APIs · head to head
Tink vs Unit
Tink
APIs
European open banking platform for account data and payment initiation
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
Unit
APIs
Banking as a service platform for embedding deposit accounts, cards and payments, with a sponsor bank behind it
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: 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.; Unit your product depends on a sponsor bank you do not contract with directly, and 2024 showed what that means: Thread Bank received an FDIC enforcement action naming its banking as a service programmes and Blue Ridge Bank went under an OCC consent order and offboarded fintech partners.
- They diverge on capability: Tink covers Account data access, Unit covers Deposit accounts.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Tink and Unit 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 Tink
- Account data access
- Payment initiation
- EEA passporting
- Categorisation
- Account verification
- Risk and affordability signals
- Variable recurring payments support
- Consent management
Only in Unit
- Deposit accounts
- Card issuing
- Payments
- White label components
- Compliance operations
- Lending
- Programme reporting
- Sandbox
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Tink
- A European lender that needs verified income and expense data from a borrower bank account across several EEA markets under one licencenot Unit
- A merchant offering pay-by-bank at checkout to avoid card acceptance costs on high value basketsnot Unit
- A fintech that does not hold its own PSD2 licence and needs to operate under an authorised provider passported across the EEAnot Unit
- A bank building an account aggregation view of a customer external accounts without negotiating with each institution individuallynot Unit
Unit
- A vertical SaaS platform for contractors that wants to hold customer funds and issue expense cards without pursuing a charternot Tink
- A payroll or benefits platform embedding accounts so employees can be paid ahead of schedulenot Tink
- A marketplace that wants seller balances to sit in real accounts under its own brand rather than as ledger entries at a processornot Tink
- A company that needs interchange revenue from a card programme to make the unit economics of its core product worknot Tink
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
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.
Unit
- Your product depends on a sponsor bank you do not contract with directly, and 2024 showed what that means: Thread Bank received an FDIC enforcement action naming its banking as a service programmes and Blue Ridge Bank went under an OCC consent order and offboarded fintech partners.
- Programme approval by the bank is a separate gate from signing with Unit, and it can add months and impose product restrictions that were not visible during the commercial conversation.
- Compliance obligations are shared but the operational load lands on you, and platforms consistently underestimate the staffing needed for disputes, escalations and the bank ongoing oversight requests.
- Pricing is unpublished and blends platform fees, per-account and per-transaction charges and interchange sharing, which makes it hard to model unit economics before you have volume and easy to be surprised by the minimum.
- Migrating a live deposit programme to a different provider or bank is extremely disruptive because it involves moving customer accounts and card credentials, so switching costs are far higher than for ordinary software.
Pricing, plan by plan
Tink
On request- Tink Platform$undefined/year
- Priced by product, market and volume
- Data access and payment initiation priced separately
- Annual commitments typical for enterprise agreements
Unit
On request- Unit Banking as a Service$undefined/year
- Platform fee plus per-account and per-transaction charges, quoted
- Interchange sharing arrangements negotiated per programme
- Minimum commitment typical
Which should you pick?
Choose Tink if
- You need account data access.
- You work on API, Web.
- You also want payment initiation.
Choose Unit if
- You need deposit accounts.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want card issuing.
Questions people ask
- Is Tink or Unit better?
- Neither clearly leads. Tink starts at On request and Unit at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Tink or Unit?
- Tink starts at On request and Unit at On request.
- Does Tink or Unit run on more platforms?
- Tink runs on API, Web. Unit runs on Web, iOS, Android.
- What is Tink best used for?
- Tink is most often used for a european lender that needs verified income and expense data from a borrower bank account across several eea markets under one licence, a merchant offering pay-by-bank at checkout to avoid card acceptance costs on high value baskets, a fintech that does not hold its own psd2 licence and needs to operate under an authorised provider passported across the eea, a bank building an account aggregation view of a customer external accounts without negotiating with each institution individually. Of those, a european lender that needs verified income and expense data from a borrower bank account across several eea markets under one licence and a merchant offering pay-by-bank at checkout to avoid card acceptance costs on high value baskets are not what Unit is typically brought in for.
- What can Tink do that Unit cannot?
- Tink covers Account data access, Payment initiation, EEA passporting, Categorisation. Unit covers Deposit accounts, Card issuing, Payments, White label components.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Tink: Who owns Tink?
Visa, since 2022. That is directly relevant if you are adopting pay-by-bank specifically to reduce card costs.
Unit: Who actually holds the money?
A chartered partner bank, not Unit. Deposits sit at the sponsor bank and FDIC insurance flows from that bank, so its condition is your condition.
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.
Unit: What happened with Unit sponsor banks in 2024?
Thread Bank received an FDIC enforcement action that explicitly named its banking as a service and lending as a service programmes, and Blue Ridge Bank was under an OCC consent order from January 2024 and offboarded fintech partners. Blue Ridge exited the order in late 2025.
Tink: Does Tink cover the United States?
No. It is a European platform. US coverage requires a separate provider.
Unit: What does Unit cost?
Not published. Expect a platform fee, per-account and per-transaction charges, an interchange share and a minimum commitment.
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.
Unit: Do we need our own compliance team?
Yes. Unit supplies tooling and the bank sets the rules, but disputes, escalations and evidence for bank oversight require named people on your side.
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