---
title: "What pay per crawl pays and who is paying | Agent Ready Crawlers"
description: "What pay per crawl pays and who is paying: Cloudflare, AWS WAF and TollBit compared, and why no payout totals are public yet."
canonical: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/guides/what-pay-per-crawl-pays
site: "Agent Ready Crawlers"
last_updated: 2026-11-04
date: 2026-11-04
section: "Guides"
---

# What pay per crawl pays and who is paying | Agent Ready Crawlers

> What pay per crawl pays and who is paying: Cloudflare, AWS WAF and TollBit compared, and why no payout totals are public yet.

Source: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/guides/what-pay-per-crawl-pays
Site: Agent Ready Crawlers
Last reviewed: 2026-11-04

# What pay per crawl pays and who is paying

In short

Three charging paths exist today: Cloudflare pay per crawl (closed beta), AWS WAF x402 monetization (CloudFront), and partner paywalls such as TollBit; none publishes payout totals. Cloudflare pay per crawl returns HTTP 402 with a crawler-price header; crawlers retry with crawler-exact-price or send crawler-max-price up front.

Three ways to charge a crawler exist today. None publishes payout totals, so what they pay publishers is not yet public.

## In practice

1.  Cloudflare pay per crawl answers with HTTP 402 and a crawler-price header; a crawler retries with crawler-exact-price or sends crawler-max-price up front. Cloudflare acts as Merchant of Record, and the feature is in closed beta per documents updated 2026-07-28.
2.  AWS WAF AI traffic monetization returns an x402 HTTP 402 and settles through Coinbase in stablecoins. Stripe payouts were listed as coming soon.
3.  TollBit sells a Bot Paywall that publishers price by usage. TollBit reports more than 2.6 billion AI bots directed to its paywall in the first half of 2026, which is its own count.
4.  Skyfire pay tokens commit the buyer's funds, so a seller that charges a valid token is guaranteed payment up to the committed amount.
5.  Read the vendor pages before choosing. What each does not do is on its profile.

## What the sources say

-   Primary source Cloudflare pay per crawl returns HTTP 402 with a crawler-price header; crawlers retry with crawler-exact-price or send crawler-max-price up front. [Source](https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-pay-per-crawl/), read 2026-11-04.
-   Primary source Cloudflare acts as Merchant of Record; pay per crawl is in closed beta per docs updated 2026-07-28. [Source](https://developers.cloudflare.com/ai-crawl-control/features/pay-per-crawl/what-is-pay-per-crawl/), read 2026-11-04.
-   Primary source AWS WAF AI traffic monetization returns an x402 HTTP 402 and settles through Coinbase in stablecoins; Stripe payouts were listed as coming soon. [Source](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2026/06/aws-waf-ai-traffic-monetization), read 2026-11-04.
-   Vendor claim TollBit reports more than 2.6 billion AI bots directed to its Bot Paywall in H1 2026. [Source](https://tollbit.com/), read 2026-11-04.
-   Primary source Skyfire pay tokens commit buyer funds, so a seller charging a valid token is guaranteed payment up to the committed amount. [Source](https://docs.skyfire.xyz/docs/payments-settlement.md), read 2026-11-04.

## Related

-   [Cloudflare](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/cloudflare/)
-   [AWS WAF Bot Control](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/aws-waf-bot-control/)
-   [TollBit](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/tollbit/)
-   [Skyfire](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/skyfire/)
-   [TollBit vs Cloudflare](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/compare/tollbit-vs-cloudflare/)
-   [Pay per crawl](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/glossary/pay-per-crawl/)

## Sources

-   [Introducing pay per crawl](https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-pay-per-crawl/) read 2026-11-04
-   [developers.cloudflare.com: what is pay per crawl](https://developers.cloudflare.com/ai-crawl-control/features/pay-per-crawl/what-is-pay-per-crawl/) read 2026-11-04
-   [aws.amazon.com: aws waf ai traffic monetization](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2026/06/aws-waf-ai-traffic-monetization) read 2026-11-04
-   [tollbit.com: tollbit.com](https://tollbit.com/) read 2026-11-04
-   [docs.skyfire.xyz: payments settlement.md](https://docs.skyfire.xyz/docs/payments-settlement.md) read 2026-11-04

Last reviewed 2026-11-04