What is Orthogonal?

Orthogonal is an API marketplace and payment layer for AI agents. Part of YC W2026, it was founded by Christian Pickett (ex-Coinbase payments, ex-Vercel billing) and Bera Sogut (ex-Google reCAPTCHA/Maps, ex-Amazon Robotics, 2x ACM ICPC World Finalist). Developers and agents get instant access to hundreds of paid APIs through a single MCP server or SDK, with no key management and pay-as-you-go pricing.

The platform handles rate limits, retries, and dynamic routing automatically. For API providers, listing once makes their service instantly discoverable by every agent on the platform. Compatible with Claude Code, OpenClaw, Codex, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent. The initial focus is on search, scraping, datasets, and AI model APIs.

Orthogonal has 30+ named API partners already integrated including ScrapeGraph, People Data Labs, Apollo.io, and Composio. It supports the x402 protocol for machine-to-machine payments. Think Stripe meets an app store for the agentic API economy.

Key features

Core capabilities this platform advertises.

Agent API payments
MCP integration
No API key management
Pay-per-use access
API discovery for agents

Strengths and tradeoffs

What this tool does well, and the limitations to keep in mind.

Pros

Solves real friction — agents need API access without manual key management
Strong founder backgrounds in payments (Coinbase, Vercel) and API infrastructure (Google)
30+ API partners already onboarded showing solid early supply-side traction
MCP-native design aligns with the emerging agent protocol standard
Pay-per-call model with no commitments is agent-friendly

Cons

Plans & pricing

What's included in each plan, and how the tiers compare.

Pay-per-call

Per API call (varies by provider)

Usage-based

No monthly fees
No minimums
free credits for new signups
MCP server access

View official pricing page

Common use cases

Developers building agents that consume paid APIs

Agent API access
Automated API procurement
Agent tool marketplace
Pay-per-use API consumption

Using Orthogonal with Respan

Orthogonal handles API payments for agents while Respan monitors the LLM calls driving those agents. Together they manage both the cost of API consumption and the quality of AI-driven decisions.

Track total agent costs including Orthogonal API payments and LLM costs in Respan
Monitor agent API consumption patterns through Respan alongside Orthogonal billing
Optimize agent workflows by analyzing API usage and LLM performance together