Five ways to let an agent pay. One question: what must you adopt first?
Several products — and one open-source project — now end an agent purchase the
same way: you tap approve, the agent gets a scoped credential. The real difference is what each
one asks you to take on before that first tap.
How they compare
Marutapthe card in your pocket
RobinhoodAgentic Credit Card
Stripe Link
Privacy.com
PayClawopen-source, self-hosted
What you skip to get started
Nothing to build, host, or maintain
✓
✓
✓
✓
✗self-host + your own issuer
No new credit line
✓
✗credit approval
✓
✓
✓
No new wallet of record
✓
✓
✗Link holds your details
✗new account
✗crypto wallet + USDC
No new app to install
✓web, on your phone
✗Robinhood app
✗Link app
✗Privacy app
✓web you host
No identity check (KYC)
✓
✗credit check
✓
✗KYC
✓your issuer’s applies
No subscription
✓
✗Gold required
✓
✓
✓
No linked bank account
✓
✓
✓
✗funded by ACH
✓
What spans every agent you run
Cross-agent spend policy
✓
✗
✗
✗
✗not built
Revocable subscription mandates
✓
✗
✗
✗
✗
One ledger + one kill switch
✓
✗its silo only
✗its silo only
✗its silo only
✗not built
✓ in your favor — nothing to adopt / built in✗ a cost — required before you start, or not offered
The honest caveats
Robinhood earns 3% cash back on that credit line and supports per-purchase approvals
or monthly caps with isolated virtual numbers per agent. The Gold subscription and the credit
line are how it’s monetized — part of the design, not incidental setup. US-only today.
Stripe Link can be nearly instant if you already have a Link account from a past
checkout — often fewer clicks for you. Our claim is the smallest ask, not the
fewest clicks: Marutap never asks you to make a new wallet the home for your payment details.
Privacy.com brings a decade of consumer virtual-card experience, and its agent tools
let an agent set limits, pause, and close cards. Because the cards draw on your bank account,
identity verification and bank linking are inherent to how it works.
PayClaw is crypto-native and open-source: it escrows USDC from your on-chain
wallet — you approve by signing a blockchain transaction, not tapping a passkey — then
issues a single-use card the agent checks out with. A real fit if you already hold stablecoin
and are happy to self-host. But that’s a bigger ask than the card in your pocket: a funded
crypto wallet, a wallet signature per purchase, your own infrastructure, and none of the
cross-agent policy, mandates, or ledger. It proves the primitive is free; Marutap is the same
loop for everyone who pays in dollars, not USDC.
Marutap is the only hosted intent→approve payment layer you
can adopt with the card you already have — no new credit line, no new wallet, no KYC, no
subscription, and nothing to self-host — and the only one with cross-agent policy, mandates, and
a unified ledger on top.
Comparisons are based on each product’s public documentation as of
September 2026. Robinhood, Stripe Link, and Privacy.com are trademarks of their
respective owners; PayClaw is an independent open-source project; Marutap is not affiliated with
any of them.