Cardless

Cardless, Inc. is a San Francisco fintech that operates an embedded co-branded credit card platform, letting consumer brands launch and run their own credit card programs natively inside their own apps and websites. The platform pairs a partner API surface with pre-built components covering the full credit journey — application and identity verification, real-time decisioning, checkout with instant virtual cards, card management and transaction disputes — while Cardless handles issuing-bank relationships, card production, underwriting, fraud, KYC/AML compliance, servicing and support behind the scenes. It is network-agnostic across Visa, Mastercard and American Express. Named partners include Coinbase (Coinbase One Card), Bilt, Qatar Airways Privilege Club, Alibaba.com, LATAM Airlines, Avianca LifeMiles, TAP Air Portugal and Avelo Airlines. Developer documentation at docs.cardless.com is gated behind a partner login, so no public OpenAPI, SDKs or sandbox credentials are published.

Cardless is listed with 2 APIs on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include Company, Financial Services, Fintech, Credit Cards, and Card Issuing.

Cardless’ developer surface includes documentation, engineering blog, support, signup flow, authentication, and 20 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

21.0/100 emerging ▬ flat Agent 22/100 agent aware Front door AI 1/6 silent Heartbeat 100/100 alive saas Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-13 · rubric v0.28.0 · Show this score on your site →

2 APIs 1 MCP Servers

Company Financial Services Fintech Credit Cards Card Issuing Embedded Finance Payments Banking as a Service LendingCo-Branded CardsLoyalty

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-13 · rubric v0.28.0

Composite quality — 21.0/100 · emerging

Contract Quality 0.0 / 21

Developer Ergonomics 3.2 / 17

Access Clarity 7.2 / 17

Operational Transparency 0.0 / 11

Contract Governance 0.5 / 10

Discoverability 6.1 / 9

Regulatory Posture 3.9 / 15

Agent readiness — 22/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 0 / 10

Documented Reversibility 0 / 6

MCP Server 12 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 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 5 / 5

Registration Without a Human 6 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Pagination 5 / 5

Distinct Operations 3 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

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.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics could not be measured. We hold no machine-readable contract for this provider to read, so there is nothing to measure a write surface against. Excluded rather than scored zero: never-measured and measured-empty are different facts. Publishing an OpenAPI is what makes this facet — and several others — scorable at all.

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/.

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Agent readiness — checks not met, largest first (exact, from this profile):

Machine-Readable Contract +18 pts — api_specs includes an OpenAPI document Ask about this →
Agentic Access Contract +10 pts — agentic_access artifact present (x-agentic-access), graded by author Ask about this →
Idempotency +9 pts — OpenAPI mutating operations declare an idempotency key — a header, a request-body property, or a named de-duplication token whose own description says so (verified); else common[].type matches /idempoten/i (documented) Ask about this →
Stable Error Semantics +8 pts — OpenAPI $refs a shared error schema across 4xx/5xx responses (verified), else common[].type includes ErrorCatalog / ErrorCodes / DeclineCodes Ask about this →
A2A Agent Card +8 pts — a2a/-a2a.yml manifest, graded on conformance.grade against A2A 1.0.0 Ask about this →
Rate-Limit Signaling +7 pts — OpenAPI responses document X-RateLimit-* / RateLimit headers (verified), else a rate_limits artifact or RateLimits link (documented) Ask about this →

8 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

Kin Score — facets with the most composite points still available (weight × headroom):

Contract Quality scores 0.0 — up to +25.0 composite points Ask about this →
Developer Ergonomics scores 19.0 — up to +16.2 composite points Ask about this →
Operational Transparency scores 0.0 — up to +13.0 composite points Ask about this →

Each check links to what satisfies it. Publish the artifact, or tell us where it already lives, and the score moves on the next scoring run.

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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 the provider profile at artifacts.apis.io/cardless/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/cardless to ask a question or point us at an artifact you publish. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

Markets this provider is in provisional

The Kin Score Market layer reads a provider inside its market: its position, and how deep its integrations go. Depth is only comparable within a position. Provisional and unweighted: not part of the Kin Score or agent readiness.

Market	Position	Depth	Registered MCP server	Declares compatibility
Consumer Lending Licensing (UK, US, Canada credit licence registers)	undeclared	-	-	-

Registered MCP server and declares compatibility are report only — not weighted. Undeclared means we found nothing we can read, so there is no number: we never infer integrations.

