APIs · head to head
Salt Edge vs Tink
Salt Edge
APIs
Independent open banking aggregator covering Europe by PSD2 API and other markets by direct connection
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
Tink
APIs
European open banking platform for account data and payment initiation
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Salt Edge coverage outside regulated open banking markets is not all direct bank API, and connections that are not regulated interfaces break when a bank changes its systems, so a headline country count overstates the reliability you will actually experience.; Tink visa owns Tink, and pay-by-bank exists to move payments off card rails, so the roadmap and pricing of the product you are using to reduce interchange are set by the company that earns the interchange.
- They diverge on capability: Salt Edge covers Account information, Tink covers Account data access.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Salt Edge and Tink 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 Salt Edge
- Account information
- Wide country coverage
- Open Banking Gateway
- Categorisation and enrichment
- Partner and white label
- Sandbox
Only in Tink
- Account data access
- EEA passporting
- Categorisation
- Account verification
- Risk and affordability signals
- Variable recurring payments support
Both cover
- Payment initiation
- Consent management
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Salt Edge
- A lender operating across several European and non-EU markets that needs one aggregation contract rather than a different provider per countrynot Tink
- A fintech that wants an aggregator not owned by a card network because its use case competes with card productsnot Tink
- An accounting or treasury product that needs bank feeds in markets the large aggregators do not servenot Tink
- A bank that must publish PSD2-compliant APIs and would rather buy the compliance layer than build itnot Tink
Tink
- A European lender that needs verified income and expense data from a borrower bank account across several EEA markets under one licencenot Salt Edge
- A merchant offering pay-by-bank at checkout to avoid card acceptance costs on high value basketsnot Salt Edge
- A fintech that does not hold its own PSD2 licence and needs to operate under an authorised provider passported across the EEAnot Salt Edge
- A bank building an account aggregation view of a customer external accounts without negotiating with each institution individuallynot Salt Edge
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Salt Edge
- Coverage outside regulated open banking markets is not all direct bank API, and connections that are not regulated interfaces break when a bank changes its systems, so a headline country count overstates the reliability you will actually experience.
- Pricing is not published and is usage-based, so two providers cannot be compared without running both sales processes, and cost grows with the connected user base rather than with revenue.
- Support and engineering are distributed across Eastern Europe and Canada, and buyers in other time zones report slower turnaround on connection-specific breakages than they get from a domestic provider.
- PSD2 consent rules require customers to reauthenticate periodically, and Salt Edge cannot change that, so any product depending on continuous data must design for consent expiry and the drop-off it causes.
- United States coverage is weaker than Plaid or Mastercard Open Banking, so a company with meaningful US volume ends up running two aggregators and normalising between them.
Tink
- Visa owns Tink, and pay-by-bank exists to move payments off card rails, so the roadmap and pricing of the product you are using to reduce interchange are set by the company that earns the interchange.
- Coverage is Europe only, so a product serving both European and United States users runs a second aggregator with a different data model and a separate contract.
- PSD2 connection quality varies sharply by bank, and headline connection counts hide wide differences in success rate, consent lifetime and re-authentication frequency that determine what users actually experience.
- Consent under PSD2 expires and requires periodic re-authentication, so any product depending on continuous data access has a recurring user friction it cannot design away, and drop-off at re-consent is a real product problem.
- Pricing is quoted with data access and payment initiation priced separately, and there is no published rate card, so small merchants cannot compare pay-by-bank economics against card acceptance without a sales process.
Pricing, plan by plan
Salt Edge
On request- Salt Edge Open Banking API$undefined/year
- Account information and payment initiation
- Coverage across 50 plus countries
- Consent management and enrichment
Tink
On request- Tink Platform$undefined/year
- Priced by product, market and volume
- Data access and payment initiation priced separately
- Annual commitments typical for enterprise agreements
Which should you pick?
Choose Salt Edge if
- You need account information.
- You work on Web, API.
- You also want wide country coverage.
Choose Tink if
- You need account data access.
- You work on API, Web.
- You also want eea passporting.
Questions people ask
- Is Salt Edge or Tink better?
- Neither clearly leads. Salt Edge starts at On request and Tink at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Salt Edge or Tink?
- Salt Edge starts at On request and Tink at On request.
- Does Salt Edge or Tink run on more platforms?
- Salt Edge runs on Web, API. Tink runs on API, Web.
- What is Salt Edge best used for?
- Salt Edge is most often used for a lender operating across several european and non-eu markets that needs one aggregation contract rather than a different provider per country, a fintech that wants an aggregator not owned by a card network because its use case competes with card products, an accounting or treasury product that needs bank feeds in markets the large aggregators do not serve, a bank that must publish psd2-compliant apis and would rather buy the compliance layer than build it. Of those, a lender operating across several european and non-eu markets that needs one aggregation contract rather than a different provider per country and a fintech that wants an aggregator not owned by a card network because its use case competes with card products are not what Tink is typically brought in for.
- What can Salt Edge do that Tink cannot?
- Salt Edge covers Account information, Wide country coverage, Open Banking Gateway, Categorisation and enrichment. Tink covers Account data access, EEA passporting, Categorisation, Account verification. Both handle Payment initiation, Consent management.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Salt Edge: Who owns Salt Edge?
It is independently owned, unlike Tink (Visa), Finicity (Mastercard) or Yodlee (Envestnet), which matters if your use case competes with the owner.
Tink: Who owns Tink?
Visa, since 2022. That is directly relevant if you are adopting pay-by-bank specifically to reduce card costs.
Salt Edge: Is all coverage direct bank API?
No. Inside PSD2 markets connections use regulated APIs; elsewhere coverage relies on direct connections whose reliability depends on the bank not changing its systems. Ask for a per-institution answer.
Tink: Do I need my own PSD2 licence?
No. Tink holds AIS and PIS licences from the Swedish FSA passported across the EEA, and customers can operate as its agent rather than obtaining their own authorisation.
Salt Edge: Does it do payments as well as data?
Yes, payment initiation is supported in European markets where PSD2 applies.
Tink: Does Tink cover the United States?
No. It is a European platform. US coverage requires a separate provider.
Salt Edge: What does it cost?
Not published. Pricing is usage-based and quoted, though the sandbox is free.
Tink: How reliable are the bank connections?
It varies by institution far more than the headline count of roughly 6,000 connections suggests. Ask for per market and per bank success rates and consent lifetimes for the banks your users actually hold accounts with.
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