# Machine Shop – URL to Text

> Machine Shop – URL to Text is a paid API for AI agents from api.pay-forge.online, paid per call via x402, $0.006/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-20).

Fetches a URL and returns its plain-text content, enabling document analysis, evidence extraction, and snapshot comparison workflows.

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://api.pay-forge.online/v1/url-to-text?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.006/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-20
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/machine-shop-url-to-text-e202fb57
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_XEICOv1f6mWJfqMQci2eN

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability machine-shop-url-to-text-e202fb57 -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Can you fetch the text from https://example.com/api-docs and give me the readable content so I can analyze what it says?

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need to convert a single URL into plain text for downstream analysis, evidence extraction, document comparison, or x402 API inspection. It is cost-effective at $0.006 per call for one-off URL fetches. Prefer it over general-purpose web scrapers when working within a pay-per-use x402 workflow or when you need clean text output without structured HTML parsing.

## Known failure modes

- URL is unreachable or returns a non-200 HTTP status — text field may be empty or an error message returned
- URL exceeds 2048 character limit — request rejected with validation error
- URL points to binary content (PDF, image) that cannot be parsed into text — may return garbled or empty text
- Rate limiting or payment failure — 402 payment required response if USDC payment not completed
- Malformed URL input — schema validation error

## How this service works

Turn Apify product scrape results into safe catalog updates with Catalog Update Gate. Find evidence in supplied documents, compare snapshots, extract typed JSON fields, inspect x402 quotes and assess API migrations. Preview inputs, evidence and cost for free. No live web search, scheduled monitoring or third-party purchasing.

## Output

Returns a JSON object containing the original URL and the extracted plain-text content of the page at that URL (e.g. {"url": "https://example.com", "text": "Example Domain"}).

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "properties": {
  "url": {
   "type": "string",
   "title": "Url",
   "maxLength": 2048
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "text": "Example Domain"
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/machine-shop-url-to-text-e202fb57/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from api.pay-forge.online](https://www.zero.xyz/host/api.pay-forge.online/llms.txt)