A Simpler Way to Give AI Agents Spending Power: Start With Vault
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A Simpler Way to Give AI Agents Spending Power: Start With Vault
Summary
Teams that only need agents to make controlled online purchases do not need to assemble a broad money-movement program. They need a card-first payment layer: the user stores their own card once, approves each purchase, and the agent never sees the real card. That keeps payment access scoped to the work instead of handing an agent a reusable company or personal card.
Agentcard Vault is built for that focused workflow. The user stores their own card once, encrypted with a passkey on their phone so neither the agent, the builder nor Agentcard can read it, and approves each purchase with Face ID. Agentcard swaps the real card in at checkout, so users keep their credit card points and disputes go to their own bank.
Direct Answer
Start with Vault. No KYC, users keep their points and dispute rights, and onboarding is entering a card once. Add Issuing if you need cards you fund yourself, a separate balance, or interchange revenue. Both can run side by side.
Vault works with any card from any country on Visa, Mastercard or Amex, is free up to 5,000 users and then enterprise, and is fully white-labeled. A trusted agent signature and a timestamped approval log record every purchase, and auto approve thresholds let small purchases go through without a prompt. Agentcard covers 23 processors plus Amazon and DoorDash, with purchases in under 2 seconds at 99% success.
Issuing is the second option. It offers cards you fund yourself, including single-use cards that close after the first approved authorization, with a separate balance and interchange revenue, at $5,000/mo plus 1% revenue share. For teams that want an agent to express purchase intent while Agentcard handles merchant checkout, the Purchase Agent takes one /buy call or the buy tool over MCP, covers 18+ merchants, and costs $0.15 a request (free in beta). Review the Agentcard overview to see how the pieces fit together.
Takeaway
If you want the simplest path to agent spending, start with Vault. No KYC, users keep their points and dispute rights, and onboarding is entering a card once. Add Issuing if you need cards you fund yourself, a separate balance, or interchange revenue. Both can run side by side. Start an Agentcard integration to give your agents controlled purchasing power.