What is a Stripe Shared Payment Token?

Cards were built for people typing numbers into checkouts; giving an agent the number gives it the whole card. An SPT replaces that with a grant: the agent or platform can charge the customer's payment method only within the token's limits. Stripe uses SPTs in agentic commerce flows, including the Agentic Commerce Protocol, where Stripe's Shared Payment Token is the first compatible payment processor, and for card payments in its machine payments offering. Stripe's documentation covers SPTs from three sides: sellers who receive them, agents that grant them, and Connect platforms.

If you sell through agents on Stripe, you accept SPTs like other payment credentials. If you build an agent, SPTs are a way to pay merchants by card without handling card numbers. Stripe's machine payments docs give a minimum of 0.50 USD for card payments through SPTs and note availability varies by country. For an agent builder, the questions are the same as for any delegated credential: what the token can be used for, up to how much, for how long, and how it is revoked. Set the limits as tightly as the task allows.

• An SPT isn't a virtual card number. It's a token used through Stripe.
• It doesn't remove the need for your own limits on what the agent buys.
• It isn't a crypto token, though Stripe's machine payments accept both SPTs and stablecoins.
• Holding an SPT doesn't make an agent the merchant. Under ACP the business stays merchant of record and handles fulfilment.

• Stripe docs: Shared payment tokens
• Stripe docs: Machine payments (MPP and x402)
• Agentic Commerce Protocol

• Virtual cards for AI agents: how do they work?How issuing a virtual card to an agent works, which spending controls card issuers like Stripe Issuing offer, and where card limits fall short.
• ACP vs AP2 vs x402 vs MPP: agent payment protocols comparedWhat each agent payment protocol is for: checkout with merchants (ACP), verifiable user mandates (AP2), and pay-per-request machine payments (x402, MPP).
• What is agentic commerce?Agentic commerce is AI agents finding, buying and paying on someone's behalf. The main approaches, the protocols behind them, and where control sits.

• Payment intentA payment intent is an object representing a payment that has been requested but not necessarily completed, which moves through defined states such as awaiting approval, submitted, confirmed or cancelled.
• Stablecoin (USDC)A stablecoin is a blockchain token designed to keep a stable value relative to a reference asset, usually a currency such as the US dollar; USDC is a dollar stablecoin issued by Circle.

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