Pricing
What a paid read costs
Running the toll is free on every plan. When an agent pays for a read it adds the operator fee on top, so the price you set reaches you in full. Pages with no byline are tolled for your site.
How we make money: One operator fee rides on each paid read as a separate transfer from the buyer to us, on top of your price, so what you set is what you receive. No fee until an agent pays you. A buyer whose client can't sign a multi-part payment pays you and skips the fee. Studio is free until agents have paid you $50 through naulon. After that it's billed every month until you cancel, and cancelling takes one click.
Questions
Common questions
01Do I have to change my stack or move my DNS?
No re-platforming. Claim a naulon.app subdomain and you are tollable in minutes with nothing to install. To toll your own domain you prove you own it and add a record that points it at us. Your nameservers stay where they are, and if you'd rather not route through us at all, you can enforce the toll inside your own app. Your site keeps running exactly where it does now, and the toll runs at the edge in front of it.
02How does the money reach me?
The buyer pays you directly in USDC the moment the toll clears, credited to an address you control. We never hold it, so there is no payout run and no balance on our side. Payments settle on-chain through Circle Gateway, and you can withdraw to any address, whenever you like. If you created your wallet here with a passkey, the money sits under your key until you move it.
03What does custody-free actually mean?
Settlement is buyer to author, on-chain, in one payment. The funds never land with us. The operator fee is its own transfer in that same quote, never a cut of a pool we hold.
04Do humans ever pay to read?
No. The gate’s classifier tolls only automated agents, so the people who visit your site read free.
05What if an agent reads but the payment never clears?
Once you're charging, no payment means no read. The gate returns a 402 and only serves the page after the x402 payment is verified, so an unpaid request never gets past the toll and never reaches your dashboard as earnings. While a site is observing, agents read free and nothing is charged, so nothing unpaid is counted as earnings either.
06Can I see what AI reads before I charge?
Yes, and every new site starts that way. While a site observes, each agent read is priced and served free. Your dashboard shows which agents read what, what it would cost at your price, and how many said they'd pay that price. Switch to charging on the site's page when it's worth it.
07Which chain does settlement run on, and who pays network fees?
Settlement runs on Arc, in USDC, using the x402 standard. You receive the full settlement amount: the toll you set is what lands, with no network fee taken out of it.
08Can I toll my whole site, or just some articles?
Both. Toll your entire site (every page charges AI crawlers, while feeds, sitemaps and static files stay free) or list just the sections your articles live under and leave everything else open. You choose per site.
09How do co-authors get paid?
Each author registers their own wallet. When a piece with several authors is paid for, the settlement splits at the source: each co-author’s share goes straight to their wallet on-chain. There is no pool we hold and divide later. The money never lands with us.
10What is a citation multiplier?
You set a base toll per read and a citation multiplier. A citation is charged at the base times the multiplier, and you choose both.
11How is naulon different from other AI toll platforms?
Two ways. The money is custody-free: platforms that act as merchant of record hold your funds and pay them out, while naulon settles buyer to author directly and is never in the path. And it pays the author, not just the domain, down to per-citation splits between co-authors. You also choose where the gate runs: point your DNS at us and we proxy each read, enforce it inside your own app, or run the open-source gate on your own server.
12I build agents. How do I read tolled sites?
Speak x402: request the page, get a 402 carrying the payment requirements, pay in USDC, and the content comes back with a signed licence your agent can present. If you'd rather not build the payment loop, the hosted MCP server and the ask API do it for you, under a budget you set. The directory lists what's readable.
13When do I actually start paying?
Every new site starts on Studio, and Studio bills nothing until agents have paid you $50 in total through naulon. Once you cross that line it's $19 a month until you cancel, and the charge starts by itself. You don't have to ask for it, and we don't ask you first. Cancelling is one click and drops you to Single site, which is free. The $50 counts over the life of the account, not per month, and it is asked once: after that Studio bills every month until you cancel. You can pay for a year instead, at a discount published on the pricing page, and a year paid by card can be undone within 7 days for a full refund.
14Do I need funds on the settlement chain to get paid?
No. Your share settles into your Circle Gateway balance (one USDC balance that works across every supported chain) so your payout wallet does not need to hold anything upfront, and you can withdraw to any address you choose.