ACP Certified. The trust signal AI agents already look for.
The planned quality standard for agent commerce storefronts. The trust scoring engine that powers it is live; signed certificates and the public verifier ship in a follow-up release.
When an agent picks one of ten. Certification is the answer to which.
As AI agents become a primary channel for commerce discovery and transactions, the question every brand faces is simple: when an agent evaluates ten storefronts to fulfill a purchase request, which one does it choose? ACP Certification is the answer. It’s a rigorous, independently verified quality standard that tells AI agents your storefront is reliable, your data is accurate, and your transactions will complete successfully.
The economics are straightforward. Agents are optimized to minimize failed transactions. Every failed checkout, inaccurate product listing, or slow response degrades the agent’s reputation with its end users. Agents learn to avoid unreliable storefronts. Certification gives agents a pre-validated trust signal, and certified storefronts receive measurably higher recommendation rates as a result.
For commerce teams operating at scale, certification also addresses compliance and procurement requirements. ACP Certification signals commerce infrastructure maturity to the growing ecosystem of AI purchasing agents, partner marketplaces, and automated procurement systems.
Certification is free, automated, and takes minutes to complete. The brands that certify early establish trust signals that compound over time as agents build preference histories.
Four tiers. Score-driven. Not application-driven.
Your composite score across five categories places you in one of four tiers.
Platinum
Exemplary in every category. The gold standard of agent commerce.
- Highest agent ranking
- Premium badge
- Featured in directory
Gold
High quality storefront with strong performance across all areas.
- High agent ranking
- Gold badge
- Directory listing
Silver
Meets ACP standards with room for improvement.
- Standard ranking
- Silver badge
Bronze
Meets minimum requirements. Building toward excellence.
- Certified status
- Bronze badge
What each tier demands. How scores are calculated. What you gain.
Platinum
Test requirements
All 47 automated checks must pass. Zero tolerance for schema errors, broken endpoints, or transaction failures. Response latency must be in the top 10th percentile across the network.
Scoring
Each of the five categories must individually score above 80%. The weighted composite must reach 90 or higher. A single category score below 80% disqualifies Platinum regardless of the composite.
Benefits
- Highest priority in AI agent recommendation rankings across all connected agents
- Premium badge with animated verification seal for embedding on your website and marketing materials
- Featured placement in the ACP Certified Directory with enhanced brand profile
- Access to Platinum-only analytics dashboard with competitive benchmarking data
- Priority support channel with dedicated certification engineer
- Eligibility for co-branded white-label badges
Gold
Test requirements
All critical checks must pass, including discovery file validation, core transaction flow, and product schema compliance. Minor warnings in non-critical checks are acceptable.
Scoring
No individual category may score below 60%. The weighted composite must fall between 75 and 89 inclusive. Up to 3 non-critical check warnings are permitted without score penalty.
Benefits
- High priority in AI agent recommendation rankings, second only to Platinum
- Gold badge for website embedding with public verification link
- Full listing in the ACP Certified Directory with brand description and logo
- Access to standard analytics dashboard with historical score trends
- Eligibility for agent commerce partner program
Silver
Test requirements
Core protocol checks must pass: discovery file must be valid, at least one transaction endpoint must respond correctly, and product catalog must contain at least 10 valid entries.
Scoring
No individual category may score below 40%. The weighted composite must fall between 60 and 74 inclusive. Non-critical data quality warnings do not block Silver certification.
Benefits
- Standard ranking in agent recommendations, above uncertified storefronts
- Silver badge for website embedding with public verification link
- Listed in the ACP Certified Directory
- Detailed improvement roadmap showing the fastest path to Gold
Bronze
Test requirements
Minimum viable checks must pass: discovery file must be reachable and parseable, at least one product must have valid schema, and the storefront must respond within timeout thresholds.
Scoring
The weighted composite must reach 50. No individual category minimum is enforced at this tier. This is the entry-level certification that signals basic ACP compatibility.
Benefits
- Certified status that distinguishes your storefront from uncertified alternatives
- Bronze badge for website embedding with public verification link
- Access to certification dashboard with actionable improvement recommendations
- Eligibility to re-test at any time for higher tiers
Five categories. Weighted by importance to agent commerce quality.
Protocol Compliance
Your API works correctly and follows the ACP spec.
Data Quality
Product data is accurate, complete, and fresh.
Performance
Fast responses, high uptime, reliable service.
Commerce Readiness
Pricing, offers, and transactions configured.
Trust & Reputation
Good feedback, low disputes, maintained trust.
Every check the engine runs. Organized by category.
