Three approaches to managing payments from your AI agents. Which one fits your situation?
| Criteria | AgentGate Dedicated solution | DIY In-house development | Nothing Uncontrolled agents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Integration time | < 30 minutes | 2 to 8 weeks | 0 (but zero protection) |
| Rules per agent | ✓ Configurable without code | Code and maintain yourself | ✗ None |
| Human approval | ✓ Email, Slack, Telegram, Discord | Build it yourself | ✗ None |
| Cryptographic audit trail | ✓ Built-in, hash per event | Build it yourself | ✗ None |
| Prompt injection protection | ✓ Rules enforced regardless | Complex to guarantee | ✗ None |
| Sandbox mode | ✓ Per agent, risk-free | Build it yourself | ✗ Non-existent |
| MCP / OpenAI SDK compatibility | ✓ Native | Partial depending on effort | ✗ N/A |
| Maintenance | ✓ Handled by AgentGate | Your responsibility — ongoing | ✗ N/A |
| Real cost | Fixed monthly subscription | Weeks of dev + maintenance | €0 until the first incident |
It's the approach most teams start with. It works — until the first incident. A bug in your agent, a poorly-worded instruction, a prompt injection: without a guardrail, your agent can spend thousands in minutes and you won't know until you check your account. The cost of "nothing" isn't €0 — it's €0 until the day it isn't.
Building your own validation layer isn't impossible — but it's underestimated. You need to handle business rules, audit trails, multi-channel notifications, expirations, degraded modes, and maintain all of it over time. Two weeks of development easily becomes two months, and ongoing maintenance pulls resources away from your core product. AgentGate lets you focus on what differentiates you.
No credit card required · Sandbox included