Free developer sandbox now available
Stop AI agents from overspending — before the charge happens.
Create a free sandbox account, get an API key, and test real-time spend authorization for autonomous agents in minutes.
Prefer an enterprise pilot? Apply as a design partner · See the live golden transaction →
Policy checks
- Approved spending category
- Approved vendor
- Below transaction limit
- No subscription detected
The Problem
AI agents can act. But can they be trusted to spend?
Traditional financial controls were designed for employees, departments and corporate cards—not autonomous software operating continuously across APIs, vendors and workflows.
No machine-level budgets
Agents often inherit broad account or payment permissions without dedicated financial limits.
No accountable owner
Organizations struggle to determine which person or team authorized an autonomous action.
Controls happen too late
Most cost-management tools report expenditure after it has already occurred.
Fragmented audit evidence
Identity, intent, approval and payment records live in separate systems.
Product
A programmable allowance for every machine
Define exactly what an agent can spend, where it can spend and when a human must intervene.
Agent Registry
Give every agent a unique identity, defined purpose, risk classification and accountable owner.
Allowance Policies
Set transaction, daily and monthly limits by vendor, category, geography, currency and time period.
Real-Time Authorization
Approve, deny or escalate proposed expenditure before an agent commits the transaction.
Human Approvals
Route exceptions to the correct person through configurable approval workflows.
Allowance Ledger
Preserve the agent identity, original intent, policy decision, approval evidence and payment outcome.
Anomaly Detection
Identify unusual spending patterns, repeated failures and potentially compromised agents.
How it works
From human intent to auditable outcome
A single control plane that connects who asked, who acts, what is permitted and what was recorded.
- 01
Register the agent
Assign a machine identity, purpose and accountable human owner.
- 02
Define its allowance
Configure budget limits, permitted vendors, categories and approval thresholds.
- 03
Evaluate every request
Machine Allowance evaluates the proposed economic action in real time.
- 04
Record the evidence
Every authorization and approval becomes part of an immutable audit history.
Authorization flow
For Developers
Get a key, call the API, block bad spend.
A drop-in authorization API for any agent framework. Free sandbox keys in minutes, no sales call.
POST /v1/authorize
{
"agent_id": "agt_mkt_research_01",
"action": "purchase",
"vendor": "statista.com",
"category": "data",
"amount": 32500,
"currency": "USD"
}{
"decision": "approved",
"policy": "pol_marketing_research",
"allowance_remaining": 467500,
"audit_id": "aud_9f2k1"
}Drop-in authorization API
Works with any agent framework — LangChain, OpenAI Agents, Anthropic tools, or your own.
Sandbox keys in minutes
Grab a key, call /v1/authorize against sample policies. No sales call, no procurement cycle.
One engine, first agent to enterprise fleet
The same policy engine that governs your first sandbox agent scales to production fleets.
Read the quickstart Get sandbox key
Policy in Practice
One policy. Three views. Zero ambiguity.
Define an allowance once, then observe how it renders as a builder, an API contract and an audit record.
- Policy name
- Marketing Research Allowance
- Assigned agent
- Market Intelligence Agent
- Monthly allowance
- $5,000 USD
- Transaction limit
- $500 USD
- Approved categories
- Data · Software · Research
- Approved vendors
- Approved supplier list
- Subscriptions
- Not permitted
- Human approval above
- $500
- Geographic restriction
- United States, European Union
- Expiration
- September 30, 2026
Use Cases
Control every type of machine expenditure
Paid APIs and data
Control purchases of datasets, model calls and third-party API services.
Cloud and compute
Define how much infrastructure an agent may provision or consume.
Software procurement
Prevent unapproved subscriptions, renewals and shadow-software purchases.
Marketing operations
Control autonomous advertising, content, translation and research expenditure.
Corporate purchasing
Apply machine-level policies before purchases reach cards or payment rails.
Agent-to-agent commerce
Govern delegated expenditure between autonomous systems and services.
Who it's for
One control plane for finance, security and AI teams
For Finance
Set budgets before expenditure occurs, improve forecasting and assign every machine cost to an accountable owner.
For Security
Reduce excessive permissions and detect autonomous activity that falls outside approved intent.
For AI Platforms
Give developers a consistent authorization API instead of rebuilding financial controls for every agent.
Integrations
Designed to sit above your existing infrastructure
Machine Allowance does not replace payment rails, identity systems, or procurement platforms. It provides the economic authorization layer connecting them.
- OpenAI Assistants
- Custom code / HTTP API
- Anthropic (soon)
- n8n
- Slack
- Google Sheets
- HubSpot
- Shopify
- Google Ads (via n8n)
- Meta Ads (via n8n)
- Any HTTPS endpoint
- LLM Spend Proxy (soon)
- Stripe (via n8n)
Security
Financial authority requires security by design
Where we are
Machine Allowance is in active development with design partners. SOC 2 and other security certifications are on our roadmap and will be published as completed. We'd rather show you the real status than a badge wall.
Design Partner Program
Help define the standard for machine spending
We are selecting a limited number of enterprise design partners deploying autonomous agents in real business workflows. Partners will receive early access, implementation support and direct influence over the product roadmap.
- Early product access
- Customized allowance policies
- Direct product-team support
- Preferred commercial terms
- Roadmap influence
Application
Apply to join the design partner program
Tell us about your agents and where financial governance would matter most.
FAQ