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APIs · head to head

Skyflow vs Tink

Skyflow logo

Skyflow

APIs

Data privacy vault that holds sensitive records outside your own systems

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Tink logo

Tink

APIs

European open banking platform for account data and payment initiation

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Skyflow reported contracts near 195,000 US dollars a year with a platform fee before usage put this out of reach of early stage companies, which are precisely the ones whose architecture is still cheap to change.; 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: Skyflow covers Tokenised storage, Tink covers Account data access.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Skyflow and Tink actually diverge.

Attributes where Skyflow and Tink differ
AttributeSkyflowTink
PlatformsAPI, Web, Self-hostedAPI, Web

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 Skyflow

  • Tokenised storage
  • Polymorphic encryption
  • Field level access policies
  • Data residency
  • Secure functions
  • PCI scope reduction
  • Detokenisation gateway
  • Audit trail

Only in Tink

  • Account data access
  • Payment initiation
  • EEA passporting
  • Categorisation
  • Account verification
  • Risk and affordability signals
  • Variable recurring payments support
  • Consent management

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Skyflow

  • A fintech that wants card and bank account data out of its own infrastructure so its application servers leave PCI DSS assessment scopenot Tink
  • A company entering India or the EU with data localisation obligations that would otherwise require standing up regional databases and operationsnot Tink
  • A health technology business that needs protected health information isolated from the analytics stack while still supporting aggregate reportingnot Tink
  • An engineering team that wants support agents to see masked identifiers and payment services to see real ones, enforced centrally rather than in every servicenot Tink

Tink

  • A European lender that needs verified income and expense data from a borrower bank account across several EEA markets under one licencenot Skyflow
  • A merchant offering pay-by-bank at checkout to avoid card acceptance costs on high value basketsnot Skyflow
  • A fintech that does not hold its own PSD2 licence and needs to operate under an authorised provider passported across the EEAnot Skyflow
  • A bank building an account aggregation view of a customer external accounts without negotiating with each institution individuallynot Skyflow

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Skyflow

  • Reported contracts near 195,000 US dollars a year with a platform fee before usage put this out of reach of early stage companies, which are precisely the ones whose architecture is still cheap to change.
  • Every read of a protected field becomes a network call to a third party, so latency and an external availability dependency enter paths that were previously local database reads, and outage planning has to account for a vendor you do not control.
  • Analytics and joins on vaulted data are constrained; work that was a simple SQL join now happens through secure functions or on tokens, and data teams routinely discover this after the engineering team has committed.
  • Unwinding the vault later is a rewrite rather than a migration because tokens are threaded through every service, so the switching cost climbs steadily and the negotiating position at renewal weakens with each release.
  • Scope reduction is an architectural claim your own assessor must accept, so the audit saving is real only if the implementation genuinely keeps sensitive values off your systems, and partial implementations that leave a cache or a log line in place deliver the cost without the benefit.

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

Skyflow

On request
  • Skyflow Data Privacy Vault$undefined/year
    • Platform fee plus usage by data subject count
    • Priced additionally per data residency region
    • PCI Level 1, SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 and HIPAA coverage

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 Skyflow if

  • You need tokenised storage.
  • You work on API, Web, Self-hosted.
  • You also want polymorphic encryption.
Skyflow review

Choose Tink if

  • You need account data access.
  • You work on API, Web.
  • You also want payment initiation.
Tink review

Questions people ask

Is Skyflow or Tink better?
Neither clearly leads. Skyflow 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, Skyflow or Tink?
Skyflow starts at On request and Tink at On request.
Does Skyflow or Tink run on more platforms?
Skyflow runs on API, Web, Self-hosted. Tink runs on API, Web.
What is Skyflow best used for?
Skyflow is most often used for a fintech that wants card and bank account data out of its own infrastructure so its application servers leave pci dss assessment scope, a company entering india or the eu with data localisation obligations that would otherwise require standing up regional databases and operations, a health technology business that needs protected health information isolated from the analytics stack while still supporting aggregate reporting, an engineering team that wants support agents to see masked identifiers and payment services to see real ones, enforced centrally rather than in every service. Of those, a fintech that wants card and bank account data out of its own infrastructure so its application servers leave pci dss assessment scope and a company entering india or the eu with data localisation obligations that would otherwise require standing up regional databases and operations are not what Tink is typically brought in for.
What can Skyflow do that Tink cannot?
Skyflow covers Tokenised storage, Polymorphic encryption, Field level access policies, Data residency. Tink covers Account data access, Payment initiation, EEA passporting, Categorisation.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Skyflow: Does Skyflow really take my systems out of PCI scope?

It can, if card data never touches your infrastructure and the detokenisation happens at the boundary. Your QSA has to agree the design, so validate the architecture with your assessor before signing.

Tink: Who owns Tink?

Visa, since 2022. That is directly relevant if you are adopting pay-by-bank specifically to reduce card costs.

Skyflow: What does it cost?

Nothing is published. Reported annual contracts sit around 195,000 US dollars, built from a platform fee plus usage by data subject count and additional charges per data residency region.

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.

Skyflow: How does it help with data localisation?

Records can be pinned to a specified region, so an Indian or EU residency requirement is met by the vault rather than by you running regional databases and operations teams.

Tink: Does Tink cover the United States?

No. It is a European platform. US coverage requires a separate provider.

Skyflow: Can I still run analytics on vaulted data?

Partly. Aggregates and comparisons are supported through polymorphic encryption and secure functions, but arbitrary joins against other datasets are harder than they were, and this is the most common late surprise.

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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