Protocol Compliance
30% of total score
- Discovery file (/.well-known/acp.json) is reachable, returns valid JSON, and conforms to the ACP discovery schema
- All declared endpoints respond with correct HTTP status codes (200 for success, 404 for missing resources, 422 for validation errors)
- Response Content-Type headers match the declared format (application/json with UTF-8 encoding)
- Error responses follow the ACP error envelope format with machine-readable error codes and human-readable messages
- Pagination parameters (limit, offset, cursor) are handled correctly across catalog endpoints
- Authentication tokens are validated and expired tokens return 401 with a clear re-authentication path
- Rate limiting headers (X-RateLimit-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Reset) are present and accurate
- CORS headers permit agent-origin requests as specified in the ACP cross-origin policy
- Idempotency keys are respected on transaction endpoints to prevent duplicate operations
- Webhook delivery endpoints accept POST payloads and return 200 within 5 seconds
Data Quality
25% of total score
- Every product entry includes required fields: name, description, price, currency, availability status, and at least one image URL
- Product images resolve to accessible URLs, return correct MIME types, and meet the minimum resolution of 400x400 pixels
- Prices are expressed as integers in the smallest currency unit (e.g., cents for USD) with valid ISO 4217 currency codes
- Product descriptions contain at least 50 characters and do not consist solely of the product name repeated
- Category taxonomies map to the ACP standard category tree or include valid custom category declarations
- Inventory availability status (in_stock, out_of_stock, preorder) reflects actual fulfillment capability within a 15-minute staleness window
- Variant attributes (size, color, material) use structured key-value pairs rather than free-text descriptions
- Product identifiers (SKU, GTIN, UPC) are unique within the catalog and conform to their respective format standards
- Localized content (translations, regional pricing) is tagged with correct BCP 47 language codes and ISO 3166 country codes
Performance
20% of total score
The /.well-known/acp.json endpoint must respond within 200 milliseconds at the 95th percentile across a 60-second test window
Product search queries with filtering and pagination must return results within 500 milliseconds at the 95th percentile
Cart creation, checkout initiation, and order confirmation endpoints must respond within 1 second at the 95th percentile
The storefront must maintain at least 99.5% uptime over the preceding 30-day measurement window, verified by synthetic monitoring
Fewer than 1% of valid requests should result in 5xx server errors over the measurement window
The storefront must handle at least 50 concurrent requests per second without degradation in latency or error rate
Commerce Readiness
15% of total score
- Cart creation, item addition, quantity updates, and cart deletion operate correctly through the full lifecycle
- Checkout flow produces a valid order with line items, shipping address, and payment method reference
- Price calculation at checkout matches the sum of individual product prices, applying taxes and shipping correctly
- Escrow-compatible transactions return a hold reference that can be captured or released via the ACP escrow API
- Refund endpoints accept full and partial refund requests and return updated order status within the same response
- Shipping rate calculation returns at least one valid option with estimated delivery window and carrier reference
- Promotional codes and discount rules apply correctly at checkout and are reflected in the order total
- Inventory is decremented atomically at order confirmation to prevent overselling under concurrent requests
- Order status webhooks fire within 30 seconds of state transitions (confirmed, shipped, delivered, cancelled)
Trust & Reputation
10% of total score
- Review authenticity score: at least 90% of displayed reviews must originate from verified purchasers within the ACP network
- Dispute resolution rate: fewer than 2% of completed transactions result in unresolved disputes over the trailing 90-day window
- Average dispute resolution time must be under 72 hours from initial filing to resolution
- Seller response rate to buyer inquiries must exceed 95% with a median response time under 4 hours
- No pattern of review manipulation, incentivized reviews, or suppression of negative feedback detected
- Brand identity verification: legal entity name, registered address, and tax identifier must be on file and verified
From preparation to renewal. Five phases.
Preparation
Self-pacedBefore running the certification test, ensure your storefront meets baseline requirements.
- Verify your ACP discovery file is live and accessible at /.well-known/acp.json
- Confirm at least 10 products in your catalog have complete schema-valid entries
- Test your transaction endpoints with the ACP sandbox client to catch obvious errors
- Review the ACP Protocol specification for any recent changes since your last integration update
- Run the pre-certification linter available in your dashboard to catch common issues before the formal test
Automated testing
~30 secondsThe certification engine runs the full test suite against your live storefront.
- 47 automated checks are executed in parallel across all five scoring categories
- Performance tests run from three geographic regions to normalize latency measurements
- Transaction flow tests use synthetic non-charging requests that do not affect your live inventory or financials
- Each check produces a pass, warning, or fail result with a specific score contribution
- Results are available immediately in your dashboard with drill-down detail for every check
Manual review
Only for Platinum candidatesPlatinum certification includes a manual review layer for subjective quality signals.
- A certification engineer reviews your product data quality for completeness and accuracy beyond automated checks
- Brand presentation, imagery quality, and description clarity are evaluated against Platinum standards
- Transaction flow edge cases (partial fulfillment, backorders, international shipping) are manually tested
- Manual review is completed within 2 business days of the automated test passing at the Platinum threshold
- If the manual review identifies issues, you receive a specific remediation checklist
Remediation
7-day windowIf checks fail, you receive a remediation period to fix issues and re-test.