Standards implemented 3

Standards this provider implements or carries. De facto ones are profiled and measured by the API Commons; formal ones come from the standards directory and are linked by the provider's own tags. The evidence column says how each claim was established — not that it was made.

Model Context Protocol (MCP)

measured — observed by APIs.io (documented)

OAuth 2.0 Protected Resource Metadata

measured — observed by APIs.io (verified)

Dynamic Client Registration

measured — observed by APIs.io (published)

APIs 2

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

Cardless Partner API

The Cardless partner API surface used by brands to embed a co-branded credit card program: partner authentication (Basic-auth exchange of a partner-signed JWT for a bearer acces...

Cardless Docs MCP Server

A remote Model Context Protocol server published by Cardless at docs.cardless.com/mcp (Mintlify-hosted). It answers tools/list anonymously and exposes three read-oriented tools ...

MCP Servers 1

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

Cardless Docs

Remote MCP server at docs.cardless.com over HTTP; 3 tools listed.

MCP SERVER

Terms of Service 1

What its API terms permit and prohibit, quoted from its own page.

Cardless

10 quoted statements, read from Cardless's own page on 2026-11-09.

TERMS

Privacy & Data 1

Its role, the data it processes, retention and transfers, quoted from its own privacy page.

Cardless

20 quoted statements, read from Cardless's own page on 2026-11-09.

PRIVACY

Eligibility 1

Who may sign up and where, quoted from its own terms.

Cardless

3 quoted statements, read from Cardless's own page on 2026-11-09.

ELIGIBILITY

AI Preferences 1

Its stance on AI training, inference and agents, quoted from its own pages.

Cardless

1 quoted statement, read from Cardless's own page on 2026-11-09.

AI PREFS

Data License 1

How its data and outputs may be reused, quoted from its own terms.

Cardless

2 quoted statements, read from Cardless's own page on 2026-11-09.

LICENSE

Security Posture 2

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Cardless Authentication

http/oauth2 · 3 schemes

SECURITY

Cardless Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC

SECURITY

Scopes 1

OAuth scopes governing access to this provider's APIs.

Cardless Scopes

1 scope · authorizationCode/clientCredentials/refreshToken

1 scopes

SCOPES

Resources

Get Started 2

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

DeveloperPortal

DeveloperPortal

SignUp

SignUp

Documentation 2

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

AIPreferences

AIPreferences

Agent Surfaces 3

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

MCPServer

MCPServer

WellKnown

WellKnown

LLMsTxt

LLMsTxt

Design & Contract 4

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Conventions

Conformance

Lifecycle

Components

Access & Security 3

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

OAuthScopes

OAuthScopes

Authentication

Authentication

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Operate 1

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Support

Support

Commercial 4

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

TermsOfService

PrivacyPolicy

UsageTerms

DataLicense

Company 3

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

Blog

Blog

Careers

Careers

Other 3

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Customers

Customers

DataProcessing

DataProcessing

Eligibility

Eligibility

Source (apis.yml)

