Agent Payments Protocol vs Agentic Commerce Protocol
The map lists them as complementary: sites and agents commonly implement both.
| Agent Payments Protocol AP2 | Agentic Commerce Protocol ACP | |
|---|---|---|
| Lifecycle step | 7 Pay: Settle the bill | 7 Pay: Settle the bill |
| Answers | Did the user actually authorize what this agent is about to buy and pay for, and can the merchant prove it later? | How do a buyer's agent and a merchant complete a deterministic, programmatic checkout without the agent becoming the merchant of record? |
| Governed by | Google; core specification donated to the FIDO Alliance (Payments TWG and Agentic Authentication TWG), 2026-04-28; the google-agentic-commerce/AP2 repository now hosts only samples and an SDK, not the normative spec text | Technical Steering Committee (up to 7 org seats); OpenAI, Stripe, and Meta are lead maintainers, with OpenAI and Stripe as Founding Maintainers holding last-resort veto over mission, neutrality, security, and fork-integrity decisions |
| Status (issuer's words) | Security/authorization protocol for agent-performed payments; core spec now stewarded by FIDO Alliance | Beta open standard, interaction model for connecting buyers, agents, and businesses |
| Phase | candidate | living |
| Version | v0.2.0 (2026-04-28) | 2026-04-17 (date-versioned spec; unreleased/ tracks current development) (2026-04-17) |
| Form / transport | endpoint | endpoint |
| Found at | none | Bilateral capability negotiation (per RFC: capability_negotiation) between agent platform and merchant; no fixed well-known path published |
| Adoption | claimed — Google (launch blog post, 60+ launch partners) | claimed — OpenAI and Stripe (project README) |
| Evidence | 4 verified, 2 reported | 3 verified, 2 reported |
| Primary use case | Let agents buy on behalf of a person | Let agents buy on behalf of a person |
| Last verified | 2026-10-19 (current) | 2026-10-19 (current) |
| Specification | https://raw.githubusercontent.com/google-agentic-commerce/AP2/main/docs/ap2/specification.md | https://github.com/agentic-commerce-protocol/agentic-commerce-protocol |
When to use which
- Choose Agent Payments Protocol when your question is “Did the user actually authorize what this agent is about to buy and pay for, and can the merchant prove it later?” and you accept its maturity: phase candidate, adoption claimed (Google (launch blog post, 60+ launch partners)).
- Choose Agentic Commerce Protocol when your question is “How do a buyer's agent and a merchant complete a deterministic, programmatic checkout without the agent becoming the merchant of record?” and you accept its maturity: phase living, adoption claimed (OpenAI and Stripe (project README)).
Read the full articles
- Agent Payments Protocol: Did the user actually authorize what this agent is about to buy and pay for, and can the merchant prove it later?
- Agentic Commerce Protocol: How do a buyer's agent and a merchant complete a deterministic, programmatic checkout without the agent becoming the merchant of record?