How much does Skyfire cost?

Not retrieved. The commercial model is transaction based by nature - agents fund accounts and merchants accept payments - but no take rate, fee schedule or minimum was retrieved in this pass. For comparison, competitor Nevermined publicly states a 1 percent transaction fee with a free tier for limited volume, which sets a reference point for the category.

Does Skyfire support MCP and tool calling?

Full under the Agentic Index verification standard. Skyfire publishes public evidence of Model Context Protocol (MCP) support, tool calling, and API or SDK extensibility for connecting agents to external tools. Evidence basis: SDK, API and dashboard integration paths for merchants, credentials carried as signed JWTs on standard HTTP requests so no bespoke transport is needed, confirmed Google AP2 support, and the ability to ride on Coinbase x402 as a settlement s. Graded from public evidence only against the Agentic Index 14 point capability taxonomy. No vendor pays for placement.

Does Skyfire have SOC 2, SSO and role based access control?

Full under the Agentic Index verification standard. Skyfire publishes public evidence of enterprise security and identity controls, covering a compliance posture such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001, single sign on (SSO or SAML), and role based access control (RBAC). Evidence basis: Identity governance IS the product: provider, operational and purpose vetting, unique agent identifiers, signed JWT credentials carried on the request, and adoption as the identity layer for the Experian Know Your Agent framework plus deplo. Graded from public evidence only against the Agentic Index 14 point capability taxonomy. No vendor pays for placement.

Does Skyfire require human approval before an agent acts?

Full under the Agentic Index verification standard. Skyfire publishes public evidence of human approval steps and guardrails, so an agent action can be held for review before it executes. Evidence basis: The KYA credential binds every agent request to a human principal and an explicit permission scope: signed JWT credentials encode WHO BUILT THE AGENT, WHICH HUMAN AUTHORISED IT, WHAT IT IS PERMITTED TO DO and HOW IT MAY PAY, verified by the. Graded from public evidence only against the Agentic Index 14 point capability taxonomy. No vendor pays for placement.

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Skyfire

Q: Who is Skyfire for?

agent builders needing one rail across many merchants, API and data providers billing agent traffic, merchants accepting agent initiated purchases, enterprises deploying bot defence at the edge

Q: What are the best alternatives to Skyfire?

Based on documented capability coverage across the Agentic Index 14 point taxonomy, the closest alternatives to Skyfire among agent infrastructure platforms are Nevermined, Inth, Stripe, BAND. Each is graded on the same public evidence, and no vendor pays for placement.

Also known as: Skyfire Systems, KYA, Know Your Agent, KYAPay

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Agent infrastructureindependentVerified 2026-08-08

Entry priceTransaction based; rate not published or not retrievedFull pricing detail

Identity first payment rail for agents: KYA vets an agent and issues signed credentials encoding who built it and which human authorised it, while KYAPay settles in stablecoin without cards at the agent to merchant edge.

Skyfire builds payment infrastructure for agents that transact without a human at the point of sale, on the argument that credit cards and ACH assume a human customer and break down when the counterparty is software. Founded in 2024 by a team including former US Bank executives, it exited beta in March 2025.

The product has two halves and the identity half is the interesting one. KYA, Know Your Agent, puts agents through a provider, operational and purpose review, issues each a unique agent identifier, and returns signed JWT credentials encoding who built the agent, which human authorised it, what it is permitted to do and how it may pay. That credential travels attached to the HTTP request, so a merchant can verify accountability before settling. KYAPay is the settlement rail: agents fund accounts by card, ACH, wire or USDC, and merchants integrate by SDK, API or dashboard to accept agent payments and gate access accordingly.

The strategic position is deliberate. Skyfire is not competing with the card networks head on. It argues raw protocols like x402 are plumbing while enterprises want a turnkey product with KYC equivalent agent vetting built in, and it can ride on x402 as a settlement substrate while owning the identity and compliance layer. Its stated moat is identity, not rails.

Adoption is narrow but specific. The largest use case is developer API usage billing at price points too small for card rails, with Anthropic, Cohere, Replicate and Hugging Face reported as experimenting with KYAPay metered billing. Skyfire KYA has been adopted as the identity layer for the Experian Know Your Agent framework, and F5, which sits in front of a large share of the Fortune Global 500, has deployed it at the edge.

Vendor details

Canonical URL

https://skyfire.xyz

Subcategory

Agent identity and payment rail

Funding status

Private, founded 2024 by a team including former US Bank executives. Reported to have raised 8.5 million USD at launch in 2024; later rounds not retrieved. Exited beta March 2025.

