Plaid Alternatives - The Migration Reality Check

The Migration Reality:

Why Startups Actually Switch from Plaid

I've been watching fintech companies bail on Plaid for the past couple years. Maybe 15 or 20 companies, hard to keep track. One thing's clear: nobody migrates from Plaid for fun.

You only do this shit when staying hurts more than leaving. Here's what finally broke the camel's back for these teams.## Plaid's Pricing Fucks You Over TimePlaid's pricing starts reasonable

• $500/month feels fair when you're just getting started.

Then your app grows and suddenly you're paying $3,200/month for the same damn API calls. Most Saa

S gets cheaper per user as you scale, but Plaid's got that backwards. More users = way more money. One budgeting app team I talked to went from $500 to almost $3K monthly in about 8 months. They had budgeted like $1,500/month for banking APIs in their Series A deck. Whoops. That's when they started panicking and looking at Finicity and MX.Enterprise-grade financial data aggregation platform## Europe?

Good Luck With ThatPlaid's European coverage is pretty weak compared to the local players.

If you're trying to expand to Europe, TrueLayer and Yapily know the territory way better.

True

Layer hits something like 5,000+ European institutions while Plaid's stuck at maybe 2,000ish.This payment startup wanted to launch in the UK and found out Plaid only worked with like 60% of the banks they needed. They switched to TrueLayer and their connection rates went from the low 70s to over 90%. Course, now they had to maintain two different integrations, which sucked.## iOS OAuth Is a Fucking NightmareEvery time Apple pushes an iOS update, something breaks in Plaid's OAuth flow. I've lost track of how many GitHub issues there are about this

• here's one from the React Native SDK but there are dozens more.

You'll see connection failure rates spike to like 15-20% on iOS whenever Apple decides to change how Safari handles redirects or whatever. And it's not just Plaid

• Flinks and Akoya deal with the same mobile Safari bullshit.

You just get to pick your poison and spend your weekends debugging auth flows.## Enterprise Clients Hate Screen ScrapingBig companies get nervous when you tell them your banking API works by literally logging into their customers' bank accounts and scraping HTML. Yodlee and Akoya built their whole pitch around proper API connections instead of Plaid's screen scraping approach.

Enterprise security teams love that shit.## How Long This Shit Actually TakesMigrating from Plaid isn't a weekend project. Plan on 3-6 months if you want it done right:

• Months 1-2: Testing alternatives, figuring out which ones don't suck
• Months 3-4: The actual migration hell, getting users to reconnect everything
• Months 5-6: Fixing all the edge cases you didn't think about

Most teams end up running both Plaid and the new provider for a while, which means you're paying double.

Budget for that or you'll be surprised when your API bills spike.## Why Most People Just Eat the CostLook, most teams complain about Plaid but never actually switch. They've got 12,000+ institutions and your whole team already knows how their API works. Switching means risking your connection rates dropping, training everyone on new APIs, and dealing with months of migration headaches.Sometimes paying Plaid's stupid-high prices is less painful than the alternative. Depends on how much cash you're burning and how much time you have to babysit a migration.

The Real Story on Plaid Alternatives

I've been talking to engineering teams who switched from Plaid

• maybe a dozen companies over the past year or so.

Here's what actually happened when they migrated, not the bullshit you see in vendor case studies.## Yodlee: Enterprise Hell But It WorksBeen around forever, feels like itThis is the old guard

• Yodlee has been doing this for 20+ years and connects to 20,000+ institutions worldwide.

If you're building enterprise stuff, they're probably your best bet despite being a pain in the ass.The good shit: They've got relationships with banks that go back decades, so outages are rare. Transaction enrichment is solid

• like 98% accuracy.

Plus they cover banks in places where Plaid just doesn't exist.The bullshit: Sales process took one team I know 10 weeks just to get a fucking price quote.

Their APIs feel ancient compared to newer players. And unless you're dropping serious money (mid-six figures), their support treats you like garbage.Reality check: One Series B company spent 6 months getting onboarded

• legal reviews, security audits, the whole enterprise dance.

If you need enterprise features, it's worth it. If you're a scrappy startup, avoid.## Flinks: If You Give a Shit About CanadaFlinks owns the Canadian market with 250+ North American institutions.

They do OAuth properly instead of the screen scraping mess most providers rely on.If you're building for Canadian users, these guys kick Plaid's ass. RBC, TD, Scotia, BMO

• all work great. Their support actually responds in hours instead of the days you get with Plaid. CAD $400-$1,200/month range.The catch: US coverage is shit, maybe 30% of Plaid's reach.

