Allowance

Allowance is a consumer trust layer for AI agent payments, backed by Y Combinator. It lets people give AI agents limited, revocable spending power without ever sharing a real credit card number. An agent proposes a spending mandate (a permission object with a budget, merchant and category restrictions, and a time limit); the human owner approves it from the Allowance iOS app; and Allowance then issues single-use virtual cards (PAN, expiry, CVV) that are amount-capped, merchant-locked, and short-lived so the agent can complete checkout autonomously within the approved rules. Allowance exposes a pre-launch OpenAPI 3.1 REST API, a hosted remote MCP server, a published agent SKILL.md, a CLI (PyPI and npm), plus ChatGPT and Claude connectors. The mandate model is designed as a natural precursor to the AP2 Agent Payments Protocol.

Allowance publishes 3 APIs on the APIs.io network: Mandates API, Pricing API, and Status API. Tagged areas include Company, Payments, Agentic Payments, AI Agents, and Virtual Cards.

The Allowance catalog on APIs.io includes 1 event-driven AsyncAPI specification.

Allowance’s developer surface includes authentication, documentation, API reference, getting-started guide, support, engineering blog, pricing, and 24 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

53.6/100 developing ▬ flat Agent 53/100 agent native saas Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-09-06 · rubric v0.19.0

AccessSelf serve

1 APIs 1 MCP Servers

Company Payments Agentic Payments AI Agents Virtual Cards Fintech MCPConsumer TrustSpending ControlsAP2

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-09-06 · rubric v0.19.0

Composite quality — 53.6/100 · developing

Contract Quality 13.5 / 21

Developer Ergonomics 12.1 / 17

Access Clarity 7.6 / 17

Operational Transparency 2.6 / 11

Contract Governance 0.5 / 10

Discoverability 6.5 / 9

Regulatory Posture 8.2 / 15

Agent readiness — 53/100 · agent native

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 0 / 6

MCP Server 12 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 9 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 8 / 8

Request/Response Examples 7 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 6 / 6

Agent Skills 5 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Delegated User Identity 6 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Payments regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

The six quality facets above are damped to 85 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 15. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 85% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/allowance: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

APIs 3

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

MCP Servers 1

Model Context Protocol servers that expose these APIs to AI agents.

Scopes 1

OAuth scopes governing access to this provider's APIs.

Allowance Scopes

3 scopes · authorizationCode

3 scopes

SCOPES

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Allowance Agentic Access

7 operations · 3 acting · 1 human-in-the-loop

7 operations · 3 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 3

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

DeveloperPortal

DeveloperPortal

GettingStarted

GettingStarted

SignUp

SignUp

Documentation 2

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

APIReference

APIReference

Agent Surfaces 5

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

LLMsTxt

MCPServer

AgentSkill

WellKnown

Design & Contract 8

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Conformance

ErrorCatalog

Lifecycle

Conventions

Idempotency

DataModel

Webhooks

Arazzo

Scroll for all 8

Build 3

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

Packages

Packages

CLI

CLI

DeclineCodes

DeclineCodes

Access & Security 3

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

OAuthScopes

OAuthScopes

Authentication

Authentication

Operate 2

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Support

Support

StatusPage

StatusPage

Commercial 3

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Pricing

Pricing

TermsOfService

TermsOfService

PrivacyPolicy

PrivacyPolicy

Company 1

The organization behind the API

Blog

Blog

Other 1

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Overlay

Overlay

Source (apis.yml)

