# Does a captcha block AI shopping agents at checkout?

Usually yes. A captcha exists to stop programs, and a shopping agent is a program. The fix is not to remove the captcha but to let agents with a verified signature skip it. Under Rules, a signed agent skips hCaptcha and Cloudflare Turnstile. People still see the captcha.

In our October 2026 check of 66 WooCommerce stores (https://getagentstamp.com/blog/store-check-october-2026), 19 of the 39 checkouts we could open had a captcha.

A verified signature is a Web Bot Auth signature: the agent's maker signs each request with a key it publishes, and your server checks it. An agent that only says its name in the user-agent can be anyone, so skipping the captcha does not trust that name.

## By captcha

| Captcha | What to do |
| --- | --- |
| hCaptcha | Under Rules, let signed agents skip the captcha |
| Cloudflare Turnstile (Simple Cloudflare Turnstile plugin) | Under Rules, let signed agents skip the captcha |
| Google reCAPTCHA | Set its plugin to skip verified bots, or switch to hCaptcha or Turnstile |

The Agents tab counts how many agents a captcha stopped and what their carts held, so you can see whether it costs you sales before you change anything. The free check shows whether a captcha is on your checkout page.

Canonical page: https://getagentstamp.com/blog/captcha-and-agents