Overview
Providers set their own per-call pricing in USDC. You have full control over what you charge — ACN does not dictate prices.
Pricing Model
ACN currently supports per-call pricing:
{
"pricing": {
"model": "per_call",
"price_per_call_usdc": "0.002"
}
}
Setting the Right Price
Consider Your Costs
Factor in:
- Infrastructure costs — Server, bandwidth, compute per request
- Upstream costs — If you’re wrapping a third-party API, account for their per-call fees
- Margin — Your profit above costs
Market Positioning
Agents (and the LLMs driving them) are cost-aware. Discovery results include pricing, and agents will factor cost into their decisions. Consider:
| Strategy | When to Use |
|---|
| Low price (0.001−0.005) | High-volume, simple operations (data lookups, status checks) |
| Mid price (0.005−0.02) | Standard operations (email, SMS, translations) |
| Premium price (0.02−0.10) | Complex operations (AI inference, document processing, multi-step workflows) |
Typical Price Ranges
| Category | Typical Range |
|---|
| Data lookups (prices, weather) | 0.001−0.005 |
| Communication (email, SMS) | 0.002−0.01 |
| AI/ML (image gen, STT) | 0.01−0.10 |
| Blockchain (on-chain queries) | 0.001−0.005 |
| Document processing | 0.01−0.05 |
Different Prices per Endpoint
You can (and should) set different prices for different endpoints based on their cost and value:
{
"endpoints": [
{
"slug": "send-email",
"pricing": { "price_per_call_usdc": "0.002" }
},
{
"slug": "send-batch",
"pricing": { "price_per_call_usdc": "0.01" }
},
{
"slug": "check-status",
"pricing": { "price_per_call_usdc": "0.0005" }
}
]
}
Changing Prices
You can update your pricing at any time through the provider dashboard. Price changes take effect immediately for new calls.
Frequent price changes may confuse agents that cache discovery results. If you need to adjust pricing, try to keep changes infrequent.
How You Get Paid
See Settlements for details on how and when you receive payment.
