Plaid, Inc., is a financial technology (FinTech) company that develops a data-transfer network and APIs to allow FinTech application developers to create secure connections to user bank accounts for checking balances, making payments, and other types of account transactions. It was started in 2013 and operates out of San Francisco; today, it supports over 8,000 different FinTech companies and allows them to connect to over 12,000 banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Europe. Plaid specifically targets FinTech developers who use Plaid’s developer-friendly infrastructure to provide access to financial services for everyone.
The founders of Plaid are Zach Perret and William Hockey; they formed Plaid after their participation in the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon where they developed an app called Rambler that was able to demonstrate how to connect to a bank using its API.
Raised $2.8 million with Spark Capital leading.
Raised $12.5 million with New Enterprise Associates.
Raised $44 million with Goldman Sachs Investment Partners leading.
Raised $250 million at $2.65 billion valuation with Mary Meeker and Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures leading.
Announced the Visa $5.3 billion acquisition of Plaid; however, it was blocked by a U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Lawsuit.
Raised $425 million at $13.4 billion valuation with Altimeter Capital leading.
Introduced a cross-fintech fraud detection service with founding member companies.
Raised $575 million at $6.1 billion valuation with Franklin Templeton, Fidelity and BlackRock leading.
| Service | Cost | Details | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pay as You Go | No minimum spend | Best for individuals and developers. Unlimited usage, pay only for what you use. Access to GA products, unlimited live API calls, link customization. Per-request, one-time, and subscription fees apply based on products used. | Plaid pricing page |
| Growth | Minimum spend, annual commitment | Best for small teams and startups. Discounted product rates, platform support package, single sign-on for Plaid Dashboard. Lower per-use costs than Pay as You Go. | Plaid pricing page |
| Custom (Scale) | Custom quote | Best for businesses that need to scale. Volume discounts, access to beta products, integration assistance, premium support, account management. Lowest per-use costs. Only plan available in EU/UK. | Plaid pricing page |
| Sandbox Testing | $0 | Free testing environment, no production charges. | — |
| Feature | Plaid | MX | Finicity | Yodlee | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core Functionality | Bank account linking, transactions, balances, assets | Bank linking, data aggregation | Bank verification, income | Data aggregation, enrichment | Full financial data aggregation |
| Pricing (starting) | Pay as you go, no minimum | Usage-based, custom | Per-call fees | Subscription + per API | Enterprise custom |
| Free Tier | Sandbox free, pay as you go from $0 | Limited sandbox | No free tier | Trial available | No free tier |
| Enterprise Features | SSO, volume discounts, premium support | Yes | SSO, SLA | SSO, audit logs | SSO, dedicated support |
| API Availability | Yes, comprehensive docs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Integration Count | 12,000+ institutions | 11,000+ | 9,000+ | 10,000+ | Global coverage |
| Support Options | Standard, platform support (Growth), premium (Custom) | Account managers | Enterprise support | 24/7 enterprise | Dedicated teams |
| Security Certifications | SOC 2, GDPR | SOC 2 | SOC 2 | SOC 2, ISO 27001 | SOC 2, PCI DSS |
Plaid has the largest market share in the U.S. and is the most widely adopted among developers with the greatest number of covered institutions (12,000+) with MX being second; MX also has a greater emphasis on compliance and decisioning with regards to credit than Plaid, however MX has a smaller ecosystem than Plaid. Plaid also offers Pay As You Go pricing plans which offer lower cost entry for new startups versus MX’s custom pricing.
For a fintech company looking for broad connectivity and the fastest way to get up and running, it would be better to go with Plaid. However, if you have specific underwriting or lending needs, it may be worth going with MX.
Finicity has the strongest product offering for verification and income and has open banking heritage; however, Plaid offers more comprehensive APIs (investments, assets) and more flexible pricing options. Finicity has greater enterprise stability, however it is more expensive on a per call basis than Plaid.
If your fintech app will be building out a full stack solution from scratch, using Plaid could be a good option. However, if your primary focus is on verification-focused compliance needs, then Finicity could be a better fit.
Yodlee is a leader in wealth management and enterprise data aggregation worldwide, while Plaid is a leader in consumer fintech/embedded finance and offers a superior developer experience. Yodlee’s pricing model is also less flexible than that of Plaid for high-volume enterprise use cases.
If your fintech company is trying to innovate, it may be best to go with Plaid as they offer more cutting-edge solutions than Yodlee does. On the other hand, if you are a well-established wealth platform looking to expand into new markets by adding additional data sources from around the world, Yodlee may be a better fit.
