Technical articles on HTTP 402 micropayments, API monetization, and web payment infrastructure.
W3C Web Monetization streams micropayments while you browse. HTTP 402 gates specific resources behind a payment wall. Different architectures, different use cases. If you're choosing a web payment standard in 2026, here's the technical breakdown.
Rate limits are billing tier fences, not infrastructure protection. HTTP 402 collapses billing and access into a single protocol mechanism: pay for this call right now, get the result immediately. No credits, no invoices, no bill shock.
95% of your readers won't subscribe before reading. They found you through search, a link, a tweet — they're strangers. Per-article micropayments let strangers pay you without becoming customers first. 3 lines of HTML. No backend changes required.
HTTP 402 was reserved in RFC 2068 (1997) and ignored for 29 years. Browsers didn't implement it. Payment processors didn't exist at the protocol level. Then micropayments happened. Here's how Vlexivo makes HTTP 402 work for real.