aid: allowance
name: Allowance
description: Allowance is a consumer trust layer for AI agent payments, backed by Y Combinator. It lets people give AI agents
  limited, revocable spending power without ever sharing a real credit card number. An agent proposes a spending mandate (a
  permission object with a budget, merchant and category restrictions, and a time limit); the human owner approves it from
  the Allowance iOS app; and Allowance then issues single-use virtual cards (PAN, expiry, CVV) that are amount-capped, merchant-locked,
  and short-lived so the agent can complete checkout autonomously within the approved rules. Allowance exposes a pre-launch
  OpenAPI 3.1 REST API, a hosted remote MCP server, a published agent SKILL.md, a CLI (PyPI and npm), plus ChatGPT and Claude
  connectors. The mandate model is designed as a natural precursor to the AP2 Agent Payments Protocol.
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/allowance/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: true
  callable_host: true
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: high
  source:
  - openapi
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: unknown
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Self-serve signup
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - authentication
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://useallowance.com/assets/logo.png
x-type: company
x-source: vc-portfolio
x-backed-by:
- y-combinator
x-tier: profiled
x-tier-reason: enriched-from-public-surface
specificationVersion: '0.23'
created: '2026-07-17'
modified: '2026-07-17'
tags:
- Company
- Payments
- Agentic Payments
- AI Agents
- Virtual Cards
- Fintech
- MCP
- Consumer Trust
- Spending Controls
- AP2
tags_raw:
- Company
- Payments
- Agentic Payments
- AI Agents
- Virtual Cards
- Fintech
- Model Context Protocol
- Consumer Trust
- Spending Controls
- AP2
apis:
- aid: allowance:allowance-mandates-api
  name: Allowance Mandates API
  description: The Mandates API from Allowance — 5 operation(s) for mandates.
  humanURL: https://useallowance.com/connect-agent
  baseURL: https://api.useallowance.com/v1
  tags:
  - Mandates
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/allowance-mandates-api-openapi.yml
- aid: allowance:allowance-pricing-api
  name: Allowance Pricing API
  description: The Pricing API from Allowance — 1 operation(s) for pricing.
  humanURL: https://useallowance.com/connect-agent
  baseURL: https://api.useallowance.com/v1
  tags:
  - Pricing
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/allowance-pricing-api-openapi.yml
- aid: allowance:allowance-status-api
  name: Allowance Status API
  description: The Status API from Allowance — 1 operation(s) for status.
  humanURL: https://useallowance.com/connect-agent
  baseURL: https://api.useallowance.com/v1
  tags:
  - Status
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/allowance-status-api-openapi.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
- FN: APIs.json
  email: info@apis.io
common:
- type: Overlay
  url: overlays/allowance-openapi-overlay.yaml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/allowance-domain-security.yml
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/allowance-agentic-access.yml
- type: OAuthScopes
  url: scopes/allowance-scopes.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/allowance-authentication.yml
- type: DeveloperPortal
  url: https://useallowance.com/connect-agent
- type: Documentation
  url: https://useallowance.com/connect-agent
- type: APIReference
  url: https://useallowance.com/openapi.json
- type: GettingStarted
  url: https://useallowance.com/connect-agent
- type: Support
  url: https://useallowance.com/support
- type: Blog
  url: https://useallowance.com/blog/
- type: Pricing
  url: https://useallowance.com/pricing.json
- type: SignUp
  url: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/allowance-agent-wallet/id6762312262
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://useallowance.com/terms
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://useallowance.com/privacy
- type: StatusPage
  url: https://useallowance.com/status.json
- type: LLMsTxt
  url: llms/allowance-llms.txt
- type: MCPServer
  url: mcp/allowance-mcp.yml
- type: AgentSkill
  url: skills/allowance-purchase.md
- type: Packages
  url: packages/allowance-packages.yml
- type: CLI
  url: cli/allowance-cli.yml
- type: WellKnown
  url: well-known/allowance-well-known.yml
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/allowance-conformance.yml
- type: ErrorCatalog
  url: errors/allowance-problem-types.yml
- type: DeclineCodes
  url: errors/allowance-decline-codes.yml
- type: Lifecycle
  url: lifecycle/allowance-lifecycle.yml
- type: Conventions
  url: conventions/allowance-conventions.yml
- type: Idempotency
  url: conventions/allowance-conventions.yml
- type: DataModel
  url: data-model/allowance-data-model.yml
- type: Webhooks
  url: asyncapi/allowance-webhooks.yml
- type: Arazzo
  name: Approve a mandate and issue a virtual card
  url: arazzo/allowance-mandate-to-card.yml
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-07-19'
  status: backfilled
  pass: local-v1
  note: backfilled from .gitignore signal + verified work evidence

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