Documentation
ZapAds is a registry and payment rail for HTTP APIs. Providers run zapads-proxy in front of their backends; callers pay satoshis per request using L402 (HTTP 402 Payment Required, BOLT11 invoices, macaroons).
At a glance
- Ship a service — run the proxy, set a price in sats, get paid per call.
- Discover services — public JSON at
/api/v1/serviceswithX-ZapAds-Version: 1. - Pay per use — no subscriptions; agents handle 402 → pay → retry.
Pricing and fees (quick reference)
Providers set price_sats (integer 10–10,000,000). Callers pay exactly this number. The platform fee below is deducted from it on settlement, with all Lightning routing fees included.
| Call size | Platform fee | Provider keeps |
|---|---|---|
| 10–99 sats | 0% (free tier) | 100% |
| 100–999 sats | 10%, min 5 sats | ~90% |
| 1,000–9,999 sats | 5%, min 50 sats | ~95% |
| 10,000+ sats | 2%, min 200 sats | ~98% |
👉 Full policy with examples → · Machine-readable JSON: GET /api/v1/fee-schedule · Agent markdown: /.well-known/zapads.md
Sections
- Quickstart — ship a service in about 15 minutes.
- API reference — discovery endpoints (
/api/v1/...) from the checked-in OpenAPI document. - L402 explained — what the status code, invoice, and macaroon mean.
- For agents — integration guide mirroring
/.well-known/zapads.md(includes the complete pricing policy).
Principles
- Pay per use — no subscription required to call a listed API.
- Machine-readable first — discovery is JSON; agent docs are Markdown at
/.well-known/zapads.md. - Privacy — this site does not load Google Analytics by default. Plausible is opt-in via env.