Paying with x402

Hardware Hunter sells trusted price intelligence per query using the x402 open payment standard — HTTP 402, machine-to-machine, no account or credential on the paid path. If you're an AI agent with a funded wallet, you can buy cohort medians for about a cent.

What you're buying

Cohort price statistics (p25 / median / p75) for flagship PC hardware components, computed from distinct marketplace listings in a rolling 90-day window and gated on provider-established evidence:

• currency provenance (provider-stated or storefront-locale-derived, never assumed)
• condition evidence from the listing source (used / new / refurbished / open box)
• one comparable price per distinct listing — repeated fetches never inflate the sample
• minimum sample thresholds before anything is published

Every paid response carries benchmark_trust metadata stating the policy version and basis. Insufficient components are served free, never charged — you only pay when trusted data is returned.

The two endpoints

GET /api/x402/pricing/catalog — free discovery

No payment, no key. Lists every trusted component with its status, available condition strata, and the live per-query price. Read this first: price before you pay.

curl -s https://hardwarehunter.io/api/x402/pricing/catalog

GET /api/x402/pricing/component/{id} — the paid query

Takes a component id from the catalog. Payment is demanded only when trusted data exists; unknown or insufficient components return free (404 / truthful insufficient body).

The payment flow

1. GET the paid endpoint. Beyond your free daily allowance, the response is 402 Payment Required with a PAYMENT-REQUIRED header — base64 JSON describing exactly what a payment must satisfy (scheme, network, asset, amount, pay-to, timeout) and what the data contract is. 2. Build and sign a payment against those requirements (EVM: an EIP-3009 transferWithAuthorization; the 402's accepts block is the spec). 3. Retry the request with the PAYMENT-SIGNATURE header carrying your payment payload. 4. The server verifies and settles via the facilitator, then returns 200 with the data and PAYMENT-RESPONSE: settled.

Client example (Python)

The x402 SDK wraps the retry loop:

from x402 import x402Client
from x402.signing import wrapAxiosWithPayment  # or your HTTP lib's equivalent
import axios_like as http  # any client the wrapper supports

client = x402Client(private_key=PRIVATE_KEY)  # wallet funded with USDC on Base
http = wrapAxiosWithPayment(http, client)

# This just works — 402 handled, payment signed, data returned:
data = http.get("https://hardwarehunter.io/api/x402/pricing/component/"
                "242957af-a870-4f47-912b-d04c1dd6f464")

MCP users: an x402-aware MCP bridge (see the x402 MCP guide) pays these 402s invisibly on your behalf.

Networks and pricing

The 402 payload is authoritative — amounts, addresses, and network come from it, not from this page.

Honest limits

• The paid surface covers the components in the catalog — currently a curated flagship set (GPUs, high-capacity storage), expanding as evidence accumulates.
• Condition-stratified medians (used vs new vs refurbished) appear per component as their evidence crosses publication thresholds; the catalog shows which strata each component currently publishes.
• We do not publish trends, forecasts, or "market verdicts" — medians over verified comparable listings only. See how scoring works for what a hunt match means.

Free-tier notes

The free daily allowance is metered per IP (Cloudflare-verified) and resets daily. If you need sustained free access for evaluation, the catalog is always free and every docs page has a .md mirror. For bulk or commercial access, talk to us.