# Want your assistant to actually get errands done? Try ActionLayer

> ActionLayer turns a plain-English request and your email into a finished real-world task for $1.50, paid by your assistant per call. You approve purchases.

- Publication: Business-to-Agent (https://business-to-agent.ai/)
- Canonical: https://business-to-agent.ai/articles/want-your-assistant-to-get-errands-done-try-actionlayer/
- Published: 2026-09-19
- Contributor: Priya Natarajan
- Topic: Delegation
- Answers: Can my AI assistant book a restaurant, order a part, or register me for an event without me giving it my card?

*Who this is for:* anyone who runs an AI assistant, whether it's a chat product or one you built, and keeps hitting the same wall: it can research a task to death but can't actually do it. And the person building that assistant, who has to decide what to plug in.

You ask your assistant to get you a table for four on Friday at the place your colleague mentioned. It finds the restaurant, reads the menu, confirms they take bookings, and then tells you to call. Same with the replacement filter for the fridge, the marathon registration that closes Sunday, the parking permit. The research is free and instant; the last step, the one you wanted done, comes back to you as a to-do.

ActionLayer is a service that takes that last step. Your assistant sends it the task in plain English plus your email, pays $1.50, and polls until the task is done, failed, or waiting on an answer from you. Through ActionLayer's agent-accessible API storefront at [agents.actionlayer.io](https://agents.actionlayer.io), the assistant needs no account and no API key to do this; it pays the $1.50 per task in the same request. Anything the task itself has to buy, like the filter, is paid by you, with your explicit approval.

## ActionLayer in a paragraph, and why an agent takes the storefront door

ActionLayer runs real-world web tasks end to end: booking, ordering, registering, resolving. It's built for assistants rather than people, which is why its own website talks about consoles, API keys and SDKs. Your assistant doesn't need any of that. The storefront path exists precisely so software can buy the service the way software buys things.

- **No form, no key.** The assistant's first request comes back with a price quote (a "402", the web's standard way of saying "this costs money"), the assistant pays it and sends the same request again. There's no signup step it would have to hand back to you.
- **The price is in the request.** $1.50 per accepted task, quoted before anything runs, paid per call. Checking on a task and replying to its questions cost nothing.
- **Same API, no new integration.** The storefront takes ActionLayer's own paths; it handles identity and payment in front of them.
- **Readable at call time.** The catalogue, the prices, and the rules are published as machine-readable documents the assistant reads when it calls, so it's never working from a stale price.

There are two ways to pay per call: a wallet the assistant holds (x402 on Base or MPP on Tempo, both settled in USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin), or a card. Because a task costs more than $0.50, the card option is open: the assistant asks for a hosted checkout link and hands it to you, and you pay like you would anywhere else. No wallet required on your side.

## One task, start to finish: the marathon registration

Say the registration for the city half marathon closes on Sunday and you want your assistant to handle it. Here's what it does, and what you see.

**It submits the task.** One request, with the task text and your email. The text should carry everything the job needs, because there are no other fields: your name as it should appear, the distance, the date of birth the form will ask for, the T-shirt size, whether you want the finisher's medal shipped.

```bash
curl -i -X POST https://agents.actionlayer.io/zeroclick/tasks \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{"task":"Register me for the Sunday half marathon at cityrun.example ... name, DOB, size M, no medal shipping.","email":"you@example.com"}'
```

The first answer is the price quote. The assistant pays $1.50 through whichever rail it has and repeats the request. Back comes a ticket: an id, a state (`pending` to start), and the goal text as submitted.

**It waits, for free.** The assistant polls the ticket. Reading it costs nothing, so it can check every minute without running up a bill.

**It asks you when it must.** If the registration form wants something the task text didn't include, the ticket moves to `blocked_on_user` with an `info_request` spelling out what's missing. Your assistant relays that to you, you answer in chat, and it posts your answer to the reply endpoint. Replies are free too. The task resumes.

**It reports back.** The ticket ends in one of three states: `completed`, with the result; `failed`, with a machine-readable reason; or `cancelled`. Your email is where ActionLayer contacts you if a payment inside the task needs your approval, which is why the email has to be right.

