Which x402 facilitator should I use, and what does it cost?

Quick answer: under about 1,000 settlements a month, Coinbase CDP costs nothing; above that it is $0.001 each. PayAI needs no API key to start, but its 1,000 free credits are lifetime (about 430–459 Base settlements), then about $0.002 per Base settlement today. thirdweb takes 0.3% of each payment on top of a paid plan from $99/month, so it only pays off at high volume. Test on the x402.org facilitator (Base Sepolia). Self-hosting has no fee, but you pay gas.

All figures come from each provider's own page, checked 14 Oct 2026. Prices change, so check the source.

The numbers

• Coinbase CDP: 1,000 free onchain transactions a month, then $0.001 each. Verification is free. Base supports exact, upto and batch-settlement. Needs a CDP API key. (CDP Facilitator docs)
• PayAI: 1,000 free credits per receiving wallet, lifetime (not monthly): about 430–459 Base settlements. Deployments on shared cloud hosts such as Cloudflare Workers also draw from a shared pool and may hit the limit sooner. Then network gas + 30%, at $0.001 per credit. Live Base exact rate: 2.18 credits ($0.00218) via EIP-3009, effective since 2026-10-07; PayAI republishes a rate when it moves more than 5%. (pricing docs, live table)
• thirdweb: 0.3% transaction fee on each facilitator transaction, listed on the paid plans: Growth $99/month, Scale $499/month, Pro $1,499+/month. Supports Base (chainId 8453). Uses your own server wallet and a secret key. (pricing, docs)
• x402.org: its /supported list shows Base Sepolia, not Base mainnet. Fee: unknown. (/supported)
• Self-hosted: no facilitator fee; you pay gas for each settlement.

Where the lines cross

CDP's fee is flat ($0.001 after 1,000 free a month). thirdweb adds 0.3% of volume to a plan from $99/month. Its percentage only beats CDP's flat fee per payment below about $0.33, and the plan fee outweighs that unless you already pay for a thirdweb plan. PayAI's current Base rate ($0.00218) is above CDP's paid rate, but you can start without an account.

Example: 5,000 payments a month at $0.01 each: CDP $4.00, PayAI $10.90 (once its free credits are used), thirdweb $99.15 on the Growth plan.

Plug in your own numbers with the free x402 facilitator cost calculator.

To check that your endpoint returns a valid 402, use the free x402 endpoint checker.