Head-to-head
ACP vs UCP
In short
ACP lost its main checkout surface when OpenAI moved ChatGPT purchases to merchant sites on 24 Mar 2026 and now carries product feeds there. On Crossmint the matrix reads ACP no statement found and UCP live, and the two split on 12 more columns.
The sourced difference
ACP lost its main checkout surface when OpenAI moved ChatGPT purchases to merchant sites on 24 Mar 2026 and now carries product feeds there; UCP runs live checkout in Google AI Mode and Gemini and is the onboarding format for Copilot Checkout. ACP is maintained by OpenAI, Stripe and Meta; UCP by a Tech Council that includes Stripe and Meta too. openai.com, read 4 Nov 2026.
Verdicts by reader type
- Head of ecommerce engineering
- Build UCP first for checkout; keep an ACP feed for ChatGPT discovery.
- Payments lead
- Both keep you merchant of record; your PSP choice matters more than the protocol.
- Shopify Plus merchant
- Shopify serves both for you through Agentic Storefronts.
- Marketplace operator
- UCP has more retailer co-developers (Walmart, Target, Etsy, Wayfair) if you run a marketplace.
Side by side
| Measure | ACP | UCP |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Protocol | Protocol |
| Operator | OpenAI, Stripe and Meta (lead maintainers) | UCP Tech Council (Google, Shopify, Etsy, Target, Wayfair, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, Stripe and others) |
| Homepage | agenticcommerce.dev | ucp.dev |
| Matrix cells with a stated status | 3 live, 2 pilot, 7 announced | 10 live, 4 pilot, 6 announced |
| Published pricing | No pricing statement on file | No pricing statement on file |
| A limit worth knowing | Does not make ChatGPT a checkout surface today: OpenAI moved purchases back to merchant sites on 24 Mar 2026. | Does not move funds: payment runs through the merchant PSP via a payment handler. |
| Merchant of record | Merchant | Merchant |
| Dispute rules | None in spec | None in spec |
| Live surfaces | Partial | Yes |
| Cost | No protocol fee | No protocol fee |
Column by column: where the statuses differ
13 of 27 columns read differently for ACP and UCP on 4 Nov 2026.
| Column | ACP | UCP |
|---|---|---|
| Crossmint | no statement found | live |
| Shopify | no statement found | live |
| BigCommerce | no statement found | pilot |
| Salesforce CC | announced | live |
| commercetools | announced | live |
| WooCommerce | announced | pilot |
| Walmart | no statement found | announced |
| Target | no statement found | live |
| Wayfair | no statement found | announced |
| ChatGPT | not supported | no statement found |
| Google AI Mode | no statement found | live |
| Meta Muse | no statement found | announced |
| Copilot | announced | live |
| 13 differences |
Read the profiles
Sources
- Powering Product Discovery in ChatGPT, read 4 Nov 2026
- agenticcommerce.dev/, read 4 Nov 2026
- ucp.dev/, read 4 Nov 2026
- Stripe: Developing an open standard for agentic commerce, read 4 Nov 2026
- ACP MAINTAINERS.md, read 4 Nov 2026
- shopify.com/news/ai-commerce-at-scale, read 4 Nov 2026
Last reviewed