Getting Started

Introduction

What Lipafy is

Lipafy lets API providers charge per call, lets agents pay from a controlled wallet, and settles provider payouts through M-Pesa.

It is three things in one stack:

  • A payment layer - Lipafy holds wallet balance, places a hold before a paid call, settles successful calls, and releases the hold when the upstream call fails.
  • A control layer - API keys, OAuth grants, spending controls, approvals, and signed mandates decide what an agent can do.
  • An agent surface - Agents can connect through the MCP HTTP endpoint or call the gateway/API directly with a bearer credential.

What it isn’t

  • Not a bank or general consumer wallet. Lipafy balances are for controlled agent/API spending.
  • Not card processing. Lipafy does not process Visa or Mastercard payments.
  • Not a chat product. Lipafy does not ship its own LLM.

When to use Lipafy

Use Lipafy when you are building:

  • An API provider that wants to monetize an HTTP endpoint per call.
  • An agent or agent framework that needs to call paid APIs on a user’s behalf.
  • A business workflow where agents can spend inside a defined budget.
  • A fintech or wallet app adding controlled agent-driven payments.

Mental model

  1. Capabilities are paid APIs registered in Lipafy. Each has a slug, a price, and an upstream URL.
  2. Wallets hold KES balance per account.
  3. Grants are credentials that can spend from an account, such as API keys and OAuth grants.
  4. Controls and approvals limit what each grant can do and pause actions that need review.
  5. Mandates are signed rules for approved autonomous execution.
  6. Settlement records provider earnings for successful paid calls.

That is the core model. The quickstart walks through a charged gateway call.

Quickstart ->

What this documentation covers