Zinc

A closer look at Zinc

Zinc is an API for buying anything online without building a single retailer integration: it covers the entire ecommerce purchasing lifecycle, from discovery to ordering, tracking, and returns, across thousands of retailers and 500M+ products. For AI agents, it supports one-shot purchases or trying a thousand options, with search free and buying in one call. Pricing is usage based per successful order plus product data calls, with a wallet funded once and spent down, and separate test and production wallets.

Editorial guidance based on published documentation. The workflow below is a suggested starting point, not a measured product result.

When to choose Zinc

• Developers and AI agents that want to buy anything online without building retailer integrations, since Zinc covers discovery, ordering, tracking, and returns in one API.
• Marketplaces and rewards programs that place orders at volume, since Zinc offers volume pricing from a thousand orders a month and a wallet funded once and spent down.

When to choose something else

• Buyers who want failed orders billed the same as successful ones, since Zinc states failed orders are not billed and charges $1 per successful order.
• Buyers who want product data at the ordering price, since product data is priced separately at $0.01 per call on the agent endpoints.

A practical starting workflow

1. Fund a wallet once and spend it down with an API key, keeping test and production wallets separate.
2. Let an agent search free across 500M+ products, then place the order in one call with variants, shipping speed, and delivery controls.
3. Track the order and handle returns through the built-in tracking and returns flow.
4. Scale to volume pricing from a thousand orders a month when order volume grows, via sales.

Check before committing

• Amounts are shown with a $ sign but no plan-currency statement on the pricing page, so they are recorded as observations, not as currency-named facts.
• The $1 charge is per successful order plus the cost of the item itself; the item cost is separate from Zinc's fee.
• Wallet funding carries a processing fee on top of the amount entered: card 2.9% plus $0.30, ACH 0.8% capped at $5.00, wire a flat $15.00.

Common questions

Compare approaches for this task

• Zro — Coding-agent users who want private inference without a subscription, since Zro charges by usage packs with no recurring charges and zero request retention.; Everyday coding-agent users who want a monthly budget, since Pro includes a $40 monthly usage budget (or $16 per month billed yearly) up to 1B tokens.
• Clerk.io — Ecommerce stores that want search, recommendations, and a generative AI chatbot in one platform, since Clerk.io covers Search, Recommendations, Chat, Audience, and Email.; Stores that want usage-based tiers with unlimited users, since tiers include unlimited users on myclerk.io and usage measured by API calls, customers, and emails.