Lightning Enable

Lightning Enable helps API builders charge AI agents per request over Lightning. Its core idea is L402, which turns payment into authorization so an agent can hit a paid endpoint, receive an HTTP 402 response with a Lightning invoice, pay from a pre-funded wallet, and retry with proof of payment. The service is meant to work alongside existing API setup: subscriptions, rate limits, and API keys remain in place.

For builders, it supports creating L402 producer endpoints, returning Lightning payment challenges, verifying proof of payment, and serving paid access. The page shows route gating in .NET and Node, and says Python middleware is coming soon. It also describes a producer API that can create and verify challenges directly, and a dashboard for setting per-endpoint pricing, watching revenue and request volume, and managing monetized APIs. Each gated API can also get a machine-readable manifest, and endpoints can be listed in a public L402 registry.

For agents, Lightning Enable provides a free, open-source MCP server under the MIT license. Agents can connect Strike or NWC, access L402 APIs, and use MCP hosts such as Hermes. The page also says no hosted MCP and no Lightning node are required on the agent side. Installation examples are given for dotnet and pip.

Lightning Enable charges a flat monthly subscription to API providers rather than taking a percentage of transaction volume. The page also states that payments settle in Bitcoin and that builders keep every sat paid by customers.