I asked about their US expansion plans and got a lot of hand-waving. Also their docs are written assuming you know Canadian banking regulations, which confused the hell out of our US team initially.This Toronto payment app I know switched over in about 6 weeks and their Canadian connection rates went from 78% to 94%. But they had to keep Plaid running for US users, so now they're maintaining two integrations.## TrueLayer: Europe Done RightTrueLayer gets to cheat because of European open banking regulations.

They connect to [5,000+ EU institutions](https://slashdot.org/software/comparison/Plaid-vs-True

Layer/) and actually follow GDPR properly instead of retrofitting privacy as an afterthought.€300-€1,500/month depending on volume.

The killer feature is payment initiation

• you can skip credit card fees entirely and go bank-to-bank. Some teams are saving 60-80% on payment processing.Why it works: Open banking means proper APIs instead of screen scraping bullshit.

GDPR compliance isn't a hack job. The connections are way more reliable than the HTML scraping mess everyone else uses.The problem: Europe only.

If you're a US company expanding to EU, you're stuck with dual integrations. Also some of the newer challenger banks have shitty API implementations even with open banking standards.This London fintech migrated in about 10 weeks and cut their payment processing from 2.9% to 0.3% per transaction. Huge win for Europe, but they still needed Plaid for North America.## Finicity: Mastercard's Banking ThingMastercard bought Finicity in 2020 and it shows.

They've got 16,000+ US institutions and focus on lending/mortgage stuff. $600-$1,800/month.

Good for income verification and cash flow analysis if you're in lending. Mastercard's resources help with enterprise security and compliance bullshit.Bad because Mastercard's bureaucracy makes everything slow. "Contact sales" for pricing, which is always a red flag. If you're building consumer apps, half their features are useless.One mortgage tech company took 4 months to migrate but got income verification that Plaid doesn't have. A budgeting app team I talked to said the features were all wrong for their use case.## MX: Actually Gives a Shit About Data QualityMX is what you get when someone actually cares about transaction categorization. 13,000+ US connections, $400-$1,000/month.

Their transaction categorization doesn't suck, which is rare.They're really good at credit unions

• way better coverage than most providers. Their white-label UI components are decent if you don't want to build your own.Downside is zero international coverage and connection reliability is hit-or-miss with smaller regional banks. Also costs more per connection than Plaid if you're doing high volume.A budgeting app team switched in 8 weeks and their transaction categorization went from 89% to 96% accuracy. Users noticed. But when they wanted to expand internationally, they had to find other providers.## Teller: Quality Over QuantityTeller only supports 200ish major US banks but they actually work reliably. $200-$600/month. 95%+ connection success for the banks they do support.

Their APIs are modern and don't make you want to punch your monitor. Pricing is straightforward instead of the per-connection billing maze other providers use.The tradeoff: Tiny coverage.

Chase, Bof

A, Wells Fargo, Capital One

• the big players work great. Everything else? Good luck. No credit unions, no regional banks, definitely no international.One payments startup switched in 3 weeks for their core users but lost 25% of customers who banked with smaller institutions. Works if your users are mostly at major banks.## Akoya: Bank Politics NightmareAkoya is owned by the banks, which should tell you everything. 500ish premium connections to major US banks like Chase and BofA. "Contact sales" pricing because of course.The good: No screen scraping since they have direct bank partnerships.

API stability is solid. Enterprise security teams love this shit.The bad: Limited to partner banks only.

Onboarding is 6+ months of legal and security theater. Pricing is whatever they feel like charging.One wealth management company spent 8 months getting onboarded but got access to banking data that nobody else can touch. Only worth it for enterprise with time and money to burn.## Yapily: European Open BankingYapily does 2,000+ European connections across 19 countries. €200-€800/month.

Open banking compliance built-in instead of hacked together later.White-label options if you don't want their branding. Quick onboarding compared to enterprise bullshit. But it's Europe-focused so no good for global apps.An e-commerce platform integrated Yapily in 6 weeks for EU expansion while keeping Plaid for North America. More complex but it worked.## The Honest TruthNo alternative is a perfect Plaid replacement. They all suck in different ways. Success usually means picking your battles:

• Geography: True

Layer for Europe, Flinks for Canada, Yodlee for everywhere else

• Use case: Finicity for lending, MX for data quality, Teller for major banks only
• Enterprise bullshit: Yodlee for global reach, Akoya if you love bank politics

Which one's right depends on where your users are, what you're building, and how much migration pain you can stomach.