APIs · head to head
Basis Theory vs Formance
Basis Theory
APIs
Developer tokenisation platform that holds card and sensitive data inside a PCI Level 1 environment you do not operate
- From
- $995/month
- Rated
- -
Formance
APIs
Open source double-entry ledger and payment orchestration for money-moving software
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Formance has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Basis Theory the Starter plan is 995 US dollars a month before any volume, which is a real floor for an early stage company and puts the product out of reach of teams tokenising a few thousand records.; Formance formance holds no money and provides no regulatory cover, so it must be paired with a payments provider or bank, and buyers occasionally mistake a ledger for a treasury system and discover the gap late.
- They diverge on capability: Basis Theory covers Tokenisation API, Formance covers Double-entry ledger.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Basis Theory and Formance actually diverge.
| Attribute | Basis Theory | Formance |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $995/month | Free |
| Pricing model | Per month by token volume | Open source, no licence fee |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android, Linux | Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API |
Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (APIs).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Basis Theory
- Tokenisation API
- Hosted elements
- Outbound proxy
- PCI attestation of compliance
- Processor portability
- Reactors
- Access controls and audit
- PII and PHI options
Only in Formance
- Double-entry ledger
- Numscript transaction DSL
- Multi-currency
- Payments connectivity
- Reconciliation
- Self-hosted deployment
- Cloud offering
- API and SDKs
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Basis Theory
- A payments company that wants card on file without bringing its own infrastructure into PCI scope and paying for the assessment that followsnot Formance
- A merchant locked into a processor by that processor vault that wants to hold its own tokens and route to more than one acquirernot Formance
- A fintech collecting bank account and identity data that needs it isolated from its application database before an enterprise security reviewnot Formance
- A team that needs to send stored card data to a third party for a one-off integration without that data traversing its own serversnot Formance
Formance
- A marketplace splitting a single customer payment between seller, platform fee and tax that needs the split to be atomic and auditablenot Basis Theory
- A fintech whose homegrown balances table produced numbers finance could not reconcile and now needs proper double-entry before an auditnot Basis Theory
- A payments team that wants one normalised model across several PSPs so reconciliation is not written separately for eachnot Basis Theory
- A company that wants its ledger under a licence it can keep running even if the vendor disappearsnot Basis Theory
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Basis Theory
- The Starter plan is 995 US dollars a month before any volume, which is a real floor for an early stage company and puts the product out of reach of teams tokenising a few thousand records.
- Starter is limited to the US region, so a company with European data residency requirements is pushed into a quoted Scale or Enterprise agreement immediately.
- Log retention on Starter is 24 hours, which is well below what most security teams expect for a system holding cardholder data and forces an upgrade for reasons unrelated to volume.
- Migrating away means moving card data out of the vault, which requires processor and assessor involvement and is slow, so the portability argument that attracts buyers cuts against them at exit.
- An attestation of compliance covers the vendor environment, not your assessment; your assessor still decides what is in scope, and buyers occasionally discover their integration pattern pulled systems back into scope anyway.
Formance
- Formance holds no money and provides no regulatory cover, so it must be paired with a payments provider or bank, and buyers occasionally mistake a ledger for a treasury system and discover the gap late.
- Numscript is a domain-specific language your team must learn, and while it makes complex splits expressible it also means transaction logic sits outside the languages your engineers already debug well.
- Self-hosting a ledger that must never lose or duplicate a transaction is a serious operational commitment covering backups, upgrades and Postgres tuning, which is real cost the zero licence fee hides.
- Enterprise pricing is not published, so the difference between the free path and the supported path cannot be evaluated without a sales conversation.
- The company is much smaller than the incumbent alternatives, and while the MIT licence protects the code it does not protect the roadmap, so features on the hosted side may arrive slowly or change direction.
Pricing, plan by plan
Basis Theory
$995/month- Starter$995/month
- 20,000 tokens included
- Production PCI Level 1 environment
- US region only
- Scale$undefined/month
- Quoted
- Higher token volumes
- Additional regions
- Enterprise$undefined/month
- Quoted
- Additional compliance options for PII and PHI
- Responses for 95 percent of PCI SAQ D
Formance
Free- Open SourceFree
- MIT licensed core ledger
- Numscript transaction DSL
- Multi-currency tracking
- Enterprise$undefined/year
- Managed or private deployment
- Payments connectivity and reconciliation
- Support with response commitments
Which should you pick?
Choose Basis Theory if
- You need tokenisation api.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android, Linux.
- You also want hosted elements.
Choose Formance if
- You need double-entry ledger.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API.
- You also want numscript transaction dsl.
Questions people ask
- Is Basis Theory or Formance better?
- Neither clearly leads. Basis Theory starts at $995/month and Formance at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Basis Theory or Formance?
- Formance has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $995/month for Basis Theory and Free for Formance.
- Does Basis Theory or Formance run on more platforms?
- Basis Theory runs on Web, iOS, Android, Linux. Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API.
- Can I use Formance for free?
- Yes. Formance has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Basis Theory starts at $995/month.
- What is Basis Theory best used for?
- Basis Theory is most often used for a payments company that wants card on file without bringing its own infrastructure into pci scope and paying for the assessment that follows, a merchant locked into a processor by that processor vault that wants to hold its own tokens and route to more than one acquirer, a fintech collecting bank account and identity data that needs it isolated from its application database before an enterprise security review, a team that needs to send stored card data to a third party for a one-off integration without that data traversing its own servers. Of those, a payments company that wants card on file without bringing its own infrastructure into pci scope and paying for the assessment that follows and a merchant locked into a processor by that processor vault that wants to hold its own tokens and route to more than one acquirer are not what Formance is typically brought in for.
- What can Basis Theory do that Formance cannot?
- Basis Theory covers Tokenisation API, Hosted elements, Outbound proxy, PCI attestation of compliance. Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Basis Theory: Does this make us PCI compliant?
It removes cardholder data from your systems and gives you an AOC plus documented responses for most of a SAQ D. Your assessor still determines your scope, and a careless integration can pull systems back in.
Formance: Is Formance really open source?
Yes. The core ledger is MIT licensed with full source access and no deployment restrictions.
Basis Theory: What does it cost to start?
995 US dollars a month on Starter, including 20,000 tokens, a production PCI Level 1 environment and US hosting. Higher tiers are quoted.
Formance: Does Formance move money?
No. It records and orchestrates movements; the actual payments happen at a PSP or bank you connect.
Basis Theory: Can we switch payment processors without re-collecting cards?
Yes, that is the main non-compliance reason to buy it. You hold the tokens and detokenise into whichever processor you route to.
Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?
Not published. It is an annual subscription quoted per customer.
Basis Theory: Is data stored outside the United States?
Not on Starter, which is US only. Other regions require a Scale or Enterprise agreement.
Formance: Do I have to use Numscript?
Yes for anything beyond the simplest transfers. It is how multi-party transactions are expressed atomically.
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