Designed, not pretended

Granular website evidence should be cheaper than ignoring it.

The free sample covers one page per requester IP and per target website each day without email or contact consent. Deterministic standard and white-label quotes, x402 v2 settlement, and queued paid execution are live through API and MCP. The normal website has no paid checkout path.

Current status: live. WebsiteIQ accepts x402 v2 USDC on Base for the documented paid API and MCP resources.

When a free API or MCP audit is stopped by the daily requester-IP, target-website, or combined-pair controls, WebsiteIQ returns the short reason plus a robots-aware, sitemap-priced payable x402 challenge. Quotes read robots.txt and the bounded sitemap tree before any audit crawl, and partial estimates are labeled as minimums.

The client process, in five steps

These are the current client-side steps. Confirm GET /api/x402/status reports enabled: true before signing a payment.

  1. Quote before the audit crawl. Send POST https://websiteiq.xyz/api/estimate with {"url":"https://example.com"}. Review estimatedPages, estimateComplete, standardQuote, whiteLabelQuote, and selectedQuote. This step reads robots.txt and the bounded sitemap tree; it does not execute an audit or request payment.
  2. Check settlement readiness. Send GET https://websiteiq.xyz/api/x402/status. Continue only when the JSON response says enabled: true.
  3. Request the paid audit. Send {"quoteId":"..."} to the stable POST https://websiteiq.xyz/api/paid-audits resource, use the quote-specific URL, or call the MCP paid-audit tool. A request without payment receives 402 Payment Required and a Base64-encoded PAYMENT-REQUIRED header containing the exact published requirements and price.
  4. Sign and retry. Confirm the USDC amount, Base network, destination, and resource in an x402 v2-compatible client; retry the identical request with its signed payload in PAYMENT-SIGNATURE.
  5. Keep the evidence. Read the audit response and PAYMENT-RESPONSE settlement header. Save the returned unlisted report URL; anyone with the complete token-bearing URL can view that retained report.

Why x402 fits this service

An agent may need a small evidence object before deciding whether a deeper task is worth doing. Account creation, subscription checkout, and API-key provisioning can cost more coordination than the audit itself. x402 uses HTTP 402 negotiation and wallet-signed payment so a compatible client can pay for one resource request.

That does not make every audit profitable or useful. The unit price must still cover facilitator cost, edge compute, abuse, storage, support, and failed requests. WebsiteIQ will publish a benchmark fixture before making a savings claim.

Production contract

Item Production behavior
Resource POST /api/paid-audits, the quote-specific POST /api/paid-audits/{quoteId}, or MCP start_paid_audit, up to 750 quoted pages processed in bounded 32-page queue batches.
Pricing status Standard: $0.01 USDC through 10 pages, then $0.001 per additional page. White-label: $0.02 through 10 pages, then $0.002 per additional page.
Settlement x402 v2 USDC on Base (eip155:8453) through the production facilitator. HTTP uses PAYMENT-REQUIRED, PAYMENT-SIGNATURE, and PAYMENT-RESPONSE; MCP uses the matching x402 metadata fields.
Discovery OpenAPI/API catalog plus the endpoint’s real 402 response. The stable paid resource declares the x402 Bazaar discovery extension; catalog appearance follows a successful facilitator settlement and index propagation. WebsiteIQ does not invent a /.well-known/x402 document.
Crawl boundary Payment never buys permission to ignore the target site’s robots.txt or access controls.

Beta boundary

The free sample is one comprehensive page per requester IP and per target website per day with no account, email, or contact consent. Abuse controls cross-reference the requester IP, target website, and combined pair. Sitemap quoting, payment settlement, replay-safe job creation, and robots-compliant queued batch execution are active. The runtime kill switch can disable new settlement without removing quote or free-sample access.

Primary references