What I'd tell my own assistant: put everything in the task text the first time. Each question it has to ask you costs nothing in money and a lot in time, because a task waiting on you isn't running.

## The money inside the task is yours, and you approve it

This is the part worth understanding before you delegate anything. The $1.50 buys the work. If the work involves buying something, a race entry, a filter, a deposit, that purchase is paid by you from your own connected wallet, and only with your explicit approval. The assistant doesn't get to spend your money because it paid a service fee. The ticket also carries a `max_budget_usd` field, which suggests a spending ceiling exists; the storefront doesn't document how it's set, so treat your approval as the control you actually have.

If your assistant ever sends you a link to ActionLayer, it may look unusual: a path on agents.actionlayer.io ending in `/outclick` that forwards to actionlayer.io. That's the storefront's tracked hand-off link, so the referral is recorded. It's normal, and it lands on ActionLayer's own site.

## Prices, limits and endpoints, verified 19 September 2026

| Item | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Storefront | [agents.actionlayer.io](https://agents.actionlayer.io), machine-readable guide at [/llms.txt](https://agents.actionlayer.io/llms.txt) |
| Price | $1.50 per accepted task, pay as you go; no other plan on the storefront |
| Free calls | Polling a ticket, and replying to a blocked_on_user request: $0.00 |
| Submit | POST /zeroclick/tasks with `task` (1 to 100,000 characters) and `email` (required) |
| Poll and reply | GET /zeroclick/tasks/{ticket_id}; POST /zeroclick/tasks/{ticket_id}/reply |
| States | pending, blocked_on_user, completed, failed, cancelled |
| Payment rails | x402 (Base USDC), MPP (Tempo USDC), card via hosted checkout for calls of $0.50 or more |
| Account or key | None for pay as you go; the paid request is the identity |
| Purchases inside a task | Paid by the end user from their own connected wallet with explicit approval; the task fee covers the service only |
| Storefront status | Accepting orders (manifest version 1212da095333) |

## What this doesn't tell you

We haven't submitted a task. Everything above is read from ActionLayer's storefront documents on 19 September 2026, not from a completed job, so we can't say how long a registration takes or how often a task comes back blocked on a question.

The storefront doesn't say which websites or kinds of task ActionLayer can and can't complete. The root site's marketing implies a wide range; treat that as a claim until you've run one.

How your wallet gets "connected" for purchases inside a task is described on ActionLayer's own site, not on the storefront, and we didn't test it. The email on the task is where you'll be contacted when a purchase needs approval; the details of that approval step are ActionLayer's, not the storefront's.

Prices on a storefront can change. The assistant reads the live catalogue at call time; this table is the price on the day we checked.

## Questions people ask

### Can my AI assistant book a restaurant, order a part, or register me for an event without me giving it my card?

Yes, if it uses ActionLayer through the storefront. The assistant pays the $1.50 service fee itself, or hands you a card checkout link for it. Anything bought inside the task is paid by you, with your approval.

### Does the assistant need an ActionLayer account?

Not through the storefront. The paid request is the identity. An account and an API key exist on ActionLayer's own site for people integrating directly.

### What happens if the assistant's request times out after paying?

Repeating the same request with the same request id returns the original ticket rather than charging again; the storefront's error reference covers the payment failure cases.

### Is $1.50 a task expensive?

Against your own time, no. Against a subscription that includes unlimited tasks, it depends on volume; the storefront sells only pay as you go, so there's no plan to compare it with.

## Sources

- [ActionLayer storefront guide](https://agents.actionlayer.io/llms.txt): what the service is, what it costs, how purchases inside a task are paid.
- [Tasks service page](https://agents.actionlayer.io/services/tasks): the $1.50 price, the task states, and that polling and replies are free.
- [How to pay](https://agents.actionlayer.io/payment.md): the 402 flow, the three rails, the $0.50 card threshold and hosted checkout.
- [Hand off to a human](https://agents.actionlayer.io/handoff.md): the tracked link format.
- [Error reference](https://agents.actionlayer.io/errors.md): bearer_required and the payment errors.
- [ActionLayer's own site](https://actionlayer.io/): the console, API keys and SDK for direct integration.