What is UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol)?

The Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is an open standard co-developed by Google, Shopify, and 25+ partners including Stripe, PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard. Announced at the National Retail Federation conference in January 2026, UCP enables AI shopping agents to discover, browse, and complete purchases on e-commerce stores. Merchants publish a JSON manifest at /.well-known/ucp that describes their capabilities, payment handlers, and checkout flow — allowing AI agents to transact programmatically.

Why Use a UCP Checker?

A UCP checker validates that your store's profile is correctly formatted and compliant with the UCP specification. Without validation, a single missing field or malformed endpoint can make your store invisible to AI shopping agents — resulting in lost sales as competitors capture AI-driven traffic. Our free UCP checker tests your /.well-known/ucp file across four validation levels, validates Schema.org markup (MerchantReturnPolicy, ShippingDetails), and generates an AI readiness score with specific fix suggestions.

Key Features of Our UCP Checker

• UCP Profile Validation — Four-level check of your /.well-known/ucp endpoint: structural validation, rules compliance, network verification, and official SDK testing
• Schema.org Analysis — Validate MerchantReturnPolicy, OfferShippingDetails, and Product schemas that AI agents rely on for product discovery
• AI Agent Simulation — Test how Google AI Mode and other agents will discover and interact with your store in real-time
• Security Scan — Verify HTTPS, CORS headers, and security configuration required by the UCP specification
• Product Feed Analysis — Check your product data quality for AI agent visibility and structured data completeness
• UCP Profile Generator — Generate valid UCP profiles with signing keys and payment handlers for any platform
• ACP Readiness Checker — Check if your store is ready for ChatGPT Instant Checkout with platform detection, Stripe integration, policy pages, and HTTPS verification

How Does UCPtools Compare to Other UCP Validators?

There are several UCP validation tools available, each with different strengths. See our detailed comparisons: UCPtools vs UCP Checker, UCPtools vs UCP Lighthouse, and UCPtools vs WebsiteAIScore. Or browse all comparisons to find the right tool for your workflow.

Which AI Agents Shop Using UCP?

Several AI agents already use UCP to discover and purchase products on behalf of consumers:

• Google AI Mode — Integrated into Google Search, AI Mode uses UCP to browse product catalogs, compare prices, and initiate checkout directly from search results
• Gemini App — Google's AI assistant uses UCP for conversational shopping, helping users find and buy products through natural language
• Shopify Shop App — Native UCP support enables AI-powered product discovery across Shopify's merchant network

What is ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol)?

ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol) is an open standard developed by OpenAI and Stripe that powers ChatGPT's Instant Checkout experience. Unlike UCP (a static JSON manifest), ACP is a server-to-server REST API with five checkout endpoints (create_checkout, get_checkout, update_checkout, confirm_checkout, cancel_checkout) plus a delegate_payment endpoint. Payment is handled via Stripe Shared Payment Tokens (SPT), so customers can pay through ChatGPT without sharing card details with individual merchants.

Shopify and Etsy merchants are auto-eligible for ChatGPT Instant Checkout. All other platforms need to apply at chatgpt.com/merchants, implement the five ACP endpoints, and integrate Stripe SPT.

Our tool checks both UCP and ACP readiness in a single scan, giving you a complete picture of your store's AI commerce preparedness. You can also use our dedicated ACP Readiness Checker for a focused ACP-only analysis.

Who Uses a UCP Checker?

• E-commerce merchants — Verify your store is visible to AI shopping agents before competitors capture that traffic
• Development teams — Validate your /.well-known/ucp file before deployment to catch errors early
• E-commerce agencies — Audit client stores for AI readiness and generate compliance reports
• Platform integration teams — Ensure UCP integration works correctly across different e-commerce platforms

What If Your Store Isn't UCP Ready?

If our UCP checker finds issues with your profile, here's how to get started:

• Use our UCP Profile Generator to create a valid profile with signing keys, payment handlers, and all required fields
• Follow our platform-specific implementation guides for Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, Wix, or Squarespace
• Shopify stores get automatic UCP support through the Shop app — check our Shopify guide for details
• For custom platforms, consider using Shopify's open-source UCP Proxy to add UCP support without modifying your platform

Supported Platforms

Our UCP checker supports all major e-commerce platforms including Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento (Adobe Commerce), BigCommerce, Wix, and Squarespace. Each platform has different requirements for implementing UCP — check our platform-specific guides for step-by-step instructions.