Softwr

APIs · head to head

Skyflow vs Yapily

Skyflow logo

Skyflow

APIs

Data privacy vault that holds sensitive records outside your own systems

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Yapily logo

Yapily

APIs

Open banking API infrastructure for account data and pay-by-bank payments across Europe

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Yapily has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • 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.; Yapily production pricing itself is not published; only the resulting typical merchant transaction cost is publicly known, so the underlying platform fee still requires a sales conversation.
  • They diverge on capability: Skyflow covers Tokenised storage, Yapily covers Unified open banking API.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Skyflow and Yapily actually diverge.

Attributes where Skyflow and Yapily differ
AttributeSkyflowYapily
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteFree sandbox, pay-as-you-go production
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsAPI, Web, Self-hostedWeb, 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 Skyflow

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

Only in Yapily

  • Unified open banking API
  • Account information access
  • Payment initiation
  • Free sandbox
  • Multi-country bank coverage
  • Webhooks and reconciliation tooling

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 Yapily
  • A company entering India or the EU with data localisation obligations that would otherwise require standing up regional databases and operationsnot Yapily
  • A health technology business that needs protected health information isolated from the analytics stack while still supporting aggregate reportingnot Yapily
  • 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 Yapily

Yapily

  • A merchant wanting a lower-cost payment method alongside card acceptancenot Skyflow
  • A lending or budgeting product needing bank account data for affordability checksnot Skyflow
  • A business wanting one API instead of separate integrations to each bank's own open banking standardnot Skyflow
  • A company prototyping open banking features for free in sandbox before committing budgetnot 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.

Yapily

  • Production pricing itself is not published; only the resulting typical merchant transaction cost is publicly known, so the underlying platform fee still requires a sales conversation.
  • Consumer adoption of pay-by-bank still lags card payments, so merchants offering it as a checkout option typically see it used as a secondary rather than primary payment method.
  • Coverage depends on the banks in each country maintaining reliable open banking APIs, and inconsistent bank-side reliability across markets is a known category-wide weakness, not unique to Yapily but not solved by it either.
  • As infrastructure for both account data and payments, a company only needing one of those two capabilities is still evaluating a broader platform than it may need.
  • Regulatory dependence on PSD2 and UK open banking rules means the underlying legal framework, not just Yapily's product, could shift and affect what is possible on the platform.

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

Yapily

Free
  • SandboxFree
    • Free testing environment
    • UK and European bank connections for development
  • Production$undefined/month
    • Pay-as-you-go pricing, exact rates not published
    • Typical pay-by-bank cost of 0.1 to 0.5% or a flat 5 to 30 pence per transaction

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 Yapily if

  • You need unified open banking api.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want account information access.
Yapily review

Questions people ask

Is Skyflow or Yapily better?
Neither clearly leads. Skyflow starts at On request and Yapily at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Skyflow or Yapily?
Yapily has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Skyflow and Free for Yapily.
Does Skyflow or Yapily run on more platforms?
Skyflow runs on API, Web, Self-hosted. Yapily runs on Web, API.
Can I use Yapily for free?
Yes. Yapily has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Skyflow starts at On request.
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 Yapily is typically brought in for.
What can Skyflow do that Yapily cannot?
Skyflow covers Tokenised storage, Polymorphic encryption, Field level access policies, Data residency. Yapily covers Unified open banking API, Account information access, Payment initiation, Free sandbox.

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.

Yapily: Is there a free way to try it?

Yes, sandbox access is free for development and testing.

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.

Yapily: How much cheaper is pay-by-bank than card payments?

Typically 0.1 to 0.5% of transaction value, or a flat 5 to 30 pence, against 1.5 to 3.5% for card scheme fees.

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.

Yapily: Is production pricing published?

No, production access is pay-as-you-go but exact rates require a sales conversation.

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.

Share

Related pages

More on Skyflow

More on Yapily

Keep looking

Other head to heads