations collaborating on it, including Adyen, American Express, Coinbase, Intuit, Mastercard, PayPal, Revolut, Salesforce and Worldpay. The same post describes an x402 extension, built with Coinbase, the Ethereum Foundation and MetaMask, for agent-based crypto payments.
The core idea: signed mandates
The core idea in AP2 is the mandate, a cryptographically signed record of what the user instructed. Google's announcement describes an Intent Mandate, which captures the request and its conditions such as price limits and timing, and a Cart Mandate, which records the exact items and price the user approved.
The protocol has moved since that announcement. The AP2 site now describes Checkout and Payment mandates, each with an open and a closed stage, and refers to a v0.2 release and a donation to the FIDO Alliance, where standardisation continues. Names and details may change again, so read the current specification before you build anything.
The purpose is the same in both versions. A merchant can show that the buyer intended the purchase, that an agent was allowed to make it, and what the buyer approved. Disputes should get cheaper because there is a verifiable trail.
How it connects to Stripe, Visa and Mastercard
AP2 is one of several agent payment efforts, and they overlap. At its 2026 Sessions event, Stripe announced that users can let agents pay with Link's agent wallet, keeping control through spending approvals and purchase visibility. Stripe also described an Agentic Commerce Suite for merchants who want to sell through AI agents, and a Machine Payments Protocol, co-authored with Tempo, for programmatic payments in stablecoins and by card.
The card networks have their own tools. Digital Commerce 360 reported that Visa launched a Trusted Agent Protocol to help merchants identify verified AI agents, and Mastercard launched an Agent Pay merchant acceptance framework that registers and authenticates agents before a transaction. Both build on Cloudflare's Web Bot Auth.
The takeaway is not which one wins. It is that the major payment companies all expect agents to buy things, and each is building a way to prove who the agent is and what it was allowed to do.
Why a service business should care
Most small service businesses sell to people today. It is reasonable to expect some discovery and booking to run through AI agents acting for buyers, but nobody can say how fast. Treat this as a trend to prepare for, not a deadline.
When a buyer's agent looks for a web developer, a bookkeeper or a photographer, it needs three things:
- A price it can quote. Fixed packages are easy to read. "Let's hop on a call" is not.
- A checkout it can complete. A branded page where a person or an agent can pay beats "email me and I will send an invoice".
- A payment surface that can handle agent credentials. This is the new part, and it depends on your payment provider rather than on you.
The first two are in your hands today.
What to do now
Three moves cost little and help with or without agents.
Put prices on the page
If an agent cannot read your rate, it cannot quote you. Publish two or three packages with fixed prices and clear scope. The same approach suits human visitors, and it fits the ideas in booking-led productised services.
Run checkout on a real payment page
A hosted payment page tied to your own account is something an agent or a person can use. A PDF invoice attached to an email is a wall. The post on payment links versus invoices compares the options.
Add structured data
Add Schema.org markup to your service pages. The Offer type describes an offer to provide a service, with properties for price and currency. Search engines and AI systems read this kind of data, and it makes your packages easier to extract. Combined with a clear booking path, it helps both humans and software.
Keep calls and chats in the picture too. Many buyers will still talk to a person first, and AI voice tools are changing how bookings start, which the guide to AI voice agents and client calls covers.
What could go wrong
Agent payments raise questions that nobody has fully settled, and a small business should know them before taking the first order.
The first is authority. If an agent books and pays for a service, who is responsible when the buyer says they never wanted it? Signed mandates exist to answer that, but only if the merchant keeps them. Keep every authorisation record you are sent, the same way you would keep a signed contract.
The second is scope. An agent may read your package page literally. If a package says "website, five pages" and says nothing about copywriting, the agent will assume the price is complete. Write exclusions as clearly as inclusions, and put the same scope in the quote, the contract and the invoice.
The third is refunds and disputes. Your payment provider sets those rules, not you. Read its terms on chargebacks for agent-initiated payments when they appear, and write your own refund policy in plain words so a buyer or a buyer's agent can find it.
None of this needs action today. It is a reason to keep your offers precise and your records in order, which is good practice anyway.
How Delivvo fits, and what it does not do
Delivvo does not support AP2 or agent-initiated payments today, and it does not claim to. What it does is give you the pieces that make a service easy to buy, whoever or whatever is buying.
- Publish fixed packages and add-ons as a quote in Proposals. Each has a price and a scope, so a person has a clear choice.
- Share a booking page with a slot picker at your own link, or an inquiry form at delivvo.io/f/yourname, so a buyer can start without a call.
- On Pro, the one-page close lets the client choose, sign and pay the deposit on one page. Delivvo creates the client, project, contract, invoice and payment schedule.
- The payment goes through your own processor: Stripe, PayPal or Square. Delivvo takes 0% and is never the merchant of record, so you keep the relationship with your payment provider and whatever it adds for agents over time.
- Each signed contract keeps a SHA-256 hash, IP address, device and an archived PDF, and every quote and invoice has a verification code. Anyone can check one on the verify page. That is a human-readable version of the same idea AP2 uses: a record of who agreed to what.
Free covers 3 clients and 3 active projects with no card. See the proposals, payments and client scheduling pages.
Read more about how payments work, or start with the CRM and client portal.
FAQ
Does AP2 replace Stripe or PayPal?
No. AP2 does not move money. It adds a signed authorisation around payments that run on existing rails such as cards and bank transfers.
Do I need to do anything about AP2 now?
Not technically. Your payment provider will handle the protocol. What you can do is clear prices, a real checkout and structured data, which help with or without agents.
Is AP2 a finished standard?
No. It has changed since its first announcement and is moving into the FIDO Alliance. Check the current specification before you build against it.
Will agents book my services soon?
Some already can in limited form, but nobody can say how large the share will be. Prepare cheaply and keep serving people first.
Delivvo runs the whole client cycle for service businesses, from the first inquiry to the quote, contract, deposit, invoice and delivery, so your packages, checkout and signed records are clear and ready for whoever or whatever is buying. Clients pay you directly through your own gateway, and Delivvo takes 0%. Start free