The language of pay-per-result growth & agentic commerce.
Plain-English definitions, each linked to a deeper guide.
AI SDR
An AI Sales Development Representative (AI SDR) is software that automates outbound prospecting tasks a human SDR would do — researching accounts, finding contacts, and sending sequenced outreach — at scale and around the clock.
Pay-per-lead
Pay-per-lead is a pricing model where you pay a fixed amount for each lead delivered, rather than a retainer, subscription, or per-hour fee. Its value depends entirely on how 'lead' is defined and verified.
Qualified lead
A qualified lead is a contact that matches a defined ideal customer profile (ICP) and is reachable — but the term only means something when the qualification criteria are explicit and checkable.
Cost per qualified meeting (CPQM)
Cost per qualified meeting is the all-in cost to get one sales meeting that is both held and attended by someone matching your ideal customer profile — the only apples-to-apples way to compare outbound methods.
Cost per acquisition (CPA)
Cost per acquisition is the total cost to acquire one customer or conversion, including media and fees. In agent-driven and pay-per-result models, CPA is billed only when a conversion is verified.
Agentic commerce
Agentic commerce is commerce conducted by autonomous AI agents — discovering, purchasing, and paying for goods or services with little or no human in the loop, using machine-native payment rails.
MCP server
An MCP server is a service that exposes tools and data to AI agents through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a standard that lets clients like Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex call external capabilities in a uniform way.
x402
x402 is a payment protocol built on the long-reserved HTTP 402 'Payment Required' status code. A server answers a paid request with a 402 challenge; the client settles (typically USDC) and retries with proof, all inside the HTTP exchange.