Autonomous agents call external APIs thousands of times per day. Each call costs a fraction of a cent. Traditional payment infrastructure cannot process this volume at this price point. Oris micropayment channels batch thousands of sub-cent payments into periodic on-chain settlements. Your agent pays per call. The provider receives payment per call. The on-chain cost stays minimal.
An AI research agent calls a market data API 50,000 times per day at $0.002 per call. That is $100 per day in API costs spread across 50,000 individual transactions. Processing each call as a separate on-chain payment would cost more in gas than the API call itself. Credit card processors do not support sub-cent transactions. Traditional invoicing creates reconciliation overhead. The agent needs a payment method that matches the granularity of its consumption.
The developer configures a micropayment channel between the agent and the API provider. The channel allocates a budget from the agent's wallet. One on-chain transaction opens the channel.
Each API call triggers a micropayment through the channel. The payment updates the channel balance in memory. No on-chain transaction occurs per call. The agent pays. The provider tracks the balance.
The channel settles periodically (hourly, daily, or when the budget is exhausted). A single on-chain transaction captures all accumulated micropayments. The API provider receives the total amount minus settlement gas costs.
Fixed price per API call. The agent pays $0.003 per request. Oris tracks the running total and settles on schedule. The simplest model for predictable pricing.
Variable pricing based on response size, compute time, or data volume. The provider reports usage. Oris calculates the cost and deducts from the channel automatically.
Base monthly allocation with per-call pricing above the limit. Oris manages the allocation tracking and overage billing automatically. No manual reconciliation required.
# Configure API consumption for an agent
channel = oris.micropayments.open(
agent_id="agent_researcher",
provider="0x7f3a...9c2d", # API provider wallet
budget=100.00, # $100 daily budget
settlement="hourly",
chain="base"
)
# Agent calls the API (payment happens automatically)
response = agent.call_api(
url="https://api.datavendor.com/market-data",
payment_channel=channel.id
)
# Oris deducts $0.002 from the channel
# Check consumption
print(channel.spent) # $47.30
print(channel.remaining) # $52.70
print(channel.call_count) # 23,650
50,000 API calls per day at $0.002 per call on Base L2.
Configure a channel, connect your agent, and start paying for API calls at sub-cent granularity. Settlement happens automatically.