ACP · Agent Commerce Protocol
Conversational checkout for ChatGPT and beyond.
ACP powers ChatGPT's "Instant Checkout" — when a user says "buy me those shoes," ACP creates a Checkout object with the merchant, Stripe issues a SharedPaymentToken, and the merchant charges. Live with Etsy, Glossier, Vuori, Spanx, SKIMS and a growing set of Shopify merchants.
The four things ACP actually delivers.
- Creates a Checkout object inside the conversational surface.
- Tokenises payment credentials via Stripe SharedPaymentToken.
- Hands the merchant a one-shot charge token; user never leaves chat.
- Carries minimal allowance/refund primitives for the chat surface.
The flow, end to end.
User in ChatGPT
"Buy these shoes."
ChatGPT creates Checkout
ACP Checkout object spawned with the merchant.
Stripe tokenises
SharedPaymentToken issued for one-shot use.
Merchant charges
Order placed; receipt returned to chat.
You ask your smart assistant "I want that toy car." It says "Found it, $25 at ToysRUs — buy it?" You say yes. It uses your saved card, the toy ships. That is ACP.
Optional stablecoin settlement
For merchants who want T+0 payout instead of card timelines, xpay can route the same ACP checkout through an x402 settlement rail.
xpay Facilitator →What ACP ships, what it does not, and what bridges the gap.
Live conversational checkout, premium merchant set, Stripe tokenisation.
Limited to Stripe's allowance model, no multi-rail policy, no on-chain auditability.
6-dimensional policies (budget, category, time, recipient, cumulative, per-transaction) and an alternative stablecoin settlement rail for faster merchant payouts.
Beyond Stripe's allowance ceiling
ACP's allowances are powerful but Stripe-shaped. xpay layers enterprise policies on top — same governance you apply to UCP and x402 — so an agent acts the same way regardless of rail.
See policy controls →ACP compared.
ACP vs UCP
ACP is conversational-first, anchored to Stripe + OpenAI. UCP is discovery-first, open, anchored to Google + Shopify. Most merchants will publish to both surfaces.
ACP vs MPP
ACP defines the commerce shape inside chat. MPP defines the agent's card-rail credential. Many ACP checkouts will run on MPP underneath.
ACP vs x402
ACP handles consumer checkout; x402 handles per-call API payments. They live at different layers — ACP settles a cart, x402 settles a request.