APIs · head to head
Increase vs Marqeta
Increase
APIs
Direct banking API for ACH, wires, real-time payments, accounts and cards
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
Marqeta
APIs
Card issuing and transaction processing APIs with just-in-time funding
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Increase the published per transaction rates exclude a monthly platform fee that Increase states varies by use case, so the transparent price page cannot produce a total cost and the material part of the deal is still negotiated privately.; Marqeta you still need a sponsor bank and a BIN, so the timeline and compliance burden of launching are set by a bank you must separately court and satisfy.
- They diverge on capability: Increase covers ACH origination and receipt, Marqeta covers Just-in-time funding.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Increase and Marqeta actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), 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 Increase
- ACH origination and receipt
- Domestic wires
- Real-time payments
- Bank accounts
- Cards
- Cheques
- Sandbox and simulations
- Audit and reconciliation data
Only in Marqeta
- Just-in-time funding
- Virtual and physical issuing
- Spend controls
- Programme management tools
- Multi-region issuing
- Webhooks and ledger data
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Increase
- A payroll or treasury product that needs to originate same-day ACH and wires under its own control rather than through a payment processornot Marqeta
- A marketplace that must hold seller balances in ledgered accounts with real account and routing numbersnot Marqeta
- A fintech that wants FedNow and RTP payouts so recipients are paid outside banking hoursnot Marqeta
- An engineering team that needs the underlying return codes and settlement timing visible in order to build correct reconciliation and retry logicnot Marqeta
Marqeta
- A delivery marketplace funding courier cards only at the moment a courier pays for the ordernot Increase
- An expense platform issuing a virtual card per subscription with merchant locksnot Increase
- A lender issuing a card that draws on an approved credit line rather than a stored balancenot Increase
- A fintech wanting the same issuing stack across US and European programmesnot Increase
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Increase
- The published per transaction rates exclude a monthly platform fee that Increase states varies by use case, so the transparent price page cannot produce a total cost and the material part of the deal is still negotiated privately.
- Free allowances are deliberately small at ten account numbers and five physical cards, so any programme issuing accounts or cards at volume moves to quoted pricing almost immediately.
- Banking is provided through partner banks, so programme approval, compliance obligations and the ability to launch at all depend on a bank relationship you do not control, and post-Synapse bank risk appetite has tightened considerably.
- The API deliberately exposes payment rail mechanics rather than smoothing them, which is correct engineering but means a team without payments expertise will build reconciliation and return handling wrongly and only discover it when funds go astray.
- Coverage is United States only, so a company with international payout needs runs a second provider and reconciles two ledgers, and the single API argument disappears at the first cross border customer.
Marqeta
- You still need a sponsor bank and a BIN, so the timeline and compliance burden of launching are set by a bank you must separately court and satisfy.
- Pricing carries minimum monthly platform commitments, so a programme with modest card volume pays for capacity it never uses.
- Programme revenue depends heavily on interchange, which means regulated debit interchange caps and European interchange caps materially change the business case by market.
- Disputes, chargebacks and fraud losses sit with the programme, and teams that assumed the processor absorbed them discover a real operations headcount requirement.
- Just-in-time funding makes your own authorisation endpoint a hard availability dependency; if it is slow or down, cards decline at the point of sale.
Pricing, plan by plan
Increase
On request- Increase Platform$undefined/month
- Monthly fee quoted by use case and not published
- Next-day ACH origination listed at 0.50 US dollars per transaction
- Same-day ACH origination listed at 2.00 per transaction
Marqeta
On request- Marqeta card issuing$undefined/year
- Minimum monthly platform fee plus per-transaction and per-active-card charges
- Interchange share negotiated between programme, processor and sponsor bank
- Sponsor bank required, with its own fees and approval process
Which should you pick?
Choose Increase if
- You need ach origination and receipt.
- You work on API, Web.
- You also want domestic wires.
Choose Marqeta if
- You need just-in-time funding.
- You work on Web, REST API.
- You also want virtual and physical issuing.
Questions people ask
- Is Increase or Marqeta better?
- Neither clearly leads. Increase starts at On request and Marqeta at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Increase or Marqeta?
- Increase starts at On request and Marqeta at On request.
- Does Increase or Marqeta run on more platforms?
- Increase runs on API, Web. Marqeta runs on Web, REST API.
- What is Increase best used for?
- Increase is most often used for a payroll or treasury product that needs to originate same-day ach and wires under its own control rather than through a payment processor, a marketplace that must hold seller balances in ledgered accounts with real account and routing numbers, a fintech that wants fednow and rtp payouts so recipients are paid outside banking hours, an engineering team that needs the underlying return codes and settlement timing visible in order to build correct reconciliation and retry logic. Of those, a payroll or treasury product that needs to originate same-day ach and wires under its own control rather than through a payment processor and a marketplace that must hold seller balances in ledgered accounts with real account and routing numbers are not what Marqeta is typically brought in for.
- What can Increase do that Marqeta cannot?
- Increase covers ACH origination and receipt, Domestic wires, Real-time payments, Bank accounts. Marqeta covers Just-in-time funding, Virtual and physical issuing, Spend controls, Programme management tools.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Increase: Does Increase publish its pricing?
Partly. Per transaction fees for ACH, wires, RTP, FedNow and cards are listed publicly. The monthly platform fee is not, and it is described only as varying by use case.
Marqeta: Do I need a sponsor bank?
Yes. Marqeta is an issuer processor, not a bank. Card programmes run on a sponsor bank BIN, and that bank approves and supervises your programme.
Increase: Who holds the deposits?
Partner banks, not Increase itself. That relationship determines your programme approval, your compliance obligations and your risk if the bank changes appetite.
Marqeta: How does the pricing really work?
A minimum monthly platform fee plus per-transaction and per-active-card charges, offset by a negotiated share of interchange. The interchange split is the substance of the deal.
Increase: Is it international?
No. Increase covers United States rails only, so cross border payouts require a second provider.
Marqeta: What is just-in-time funding?
Marqeta calls your endpoint at authorisation so you decide and fund each transaction, rather than pre-loading balances onto cards.
Increase: How is it different from a middleware BaaS platform?
It exposes the rails rather than abstracting them, showing real return codes and settlement timing. That suits teams who understand payments and punishes teams who do not.
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- Marqeta vs Dwolla
- Marqeta vs Astra
- Marqeta vs Unit
- Marqeta vs Treasury Prime
- Marqeta vs Sila
- Marqeta vs Moov
- Marqeta vs Column
- Marqeta vs Lithic
- Marqeta vs Volt
- Marqeta vs Swan
- Marqeta vs TrueLayer
- Marqeta vs Griffin
- Marqeta vs KeystoneJS
- Marqeta vs Kong
- Marqeta vs Liveblocks
- Marqeta vs Moesif
- Marqeta vs Ozone API
- Marqeta vs Parse Server
- Marqeta vs i2c
- Marqeta vs Enfuce
- Marqeta vs Paymentology
- Marqeta vs Highnote
- Marqeta vs Tribe Payments
- Marqeta vs Thredd
- Marqeta vs Episode Six
- Marqeta vs Yapily
- Marqeta vs Synctera
- Marqeta vs REST Client VSCode
- Marqeta vs Rutter
- Marqeta vs Sensedia
- Marqeta vs Spring Cloud Gateway
- Marqeta vs Swagger