While both are fintech companies focused on the bank account data space, Plaid focuses primarily on data connectivity while Stripe is focused on the Banking-As-A-Service (BaaS) market. Many Stripe customers use Plaid to connect to their users’ accounts and Stripe has an advantage over other BaaS providers through its ability to integrate payments into its platform.
If you need to build a read-data layer, Plaid is probably the best option. However, if you need to build a payment layer and/or banking program, it may be better to go with Stripe.
Plaid currently connects to over 12,000 financial institutions and uses its "Link" (an embeddable widget) to allow users to authenticate and generate access tokens which are then used by your server to safely obtain financial data about the user. Your servers never see the user's login credentials.
The service is priced based upon the number of successful API calls made (or connections established with your end-users). A free development sandbox is provided. Once you begin producing your application, you will begin being charged approximately $0.25 per Link session for low volume applications. High volume applications can expect to receive volume discounts. Custom pricing options are also available to high volume clients.
Plaid is designed to collect and aggregate consumer/institutional financial data (auth, balances, transactions) for all U.S. banks. Stripe Treasury is an embedded banking service which is designed for business banking platforms. Plaid provides the consumer facing fintech applications while Stripe Treasury provides the business banking platform.
Yes, Plaid has achieved SOC 2 Type II compliance, PCI-DSS compliance and encrypts all data both in transit (using TLS 1.3) and at rest (AES-256). In addition, Plaid tokenizes credentials ensuring that they are never sent to your servers. Third party auditors perform regular security audits on Plaid.
Yes, Plaid has developed comprehensive SDKs which include all major programming languages. The Link widget can be embedded in 5 minutes. Testing for the sandbox environment is available. Documentation is extensive and includes examples for React, iOS, Android, and web integrations.
Open 24/7 self-serve help center. Submit support requests through the dashboard. Enterprise clients receive a TAM (Technical Account Manager) assigned to their organization. Tech community support offered through developer Discord and weekly office hours for tech-related Q&A.
Free unlimited development sandbox for testing, no credit card required. Paid plans are required for production, with pricing based upon volume. Volume pricing designed specifically for startup growth.
Coverage of over 12,000 institutions across US/Canada/EU; some small credit unions may not be covered by Plaid. Transaction history limited to 24 months; does not provide direct payment processing capabilities, instead integrates with ACH providers.
Plaid is the leading provider of open banking APIs in the marketplace, providing the most extensive coverage of US banks of any other provider (over 12,000 institutions), has been battle tested at scale, has rock-solid uptime, extensive documentation and mature compliance and is therefore the de facto standard for accessing a customer's financial information.
Use Plaid when you need reliable access to the U.S. banking system at scale; the value of Plaid’s ecosystem and reliability justify its costs.
Leading open banking platform, Plaid connects over 12,000 US institutions using a robust REST API covering authorization, transactions, balances and liability data with solid sandbox, documentation and SDK support. Tiered pricing model allows enterprise-level security and compliance. Supports apps such as Venmo, Acorns and Betterment.
Excellent - comprehensive official documentation, API references, support portal, and developer resources. Widely covered in analyst reports and review sites.
Aggregates data from over 12,000 financial institutions covering 99% of US deposits. Supports approximately 8,000 applications including Venmo, Square Cash, Chime, Betterment.
Total funding of $575 million; valued at $13.4 billion in 2021. Funded by Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Spark Capital.
Certified for SOC 2 Type II, PCI Level 1, ISO 27001. Processes greater than $6 billion in monthly transaction volume without breach.
Large active developer community. Regularly publishes API Academy video tutorials, Discord office hours, and extensive quick start templates.
Acquired Quovo (investment data) and Cognito (biometric authentication) to broaden its scope beyond core banking APIs.
Real time balance information across all checking, savings, investment, and loan account types
Transactional information (amounts, dates, descriptions) along with category level information specific to your business
Account holdings, account activity, account performance, and ticker symbol/CUSIP/ISIN information for investments
Information regarding loan accounts, payment history, and interest rates for loans
Verification of ownership of an account using Name, Address and KYC Data
Authentication of a bank account to prevent fraud
Categorizing by use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to include business-specific SMB transactions
Merchant information with improved detail and logo
Improvement in the fill rate of Ticker Symbols, CUSIP, and ISIN
Identification of subscription and recurring payments
Patterns of income and expenses and business insights
Assessment of risk for lending decisions
Fraud detection across the entire customer journey via AI
