Frequently asked questions
Short answers, no hedging. If a question isn't here, the contact page reaches a person.
Quick definitions: x402, dry run, USDC on Base, and EVM address
- x402
- An open payment protocol built on HTTP status 402 (Payment Required). The server answers an unpaid request with its price, the caller's wallet signs a payment and retries, and the work runs once the payment settles.
- Dry run
- A test run that executes your flow's logic for real but stubs every step that would cost money or reach an outside system, so nothing is spent.
- USDC on Base
- USDC is a stablecoin designed to track the US dollar. Base is an Ethereum layer-2 network. Paid calls settle in USDC on Base.
- EVM address
- A 0x-prefixed wallet address on Ethereum-compatible networks such as Base. Payouts settle to the address you set.
The basics
What is x402 in one sentence?
An open protocol that uses HTTP status 402 to charge for a single API call: the server quotes machine-readable payment terms, the caller retries with a signed x402 v2 payload in a PAYMENT-SIGNATURE header, and settlement happens on Base before the response.
Is this only for music and IP workflows?
No. The template catalog and node palette are mostly general business workflows: lead scoring, invoice chasing, contract review, support triage, dev-ops. Music (song, video, and image generation) is one built-in vertical among the priced Suede nodes, not the frame for the product.
Do I need a crypto wallet to use Agent Studio?
Not to build, test, publish, or call a service that advertises a dry-run preview. You need a wallet address to receive money after your service is payment-enabled (an EVM payout address), or to call another payment-enabled service with a signed USDC payment on Base.
Costs and payouts
What does it cost to build and launch an agent?
Each run is billed from prepaid credit at what it costs plus a 20% platform fee. There is no subscription and no listing fee. The cost is model usage at the provider's list rate (no gateway margin inside a run), plus specialized Suede endpoint nodes at the fixed per-call price shown on the node card when those calls settle.
What does the platform take when my agent gets paid?
The current platform take is 0%. For a payment-enabled service, the remaining settled amount routes to the configured payout address. There is no listing fee, monthly minimum, or payout threshold; deployment, payout, platform, and service readiness checks still have to pass before payment can be enabled.
What stops a buggy flow from spending all my money?
Every run shares one in-run cost ceiling, checked before each cost-bearing node executes: a per-run cap ($5 by default; a paid caller's run is also bounded by the amount reserved for it). A loop that would exceed the ceiling aborts with an explicit error naming how many iterations completed. Loops default to 50 iterations, can be raised to at most 200, and run at most 4 at a time.
Calling and payment
Do callers need a Suede account or API key?
No. A service that advertises preview accepts its dry-run call without an account or key, while a payment-enabled call authenticates with the payment itself; the caller's wallet signature is the identity. A service that advertises unavailable has no public call path. Suede never issues API keys to callers.
Can people call my agent before I turn on real payments?
For an ordinary service that advertises preview, yes: it answers free in dry-run mode so integrators can verify the output shape before money moves. Company services do not expose public dry-runs and advertise unavailable until their paid-call gates pass. After deployment, payout, platform, and service checks pass and you enable payment, the same URL starts issuing 402 challenges.
What happens if a paid call fails mid-run?
Payment settles before execution starts, so a run that fails after settlement is a settled call with status "error" in the response. x402 has no chargeback mechanism, and the platform does not claw back settled payments. Internal dry-run testing before going live matters; prospective callers can also test free only when the service advertises preview.
Testing, data, and hosting
What is dry-run mode exactly?
A dry run executes the real graph but stubs exactly the nodes that cost money or touch external systems: LLM returns without calling the model, HTTP returns a fixed placeholder without making a request, and paid nodes never settle. Branch, Transform, Loop, and the other logic nodes run for real. Ordinary published agents advertise this as preview mode; a company service whose paid-call gates are not ready advertises unavailable instead. Nothing settles unless the service is separately payment-enabled and all settlement checks pass.
Where are my flows stored, and who can see them?
Flows are private to their owner; the directory only ever lists agents you have explicitly launched. Launching publishes the agent's name, description, intended price, run endpoint, and current preview, payment-enabled, or unavailable state, not the flow graph itself.
Can I run my agent on my own server and still sell it through Suede?
Yes: that is the relay setting in the @suedeai/agents SDK. An ordinary relay service remains callable only when it advertises preview; a company or otherwise unavailable relay service has no public dry-run path. When one is payment-enabled, the platform verifies its x402 payment, forwards the call to your server with an HMAC signature, and routes settled USDC to your payout address. Your code runs on your machine.
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