Company status

independent

Use cases & customers

Primary use cases

identity verification for agents transacting with third party merchantsdeveloper API usage billing at price points below card economicsagent to agent payment for data and servicesgated merchant access granted on verified agent credentialsstablecoin settlement between agents and API providers

Target customers

agent builders needing one rail across many merchantsAPI and data providers billing agent trafficmerchants accepting agent initiated purchasesenterprises deploying bot defence at the edge

Deployment options

hosted API and SDK, integrated via HTTP request headers

Integrations

Merchants integrate through SDK, API or dashboard to accept agent payments and grant gated access. Agents fund accounts via card, ACH, wire or USDC, with the agent to merchant edge settled in stablecoin so no card or bank is required at that hop. Skyfire has publicly confirmed support for Google AP2 and can ride on Coinbase x402 as a settlement substrate. A December 2025 public demo combined KYAPay with Visa Intelligent Commerce end to end, and F5 has integrated KYA into enterprise bot defence at the edge.

In practice

An agent calls a paid API thousands of times in a session at prices too small for card rails, and each call settles in stablecoin against a funded account rather than an invoice.

A merchant receives a purchase request from an agent it has never seen and verifies from the attached credential who built it, which human authorised it and what it is permitted to spend before settling.

A research agent buys a domain specific summary from a specialist agent without either side negotiating a contract.

Sources & related URLs

Research sources

https://stellagent.ai/insights/skyfire-kyapay-know-your-agent https://jimmyresearch.com/entities/skyfire/ https://eco.com/support/en/articles/14846277-know-your-agent-kya-identity-for-agent-payments https://rye.com/blog/skyfire-agentic-commerce-stack https://www.rzlt.io/blog/agentic-payments-2026-x402-explainer

Agentic Index coverage score

6.5 / 14 capabilities · 46%

Integrations & Tool CallingMerchants integrate by SDK, API or dashboard; agents fund via card, ACH, wire or USDC; Google AP2 support is publicly confirmed and Skyfire can ride on Coinbase x402 as a settlement substrate; a December 2025 demo combined KYAPay with Visa Intelligent Commerce end to end, and F5 has integrated KYA into enterprise bot defence at the edge. Deliberately complementary to the other protocols rather than competing. Independent analysis and partner documentation 2026-08-08	Full
Workflow OrchestrationCoordinates a multi step transaction flow - agent vetting, credential issuance, request signing, merchant verification, settlement and access granting - but this is payment orchestration rather than agent workflow orchestration. Skyfire does not run or sequence agent work. Independent analysis of Skyfire architecture 2026-08-08	Partial
Knowledge Grounding & RAGSkyfire holds identity and entitlement records rather than knowledge, and grounds no agent reasoning. Architecturally expected for a payment and identity rail rather than a gap. Independent analysis 2026-08-08	Unable to verify
Human Oversight & GuardrailsThe KYA credential binds every agent request to a human principal and an explicit permission scope: signed JWT credentials encode WHO BUILT THE AGENT, WHICH HUMAN AUTHORISED IT, WHAT IT IS PERMITTED TO DO and HOW IT MAY PAY, verified by the merchant before settlement. Agents pass a provider, operational and purpose review before receiving an identifier at all. Human authority is a precondition of transacting rather than a review step. Independent analysis of KYA framework 2026-08-08	Full
Security, Identity & GovernanceIdentity governance IS the product: provider, operational and purpose vetting, unique agent identifiers, signed JWT credentials carried on the request, and adoption as the identity layer for the Experian Know Your Agent framework plus deployment inside F5 enterprise bot defence at the edge. Third party validation of an identity primitive is stronger evidence than a self assertion. VERIFICATION FLAG: Skyfire own corporate attestations were not retrieved. Independent analysis and partner documentation 2026-08-08	Full
Observability & AuditabilityEvery settled transaction is attributable to a verified agent identity and a named human principal, which gives strong per transaction accountability, but no audit log, reporting surface or reconciliation tooling was documented in this pass. Independent analysis 2026-08-08	Partial
Memory & State PersistenceAgent identity records and funded account balances persist, but that is identity and ledger state rather than agent memory, and no conversation or task context is held. Honest absence, architecturally expected. Independent analysis 2026-08-08	Unable to verify
Deployment & Data ResidencyHosted API and SDK. Stablecoin settlement removes the card and bank dependency at the agent to merchant edge, which is a genuine architectural flexibility, but no self hosting, regional residency or data handling detail was retrieved. Independent analysis 2026-08-08	Partial
Prebuilt Agents, Templates & PacksShips a turnkey merchant integration path via SDK, API and dashboard with KYC equivalent agent vetting built in - which is the stated differentiator against raw protocols like x402 - but there is no library of prebuilt agents, templates or packs, and none would be expected. Independent analysis 2026-08-08	Partial
Triggers & Channel CoverageOperates on the HTTP request path, with credentials attached to requests and settlement triggered by the agent making a call, so coverage of that path is complete - but there is no event, schedule or channel surface beyond it. Independent analysis of KYAPay 2026-08-08	Partial
Model Flexibility & RoutingSkyfire runs no models and makes no model selection; it settles payment for model and API calls made elsewhere. Architecturally expected rather than a gap. Independent analysis 2026-08-08	Unable to verify
APIs, SDKs & MCP ExtensibilitySDK, API and dashboard integration paths for merchants, credentials carried as signed JWTs on standard HTTP requests so no bespoke transport is needed, confirmed Google AP2 support, and the ability to ride on Coinbase x402 as a settlement substrate. Protocol interoperability is the design centre. Independent analysis and partner documentation 2026-08-08	Full
Testing, Debugging & OptimizationNo agent evaluation, testing, sandbox or simulation capability was documented. Skyfire vets agent operators at registration rather than evaluating agent behaviour over time. Independent analysis 2026-08-08	Unable to verify
Browser & Computer UseOperates on HTTP requests and settlement, with checkout execution explicitly left to partners such as Rye Universal Checkout on the execution side. No browser control or computer use capability exists. Partner documentation 2026-08-08	Unable to verify

