Buyer's guide ยท CryptoMeter
A WordPress plugin to verify, block and meter AI crawlers
CryptoMeter is a self-hosted WordPress plugin for site owners and agencies who want to see which AI bots visit a site, check whether each one is who it claims to be, and decide what to allow. It checks bots against official vendor IP lists, reverse DNS and Web Bot Auth signatures, applies one policy per category (search, AI search, AI agents, AI training) and shows what each AI vendor crawls against the visitors it sends back. An optional Monetize module can ask x402-capable agents to pay per article. No account is needed and no visitor data leaves your site.
What you get
The full plugin source
The PHP plugin, the unminified source of its React admin, a 176-check self-test you run with wp eval-file, and the documentation. Install it from Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin.
Verified bot identity
Each hit gets a verdict of verified, spoofed, unverified or unknown, from official vendor IP lists, forward-confirmed reverse DNS for search engines and Web Bot Auth signatures (RFC 9421, Ed25519). Fake Googlebots and scrapers faking a known AI bot are blocked by default.
A bot registry
28 AI crawlers and agents and 6 search engines out of the box, plus custom user agents.
One policy per category
Intent policies for search, AI search, AI agents and AI training, with per-bot overrides and four presets: Get cited and block training (the default), Block all AI, Monitor only, and Charge training and agents.
Real enforcement in WordPress
HTTP 403 blocks, per-IP and per-bot 429 rate limits, IP/CIDR and user-agent allowlists, excluded paths, and per-post and per-category controls in the editor.
Activity and referrals
A live activity feed, AI referral tracking with a crawl-to-visit ratio per vendor, and a detector for bots that ignore your robots.txt.
AI signals from one screen
robots.txt, Content-Signal, Content-Usage, RSL 1.0 license.xml, TDMRep and the noai meta tag, with a preview before you save.
Server rule snippets
Copy-paste rules for nginx, Apache, LiteSpeed, Cloudflare WAF and WP Rocket, so bots can be blocked before a page cache answers.
Reports and alerts
A weekly report, a traffic-spike alert, a daily digest, payment e-mails and a signed webhook.
How an agency or site owner uses it
CryptoMeter is a plugin you install on each WordPress site. It has no hosted dashboard and does not combine data across sites.
Show a client what visits their site
The Overview, Activity and Referrals screens show which AI bots arrive, how they are verified, and how much traffic each vendor sends back, as a lower bound.
Set a sensible default quickly
The setup card applies the Get cited and block training preset in one click. Training crawlers get a 403 while search and AI-search bots keep access.
Move settings between sites
Settings export and import, and a payments CSV export for accounting.
Optional pay-per-read
The Monetize module is off by default. It supports x402 v2 pay-per-read in USDC, with v1 compatibility, paid directly to your own wallet. It includes a pricing engine, replay protection, a payments ledger, a simulator and a test mode.
Privacy tools
GDPR helpers to erase data on request and suggested privacy-policy text.
What it needs to run
None of these is included in the price.
- WordPress 6.6 or newer and PHP 7.4 or newer
- The PHP sodium extension for Web Bot Auth verification; without it verification falls back to IP lists and reverse DNS
- Outbound HTTPS from the server to fetch vendor IP lists, and a working DNS resolver for reverse DNS
- Working WP-Cron for the daily list refresh, the weekly report and the hourly spike check
- Pretty permalinks are recommended for /license.xml, /.well-known/tdmrep.json and /llms.txt
- A page cache that passes AI user agents to PHP, or the generated bypass rules
- Monetize only: a public EVM wallet address and, for live payments, a facilitator such as PayAI or your own Coinbase CDP account
What it does not do
- It does not block at the edge. Blocking happens in WordPress or in server rules you paste in, so a request answered by a full-page cache or CDN before WordPress never reaches the plugin.
- The AI signals are declarations only. They bind nobody, and bots that do not comply ignore them.
- Referral counts are a lower bound, because visits whose referrer is hidden by AI apps are not counted.
- Verification only covers vendors that publish IP lists, reverse DNS or Web Bot Auth keys. Others stay unverified.
- It was tested on SQLite only (WordPress Playground, PHP 7.4 and 8.4). MySQL and MariaDB have not been tested yet.
- No funded on-chain payment has been verified end to end in Monetize. Most large AI crawlers do not pay, and no income is promised.
- It does not hold funds or keys, make fiat payouts or convert currency, and supports EVM networks only (no Solana).
- It does not write nginx, Apache or Cloudflare configuration for you, and it shows no bandwidth-saved or money-saved estimates.
- There is no live demo. The admin is WordPress's own.
Questions
Will it block Google and AI search bots?
Not with the default preset. Get cited and block training sends a 403 to training crawlers and keeps search and AI-search bots allowed. You can change the decision per category or per bot.
How does it know a bot is real?
It checks the request against official vendor IP lists, forward-confirmed reverse DNS for search engines and Web Bot Auth signatures. It only verifies vendors that publish such data, so others show as unverified.
Does it send my visitor data anywhere?
No visitor data is sent. It fetches the vendor IP lists daily (this can be switched off) and the Web Bot Auth key directory at most daily, and uses your server's DNS resolver. The facilitator is contacted only if you turn Monetize on.
Does it work behind Cloudflare or a page cache?
Client IP detection is Cloudflare and proxy aware. A page cache must pass AI user agents to PHP, or you can use the generated bypass rules for nginx, Apache, LiteSpeed, Cloudflare WAF and WP Rocket.
Can I earn from AI crawlers with Monetize?
It lets x402-capable agents pay per article to your wallet, and it is off by default. No funded on-chain settlement has been verified end to end, and most large AI crawlers do not pay, so treat it as a capability and not as income.
How much does CryptoMeter cost, and what does the licence allow?
$35, one payment, no subscription. One licence, no tiers: any number of projects and clients, a paid SaaS, every line changed. The only limit is reselling or publishing the source code itself. The services you connect bill you directly. See the licence.
Is setup included?
Yes. We install CryptoMeter for you and put in your logo, colours and texts. Bigger changes or new features get a fixed price before we start.
What if it does not work?
Write to us within 14 days. We fix it, usually the same day. If we cannot fix it within 7 days, you get your money back. See the refund policy.