aid: cardless
name: Cardless
description: Cardless, Inc. is a San Francisco fintech that operates an embedded co-branded credit card platform, letting
  consumer brands launch and run their own credit card programs natively inside their own apps and websites. The platform
  pairs a partner API surface with pre-built components covering the full credit journey — application and identity verification,
  real-time decisioning, checkout with instant virtual cards, card management and transaction disputes — while Cardless handles
  issuing-bank relationships, card production, underwriting, fraud, KYC/AML compliance, servicing and support behind the scenes.
  It is network-agnostic across Visa, Mastercard and American Express. Named partners include Coinbase (Coinbase One Card),
  Bilt, Qatar Airways Privilege Club, Alibaba.com, LATAM Airlines, Avianca LifeMiles, TAP Air Portugal and Avelo Airlines.
  Developer documentation at docs.cardless.com is gated behind a partner login, so no public OpenAPI, SDKs or sandbox credentials
  are published.
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/cardless/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: true
  callable_host: false
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: unknown
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Unknown
  confidence: low
  source:
  - authentication
  - scopes
  - security
  generated: '2026-11-13'
  method: derived
image: https://framerusercontent.com/images/hm4RTByVdin3oyQTHY2rMm9doQ.jpg
x-type: company
x-source: harvest:secondary-market
x-secondary-market-listing: https://forgeglobal.com/cardless_stock/
x-tier: profiled
x-tier-reason: enrichment-pipeline
specificationVersion: '0.23'
created: '2026-08-01'
modified: '2026-08-01'
x-docs-platform: mintlify
x-docs-platform-confidence: medium
x-docs-platform-checked: 2026-09-21
x-docs-hosting: vercel
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-08-01'
  status: enriched
  artifacts_added: 13
  pass: local-v1
tags:
- Company
- Financial Services
- Fintech
- Credit Cards
- Card Issuing
- Embedded Finance
- Payments
- Banking as a Service
- Lending
- Co-Branded Cards
- Loyalty
tags_raw:
- Company
- Financial Services
- Fintech
- Credit Cards
- Card Issuing
- Embedded Finance
- Payments
- Banking as a Service
- Lending
- Co-Branded Cards
- Loyalty
- Financial-Services
apis:
- aid: cardless:partner-api
  name: Cardless Partner API
  description: 'The Cardless partner API surface used by brands to embed a co-branded credit card program: partner authentication
    (Basic-auth exchange of a partner-signed JWT for a bearer access token), application submission and decisioning, account
    servicing, payments, transactions and disputes. Documentation and the OpenAPI fragments that back it are gated behind
    a partner login at docs.cardless.com; the production API host answers unauthenticated requests with HTTP 401.'
  humanURL: https://docs.cardless.com/
  baseURL: https://api.cardless.com/
  tags:
  - Credit Cards
  - Card Issuing
  - Embedded Finance
  - Payments
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.cardless.com/
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/cardless-authentication.yml
  - type: Conventions
    url: conventions/cardless-conventions.yml
- aid: cardless:docs-mcp
  name: Cardless Docs MCP Server
  description: A remote Model Context Protocol server published by Cardless at docs.cardless.com/mcp (Mintlify-hosted). It
    answers tools/list anonymously and exposes three read-oriented tools over the Cardless documentation corpus — documentation
    search, a read-only virtualized documentation filesystem, and docs feedback submission. It also advertises OAuth 2.0 authorization-server
    and protected-resource metadata with a single mcp:search scope. This is a documentation-search MCP server, not an MCP
    projection of the Cardless partner API.
  humanURL: https://docs.cardless.com/
  baseURL: https://docs.cardless.com/mcp
  tags:
  - MCP
  - Documentation
  - Agents
  properties:
  - type: MCPServer
    url: mcp/cardless-mcp.yml
  - type: OAuthScopes
    url: scopes/cardless-scopes.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
- FN: APIs.json
  email: info@apis.io
common:
- type: Website
  url: https://www.cardless.com/
- type: DeveloperPortal
  url: https://docs.cardless.com/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://docs.cardless.com/
- type: Blog
  url: https://www.cardless.com/blog
- type: Support
  url: https://www.cardless.com/help
- type: SignUp
  url: https://app.cardless.com/login
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://legal.cardless.com/terms_of_service/default/terms_of_service.pdf
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://legal.cardless.com/privacy_policy/default/privacy_policy.pdf
- type: Customers
  url: https://www.cardless.com/customers
- type: Careers
  url: https://www.cardless.com/careers
- type: MCPServer
  url: mcp/cardless-mcp.yml
- type: WellKnown
  url: well-known/cardless-well-known.yml
- type: OAuthScopes
  url: scopes/cardless-scopes.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/cardless-authentication.yml
- type: Conventions
  url: conventions/cardless-conventions.yml
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/cardless-conformance.yml
- type: Lifecycle
  url: lifecycle/cardless-lifecycle.yml
- type: Components
  url: components/cardless-components.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/cardless-domain-security.yml
- type: LLMsTxt
  url: llms/cardless-llms.txt
- type: UsageTerms
  url: terms/cardless-terms-of-service.yml
- type: DataProcessing
  url: privacy/cardless-privacy-policy.yml
- type: Eligibility
  url: eligibility/cardless-eligibility.yml
- type: AIPreferences
  url: ai-preferences/cardless-ai-preferences.yml
- type: DataLicense
  url: data-license/cardless-data-license.yml

Cardless API — frequently asked questions

Does Cardless have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 2 APIs from Cardless, including Cardless Partner API and Cardless Docs MCP Server.

How do I authenticate with the Cardless API?

Cardless documents its authentication (http/oauth2 · 3 schemes). The details are profiled on APIs.io as Cardless Authentication.

Does Cardless have an MCP server?

Yes. APIs.io lists 1 MCP server for Cardless: Remote MCP server at docs.cardless.com over HTTP; 3 tools listed.

Is the Cardless API ready for AI agents?

Cardless has a Kin Score of 21.0 out of 100 (emerging) and an Agent Readiness score of 22.2 (agent-aware), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-13.

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