The Agentic Index coverage score grades every vendor Full, Partial or Unable to verify against the same 14 buyer facing capabilities, from public evidence only. Each capability links to how all vendors in the index score on it. How this evidence is graded

Pricing

Transaction based; rate not published or not retrieved

transaction based, rate not retrieved

Included quota

Not retrieved.

What is public

Nothing on rates was retrieved. Skyfire first party pages were not directly accessed in this pass, so this may be published and simply uncaptured - re check before relying on it.

Billing mechanics

Agents fund accounts by card, ACH, wire or USDC and spend against the balance; merchants receive settlement through the rail. The commercial terms on top of that flow were not retrieved.

Cost watchouts

**THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS CATEGORY IS THAT CARD ECONOMICS BREAK AT AGENT PRICE POINTS, so the take rate is the entire question. At sub cent per request pricing a fixed fee overwhelms the transaction value, which is why stablecoin settlement and account funding exist here at all - but a percentage take rate applied to very high call volumes compounds differently and needs modelling against actual request counts, not transaction counts.** Funding the account by card, ACH or wire also carries its own upstream fees at the top of the funnel, separate from anything Skyfire charges. Whether KYA vetting is priced separately from KYAPay settlement was not established.

Variable cost rationale

The rate is unknown and the volume driver is agent request count, which in this category runs to thousands of calls per session by design - that is precisely the workload card rails cannot serve and the reason the product exists. Until the take rate is established, cost scales with the least controllable quantity in an agent deployment. Funding fees at the top of the funnel sit outside it again.

Additional watchouts

Model against request volume rather than transaction volume, and account for the upstream card, ACH or wire fees incurred when funding the account, which sit outside whatever the rail charges.

Overage / add-ons

Not retrieved.

Sales call required

Mixed (some tiers require a call)

Free / trial

Not retrieved

Commercial notes

**CATEGORY CONTEXT WORTH KEEPING AND CARRYING THE CAVEAT WITH IT: x402 recorded 165 million plus transactions across 69,000 active agents by April 2026, but the same independent source estimates roughly HALF of that volume is testing rather than genuine commerce. Quote both figures together - the caveat is what makes the number credible.** Reported to have raised 8.5 million USD at launch in 2024; later rounds not retrieved. Named adopters of the identity layer are stronger evidence than transaction volume: Experian uses KYA for its own Know Your Agent framework and F5 has deployed it at the edge.

Key ambiguities

The take rate, and whether identity vetting (KYA) and settlement (KYAPay) are priced together or separately. Given Skyfire states identity is the moat rather than the rails, identity could plausibly be the monetised half, and that would change how a buyer models it entirely.

Missing data

Take rate, fee schedule, minimums, and whether KYA and KYAPay are separately priced.

Agentic Index verified 2026-08-08

Official pricing page

Related vendors

Alternatives to Skyfire

The closest documented capability profiles to Skyfire among agent infrastructure platforms tracked by Agentic Index, ordered by similarity on the same 14 point evidence the rankings use. No vendor pays for placement.

Nevermined7.0 / 14Fuller documented coverage on Observability & Auditability
Inth6.0 / 14Fuller documented coverage on Observability & Auditability
Stripe8.0 / 14Adds documented Knowledge Grounding & RAG
BAND6.5 / 14Adds documented Memory & State Persistence
OpenBox AI6.5 / 14Adds documented Testing, Debugging & Optimization
Temporal Cortex6.5 / 14Fuller documented coverage on Observability & Auditability and Deployment & Data Residency

Similarity is computed from each vendor's Agentic Index coverage score evidence, axis by axis, not from the totals. How this evidence is graded

Compare Skyfire with other vendors →Compare all agent infrastructure platforms →See where Skyfire ranks →

Data confidence: medium