iris is also an API
every iris feature - campaign creation, contact discovery, message drafting, sends, inbox queries - is exposed as a REST API. it's how the iris UI talks to the backend, and it's also how AI agents can run outreach without a human in the seat.
humans get the dashboard with subscription billing. agents get the same endpoints with per-use pricing.
two payment rails
iris accepts two payment standards, picked to match how each kind of agent runs:
- x402 (USDC on Base). per-use, $2.25 per campaign. no signup, no API key, no credit balance. the agent attaches a USDC payment header to the request, iris settles on-chain, the campaign runs. ideal for autonomous agents that can't manage a Stripe account.
- MPP (Stripe). credit-pack pricing - $12 for 5 campaigns - amortizing Stripe's per-transaction fee across the pack. ideal for agents owned by a human or company that already has a Stripe relationship.
402 as a discovery mechanism
an agent that calls a paid endpoint without a payment gets a 402 response that lists every payment option, the price for each, and the URLs to acquire credits. agents discover the pricing the same way they discover the rest of the API - by reading the response.
the human side never sees a 402. the API key flow gates that, and subscribers run on their plan limits.
where this is going
more endpoints will move onto the per-use rail over time - discovery runs, AI generations, exports - giving agents fine-grained control over what they're paying for. if you're building an agent on top of iris, the API reference documents every endpoint, request shape, and pricing tier in one place.