Bundled free on every paid plan · no add-on

Block or charge AI bots with Bot Paywall

Stop AI crawlers from taking your content for free. Block them per URL, or charge them per request with the x402 standard — enforced by a Cloudflare Worker at the edge, no script tag. Included on every paid plan from Indexed up.

What Bot Paywall does

Per-URL control over which AI bots get in — and on what terms.

Block bots per URL

Pick URL patterns (e.g. /blog/*, /research/*) and the bots to stop — GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Bytespider, Google-Extended, or all AI. Matched requests get HTTP 403; everything else passes through untouched.

Charge per request (HTTP 402)

Instead of blocking, return HTTP 402 Payment Required with a price. Bots that follow the x402 payment standard can pay to read the page; ones that do not simply back off.

System-recommended pricing

We size a fair per-request price from page length — short pages, articles, and long-form each get a suggested rate. Keep it or override per rule; richer pages can be tagged premium.

Layered bot identification

Each request is checked by Web Bot Auth signature first, then reverse DNS, then user-agent — so rules act on what the bot actually is, not just a spoofable string.

Cloudflare Worker — no script tag

Bots do not run JavaScript, so a script tag cannot stop them. We deploy the rules into a Cloudflare Worker on your domain that runs at the edge, before the request reaches your origin.

Live activity feed

Every bot hit — allowed, blocked, or charged — streams into a per-project feed so you can see exactly which crawlers are taking your content and what each rule is doing.

How to set it up

01

Connect Cloudflare

Authorize once and we deploy a Worker onto your domain. It extends the same Worker our auto-resolve uses — one edge layer, nothing for you to host or maintain.

02

Create your rules

In the dashboard, pick URL patterns, choose an action (allow, block, or charge), and the bot scope. Unmatched URLs default to allow — you only gate what you choose to gate.

03

Watch the feed

The activity feed shows every bot request and the action taken in real time. Adjust prices or patterns whenever you want — changes redeploy to the edge automatically.

Bot Paywall — FAQ

How much does Bot Paywall cost?

Nothing extra. It used to be a $19/mo add-on, but it is now bundled free into every paid plan from Indexed ($5/mo) up — Featured, Established, Foundation and Enterprise included. The Free (Visible) tier does not include it. There is no separate subscription.

Why a Cloudflare Worker and not a plugin or script tag?

AI crawlers do not execute JavaScript, so a client-side script can never intercept them. A Cloudflare Worker runs at the edge — before the request reaches your origin — which is the only place you can reliably see a bot and decide to block, charge, or allow it. No plugin to install, no code on your server.

How does charging bots actually work?

For a "charge" rule, the Worker returns HTTP 402 Payment Required with the price you set (system-recommended by page length, or your override). Bots that implement the x402 payment standard can settle the micropayment and get the content; bots that do not respect 402 simply do not get the page. You set prices per rule — they apply universally across the bots that rule targets.

Which bots can it identify?

GPTBot (OpenAI), ClaudeBot (Anthropic), PerplexityBot, Bytespider (TikTok/ByteDance), Google-Extended, or "all AI" as a group. Identification is layered: a Web Bot Auth signature is trusted first, then reverse DNS, then the user-agent string — so a spoofed user-agent alone does not slip past a block rule.

Will it block Googlebot or hurt my SEO?

No. Rules target AI crawlers specifically, and anything not matched defaults to allow. Classic search indexing bots like Googlebot are not in scope unless you explicitly add a rule for them, which you would not. You stay in control of exactly which user-agents and URL patterns are gated.

What if I only want to block, not charge?

Blocking is the simplest mode and a perfectly good default — set the rule action to "block" and matched AI bots get a 403. Charging is opt-in per rule for when you would rather monetize access than refuse it outright.

Stop giving your content to AI bots for free.

Bundled free on every paid plan from Indexed ($5/mo) up. No add-on, no setup.