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HTTP 402: Payment Required

Early Draft

This specification is at an early draft stage. Ideas are open for change and debate. A lot of the content was developed with the help of Claude AI.

HTTP 402: Payment Required​

Concept​

HTTP 402 was defined in RFC 2616 (1999) as a reserved status code for future payment systems, but was never standardized. Vera uses it to trigger a native browser payment dialog, a clean, JavaScript-free alternative to overlay paywalls.

Response Format​

HTTP/1.1 402 Payment Required
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8

X-Vera-Access: {"model":"choice","options":[...]}

<!-- Article teaser as preview -->
<html>...</html>

The Vera browser intercepts the 402 before rendering and shows a native payment dialog based on the X-Vera-Access header. Standard browsers receive the teaser HTML normally.

X-Vera-Access Header​

{
  "model": "ppr",
  "publisher": "some-publisher.news",
  "article_id": "federal-election-2025",
  "options": [
    {
      "type": "ppr",
      "price": 0.49,
      "currency": "EUR",
      "label": "Buy this article"
    },
    {
      "type": "subscription",
      "key": "spiegel",
      "label": "Subscribe to Some Publisher+"
    },
    {
      "type": "ad_supported",
      "label": "Read with ads"
    }
  ]
}

Access Models (Vera Browser)​

ppr: Pay per Read​

{"model": "ppr", "publisher": "handelsblatt.com",
 "options": [{"type": "ppr", "price": 0.49, "currency": "EUR"}]}

Browser behavior: Native dialog showing price and Vera wallet balance. One-tap purchase. Automatic request retry with updated token.

subscription: Subscription required​

{"model": "subscription", "publisher": "some-publisher.news",
 "options": [{"type": "subscription", "key": "spiegel"}]}

choice: Subscription OR Pay per Read OR ads​

{
  "model": "choice",
  "publisher": "other-publisher.news",
  "options": [
    {"type": "ppr",          "price": 0.99, "currency": "EUR"},
    {"type": "subscription", "key": "zeit"},
    {"type": "ad_supported"}
  ]
}

vera_exclusive: Vera users only​

{"model": "vera_exclusive", "publisher": "some-publisher.news",
 "message": "This content is exclusively available to Vera users."}

Standard browsers receive a separate 403 response or redirect.

Browser-Side 402 Flow​

User clicks link
      |
      v
Vera sends request (with X-Vera-Token if logged in)
      |
      v
Server responds 402 + X-Vera-Access
      |
      v
Vera intercepts response before rendering
      |
      v
Vera renders native payment dialog
(in browser chrome, no JavaScript access possible)
      |
      v
User selects action
      |
      +-- PPR chosen  -> wallet debit -> token refresh -> retry -> 200
      +-- Sub chosen  -> subscription flow -> token refresh -> retry -> 200
      +-- Cancelled   -> stay on teaser