Want live news in your assistant? Dappier's storefront documents, in order

For: anyone building or running an assistant that needs live news, prices or publisher content in its answers and is deciding between a vendor API key and a path the assistant can pay for itself, and the researcher who wants to see exactly what a rights-cleared data marketplace publishes for machines.

Your assistant is good at reasoning and bad at knowing what happened this morning. The fix is a live data source, and the usual shape of that fix is a signup, an API key in a config file, and a monthly bill that outlives the project. Dappier is the case worth reading because it sells the same real-time search and publisher data two ways: to people, through a platform account and a key, and to software, through a storefront where an assistant registers itself, prepays a small balance, and pays per query.

The short version: through Dappier's agent-accessible API storefront at agents.dappier.com, eight publisher data models are priced from $0.003 to $0.02 a query, real-time web search is $0.00 a query, and all of it runs on a prepaid credit balance the assistant buys for as little as $0.01 by wallet or $0.50 by card, after registering a credential that takes no email and no human step. This sourcebook reads the documents in the order that makes that sentence true, and notes where they disagree.

• Storefront: agents.dappier.com, guide at /llms.txt
• Price: $0.003 to $0.02 per query by publisher model; Real Time Search $0.00 per query
• Identity: a registered agent credential, then a Prepaid credits balance; no pay-as-you-go path
• Pays with: a wallet (x402 or MPP, USDC) from $0.01, or a card from $0.50 via hosted checkout
• Verified: 19 September 2026, from the storefront's own documents and Dappier's docs

Dappier in a paragraph, and why the storefront is the shorter path

Dappier runs a marketplace of real-time data for language models: live web and news search, stock prices and financial content, and publisher archives that publishers list as data models and price per query. Publishers monetise; builders plug the models into their applications. On the human path, that means an account at platform.dappier.com and an API key sent as a bearer token. On the storefront path, the assistant does four things without a person: registers an anonymous credential, buys a credit balance, calls Dappier's own endpoints through the storefront host, and draws the balance down per query. Nothing on that path asks for an email, a card in a settings page, or a Dappier key.

• No form, no key. Registration is one request and returns a credential; the storefront says plainly that you do not have and do not need an upstream API key.
• The price is published per query and read from a live catalogue at call time.
• Same endpoints. The storefront proxies the same model routes Dappier documents for its own API, minus the key.
• A balance, not a bill. Credits are prepaid and drawn down; there's nothing to cancel.

The documents, in the order worth reading them

1. The storefront guide (llms.txt)

Two paragraphs do the work. The first is the pitch as Dappier wrote it: "Access real-time search with Dappier's AI models - from live web search and breaking news to stock prices and financial insights." The second is the commercial model: access "is sold on plans: register an agent credential, buy a plan (credit or subscription), then call against the balance or period." Note the phrase "credit or subscription"; the catalogue below has only credits. The guide then lists the documents in a "Start here" block, which this sourcebook follows.

2. The catalogue (services)

Eight services, each "register, then buy credits", each billed by query: 9 and 10 News $0.01, Benzinga $0.02, CafeMom Parenting $0.01, iHeartCats AI $0.01, iHeartDogs AI $0.01, MethodShop $0.003, Real Time Search $0.00, WISH-TV AI $0.01. One plan, Prepaid credits. The $0.00 row is the one to pause on: the query is free, the balance behind it is not, and a call with no balance is refused. Free here means "doesn't draw down", not "no account".

3. Real Time Search (service page and its spec)

The call is a POST to the storefront host at Dappier's own model path, /zeroclick/aimodel/am_01j06ytn18ejftedz6dyhz2b15, with one field, query, and one field back, message: a natural-language answer with live web, news, stock and weather data folded in. The spec's example asks for "the latest news on the US stock market today". This is the model Dappier's own docs put first for humans too, under a bearer API key at api.dappier.com.

4. Benzinga (service page and its spec)

Financial news as articles rather than an answer. The call is POST /zeroclick/v2/search?data_model_id=dm_01jmxn1a9tem8bq1nzbzjck8c4 with a body of query, optional ref (a site domain to favour), page, num_results, and a search_algorithm of most_recent, semantic, most_recent_semantic or trending. Results carry url, site, title, author, pubdate and a preview. The operation is shared by all the publisher models, selected by the data model id; the spec's enum lists ten ids, three of which (Lifestyle News, One Green Planet, Sports News) appear on no priced service, and the spec's own example id is one of the unpriced three. Send an id from the catalogue, not from the example.

5. How to pay (payment.md)

The sentence that governs everything: "This seller sells access on plans, not per call: register an identity, buy a plan, then call against it. The priced 402 payment_required you settle is the plan purchase; a bare call with no plan is refused with 401, never a per-call price." A 402 is the web's standard price quote; here it appears once, when the balance is bought. Prepaid credits carry a $0.01 minimum per purchase on a wallet rail and $0.50 by card; below $0.50 the card rail answers 400 amount_below_card_minimum. Three rails: x402 on Base and MPP on Tempo, both in USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin; and card, with a hosted checkout the assistant can hand to a person.

6. Identity (auth.md)

A credential is required to buy or top up a plan on every rail. Registration can be anonymous: "start instantly, no email, no human step." The warning that matters: an unclaimed anonymous credential expires after a few days and any plan bought with it dies with it, so claim it to a person's email soon after buying anything you'd mind losing. The same credential works at every storefront on the network.

7. The machine catalogue (manifest.json)

Accepting orders, version 296a9b758469, eight services, eight meters, one plan, minimum $0.01 by wallet and $0.50 by card, no included free units on any price, no ceiling-priced meter. This is the document the assistant should read at call time; the prices above are its contents on 19 September 2026.

8. Dappier's own docs (docs.dappier.com)

The quickstart tells a person to sign up at platform.dappier.com and create an API key under Settings, then call api.dappier.com/app/aimodel/am_01j06ytn18ejftedz6dyhz2b15 with the key as a bearer. A separate page documents the storefront's routes from Dappier's side: requests there are authenticated only by a signature the storefront adds, "there is no Dappier API key on these routes", only marketplace-enabled models are reachable, and Dappier's own charging is bypassed because the storefront bills. No per-query dollar price appears on any human-path page we could read; the marketplace pages render prices in the browser only.

The storefront in one table, verified 19 September 2026

What these documents don't settle

We haven't bought a balance or run a query; every fact above is read from the documents on 19 September 2026. Four disagreements are worth carrying: the guide says "credit or subscription" while the catalogue has only credits; Dappier's root site calls the storefront "pay-per-call" while the payment document says plans, not per call; the spec's example data model id is unpriced; and the human-path prices are not readable without a browser, so we can't say how the two paths compare in cost, only that one publishes its prices and the other doesn't.

Questions readers ask

How can my AI agent get real-time news and financial data it can pay for per query without a Dappier API key?

Register a credential at the storefront, buy a Prepaid credits balance (from $0.01 by wallet or $0.50 by card), then call Real Time Search at $0.00 a query or a publisher model such as Benzinga at $0.02 a query. No Dappier key exists on that path.

Is Real Time Search actually free?

The per-query price is $0.00, but a call with no purchased balance is refused. Buy the minimum balance and the queries don't draw it down.

Which publisher models are worth the money?

That's a judgement this sourcebook doesn't make. It tells you the price of each, what a query returns, and how to pick the model by id. The catalogue, not the spec's example, is the list to choose from.

Documents

• Dappier storefront guide, catalogue, Real Time Search, Benzinga, How to pay, Identity, machine catalogue: all read 19 September 2026.
• Dappier quickstart and the storefront route reference on Dappier's own docs.