MCP Payments Guide

Review MCP payment boundaries, tool-call approval and verification of paid delivery.

MCP Payments Guide is a 4-page PDF field guide. Paid MCP tool calls, approval boundaries and delivery checks.

• Discovery is not authorization: A tool description can advertise paid capability but should not grant spending permission.

• Quote the exact invocation: Bind cost and scope to arguments, identity, expiry and expected output.

• Keep policy outside the seller: The buyer or its delegated controller should enforce caps and allowed destinations.

• Return structured evidence: Tool results should distinguish settlement, execution and accepted output.

Action checklist: Declare paid behavior in tool metadata; Request a scoped quote; Apply buyer-side spend policy; Confirm recipient and network; Correlate payment with tool call; Return receipt and delivery state.

MCP implementations differ; verify the active specification and host security model.