- Every failed check includes specific guidance explaining what went wrong and how to fix it
- The remediation window is 7 calendar days from the initial test for first-time certifications
- You can re-run the full test suite as many times as needed within the remediation window at no cost
- Partial re-tests are available for specific categories if you want to validate a single fix before re-running the full suite
- If you do not pass within the remediation window, you can initiate a new certification attempt at any time
Certification & renewal
90-day validityOnce certified, your badge is active for 90 days with automated renewal checks.
- Your certification badge, public verification URL, and embeddable HTML snippet are available immediately upon passing
- Automated re-certification checks begin running nightly starting 14 days before your certification expires
- If re-certification passes, your certification renews automatically with an updated expiry date
- If your score has dropped below your tier threshold, you receive a notification with a 7-day grace period
- Historical certification records are maintained indefinitely, including score trends and tier transitions
Four steps. The whole process takes minutes.
Set up your storefront on Cresva
Import your catalog, configure pricing, and connect your brand to the agent commerce network.
Run the automated certification test
Launch the certification test from your dashboard. It checks every aspect of your storefront automatically.
Fix any failing tests
We tell you exactly what to fix. Each test includes specific guidance on how to pass.
Earn your badge and embed it
Once certified, you get an embeddable badge that links to your verified certificate page.
Six measurable outcomes. For brands that operate at scale.
Higher conversion through agent trust
Certified storefronts see measurably higher conversion rates when surfaced by AI agents. Agents prioritize certified brands because certification signals reliable transaction completion.
Multi-region compliance
Brands operating across multiple regions can certify each storefront instance independently. Regional certification accounts for local latency, currency, language, and regulatory requirements.
Supply-chain & procurement readiness
For B2B commerce, ACP Certification serves as a procurement qualification signal. Buyers and automated purchasing agents can filter for certified suppliers.
Competitive intelligence
Platinum and Gold certified brands gain access to anonymized benchmarking data that shows how their storefront performance compares to category peers.
Brand authority in the agent economy
As AI agents become a primary commerce channel, certification becomes the trust credential that differentiates your brand to both humans and machines.
API-first verification for partners
Partners, marketplaces, and aggregators can programmatically verify your certification status via the Certification API for automated partner onboarding.
Certification, programmatic. Verify any storefront in the network.
/api/certification/{storefront_id}Returns the current certification status, tier, score, and expiry date for a given storefront.
Example response
{
"storefront_id": "sf_abc123",
"certified": true,
"tier": "gold",
"score": 82,
"categories": {
"protocol_compliance": 88,
"data_quality": 79,
"performance": 84,
"commerce_readiness": 76,
"trust_reputation": 81
},
"certified_at": "2026-01-15T09:30:00Z",
"expires_at": "2026-04-15T09:30:00Z",
"badge_url": "https://cresva.ai/badges/sf_abc123.svg",
"certificate_url": "https://cresva.ai/cert/sf_abc123"
}/api/certification/{storefront_id}/verifyLightweight verification endpoint that returns a boolean. Designed for high-frequency agent lookups with sub-50ms latency.
Example response
{
"storefront_id": "sf_abc123",
"certified": true,
"tier": "gold",
"expires_at": "2026-04-15T09:30:00Z"
}/api/certification/batchVerify certification status for up to 100 storefronts in a single request. Returns an array of verification results.
Example request body
{
"storefront_ids": [
"sf_abc123",
"sf_def456",
"sf_ghi789"
],
"min_tier": "silver"
}Authentication required
What certification should drive. An illustrative model, not a customer report.
Scenario
A direct-to-consumer home goods brand with ~2,400 SKUs that integrates ACP and earns Gold certification. The illustrative metrics below model a 90-day pre/post comparison the program is designed to produce.
Agent recommendation rate
Before
12%
After
67%
Transaction completion rate
Before
73%
After
94%
Average order value
Before
$42
After
$58
Monthly agent-originated revenue
Before
$18,400
After
$127,600
Dispute rate
Before
4.2%
After
0.8%
Agent return visit rate
Before
22%
After
71%
What this scenario models
- Recommendation lift: certification gives agents a pre-validated trust signal, shortening the trial-and-error phase before they route traffic to a storefront.
- Completion lift: the certification process surfaces checkout edge cases that silently fail in production.
- Dispute reduction: data quality fixes (accurate imagery, correct inventory status) target the primary causes of buyer dissatisfaction.
- Compounding effect: as agents observe successful transactions, recommendation preference compounds. The program is designed to make this loop measurable.
Common questions. Direct answers.
Ready to get certified? It’s free and takes minutes.
Set up your storefront, run the test, earn your badge.