# Franked

> Franked puts a refundable price on first contact. People you know reach you free. Everyone else pays a small deposit, refunded if you reply and donated to charity if you don't.

Franked is a pay-to-reach email service in private pilot. Each user gets a name@franked.email address that delivers to their existing inbox. Allowlisted senders pass straight through. Unknown senders are held and sent a link to pay a refundable deposit set by the recipient. If the recipient refunds (usually after replying), the sender gets the deposit back less card processing, and is allowlisted. Unanswered deposits are donated to a charity the recipient chooses. Mail that identifies itself as bulk or automated is held without a payment link. The site also publishes a field guide on automated traffic, AI agents, and unprotected inbound channels. Planned products extend the same mechanism to web forms and support queues, including machine payments over HTTP 402 (x402) for AI agents. For charging automated clients for content and APIs, Franked is designed to work alongside Cloudflare's Monetization Gateway and Amazon CloudFront's x402 integration rather than compete with them.

## Product

- [How Franked works](https://franked.email/how-it-works/): Franked holds mail from unknown senders until they pay a refundable deposit you set. Known contacts pass free. Unanswered deposits go to charity.
- [Got a link from Franked?](https://franked.email/for-senders/): The person you emailed asks first-time senders for a small refundable deposit. Here is what it is, how refunds work, and why.
- [Where unanswered deposits go](https://franked.email/charity/): Recipients never keep deposits. Refunds go back to senders; unanswered deposits are donated by Franked to the charity each recipient chooses.
- [Roadmap](https://franked.email/roadmap/): Where Franked is going: priced first contact for email, agent payments over HTTP 402, verification walls for forms and support queues, and how Franked fits alongside Cloudflare's Monetization Gateway and Amazon CloudFront's x402 integration.
- [Frequently asked questions](https://franked.email/faq/): Answers about Franked: deposits and refunds, charity, AI agents and x402, custom domains in three levels, sign-in and privacy.

## The problem

- [The bot majority: how automated traffic overtook people online](https://franked.email/the-bot-majority/): Automated traffic made up 53% of web traffic in 2025 by one leading measure. What changed, why estimates differ, and what it means for anyone running a website or inbox.
- [Agent swarms and the inbox: why no email is one-to-one anymore](https://franked.email/agent-swarms/): AI agents made personalised outreach free to produce at any scale. Why that broke email as a channel, why spam filters don't catch it, and what restores the signal.
- [The unprotected channel map: every door strangers can knock on](https://franked.email/unprotected-channels/): A channel-by-channel map of inbound surfaces exposed to bots and AI agents: email, contact forms, support, job applications, reviews, sign-ups, public comment and APIs.
- [The cost of doing nothing: risks of leaving inbound channels unverified](https://franked.email/cost-of-doing-nothing/): What organisations risk by leaving email, forms, support and APIs without verification: payment fraud, fake leads, flooded queues, poisoned data, compliance exposure and lost trust.

## Where it hits

- [Contact forms: the softest target on the web](https://franked.email/contact-forms/): Why website contact and quote forms attract automated abuse, why CAPTCHAs and honeypots no longer hold, and what a verification wall for forms should look like.
- [Small businesses: open doors and no one watching them](https://franked.email/small-business/): Why small businesses are the most exposed to bots, AI outreach and email fraud, and a practical checklist for protecting inboxes, forms and payments without a security team.
- [Government websites and public comment: when fake participation shapes real policy](https://franked.email/public-sector/): Public consultations, petitions, service requests and complaint forms are open by design and rarely verified. What the 2017 FCC fake comment case showed, and how to protect participation without excluding people.

## What works

- [CAPTCHA is over: why the puzzle stopped telling people from machines](https://franked.email/captcha-is-over/): Image and text CAPTCHAs no longer separate humans from bots. What the research shows, why invisible checks only partly replace them, and what comes next.
- [Five ways to tell a person from a machine, compared](https://franked.email/verification-approaches/): An honest comparison of puzzles, behavioural detection, device attestation, proof of personhood and economic cost for verifying inbound email, forms, support and APIs.
- [Pricing first contact: the economics of putting a stamp on email](https://franked.email/pricing-first-contact/): Why a small refundable deposit on first contact stops mass outreach without blocking real people or legitimate AI agents, the history of email postage, and why it can work now.