Is Trustly or Unit better?

Neither clearly leads. Trustly 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, Trustly or Unit?

Trustly starts at On request and Unit at On request.

Does Trustly or Unit run on more platforms?

Trustly runs on Web, API. Unit runs on Web, iOS, Android.

What is Trustly best used for?

Trustly is most often used for an e-commerce merchant wanting a lower-cost alternative or complement to card payment acceptance, a gaming or gambling operator needing verified, instant payouts to players' bank accounts, a merchant wanting instant refunds processed directly to a customer's bank account rather than card reversal delays, a business in a market with strong open banking adoption wanting pay-by-bank as a checkout option. Of those, an e-commerce merchant wanting a lower-cost alternative or complement to card payment acceptance and a gaming or gambling operator needing verified, instant payouts to players' bank accounts are not what Unit is typically brought in for.

What can Trustly do that Unit cannot?

Trustly covers Pay by bank checkout, Instant refunds, Verified payouts, Multi-market bank connectivity. Unit covers Deposit accounts, Card issuing, Payments, White label components.

APIs · head to head

Trustly vs Unit

Trustly

APIs

Pay-by-bank payments network, majority-owned by private equity firm Nordic Capital

From: On request
Rated: -

Full review Website

Unit

APIs

Banking as a service platform for embedding deposit accounts, cards and payments, with a sponsor bank behind it

From: On request
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: Trustly it is majority-owned by Nordic Capital, a private equity firm, so its long-term roadmap is ultimately oriented toward an eventual sale or IPO rather than indefinite independent operation.; 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: Trustly covers Pay by bank checkout, Unit covers Deposit accounts.
Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Trustly and Unit actually diverge.

Attributes where Trustly and Unit differ
Attribute	Trustly	Unit
Platforms	Web, API	Web, iOS, Android

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 Trustly

Pay by bank checkout
Instant refunds
Verified payouts
Multi-market bank connectivity
Merchant dashboard and reconciliation
Fraud and risk tooling

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.

Trustly

An e-commerce merchant wanting a lower-cost alternative or complement to card payment acceptancenot Unit
A gaming or gambling operator needing verified, instant payouts to players' bank accountsnot Unit
A merchant wanting instant refunds processed directly to a customer's bank account rather than card reversal delaysnot Unit
A business in a market with strong open banking adoption wanting pay-by-bank as a checkout optionnot Unit

Unit

A vertical SaaS platform for contractors that wants to hold customer funds and issue expense cards without pursuing a charternot Trustly
A payroll or benefits platform embedding accounts so employees can be paid ahead of schedulenot Trustly
A marketplace that wants seller balances to sit in real accounts under its own brand rather than as ledger entries at a processornot Trustly
A company that needs interchange revenue from a card programme to make the unit economics of its core product worknot Trustly

Where each one falls short

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

Trustly

It is majority-owned by Nordic Capital, a private equity firm, so its long-term roadmap is ultimately oriented toward an eventual sale or IPO rather than indefinite independent operation.
Consumer familiarity with paying by bank transfer still lags card payments in most markets, so merchants typically see it used as a secondary option rather than a full card replacement.
The 1.15 to 3.15% merchant fee range is not a single published rate, so a merchant cannot know its actual cost without a sales negotiation.
As with all open banking-dependent payment methods, reliability depends on the consistency of the underlying banks' own APIs, which Trustly does not control.
Its verified payout functionality is heavily used in gaming and gambling, a sector with additional regulatory scrutiny, which is worth factoring in when evaluating vendor risk exposure by association.

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

Trustly

On request

Trustly$undefined/month
- Typical merchant cost of 1.15% to 3.15% depending on volume and market
- Exact rate negotiated per merchant, not published as a flat card

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 Trustly if

You need pay by bank checkout.
You work on Web, API.
You also want instant refunds.

Trustly review

Choose Unit if

You need deposit accounts.
You work on Web, iOS, Android.
You also want card issuing.

Unit review

Questions people ask

Is Trustly or Unit better?: Neither clearly leads. Trustly 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, Trustly or Unit?: Trustly starts at On request and Unit at On request.
Does Trustly or Unit run on more platforms?: Trustly runs on Web, API. Unit runs on Web, iOS, Android.
What is Trustly best used for?: Trustly is most often used for an e-commerce merchant wanting a lower-cost alternative or complement to card payment acceptance, a gaming or gambling operator needing verified, instant payouts to players' bank accounts, a merchant wanting instant refunds processed directly to a customer's bank account rather than card reversal delays, a business in a market with strong open banking adoption wanting pay-by-bank as a checkout option. Of those, an e-commerce merchant wanting a lower-cost alternative or complement to card payment acceptance and a gaming or gambling operator needing verified, instant payouts to players' bank accounts are not what Unit is typically brought in for.
What can Trustly do that Unit cannot?: Trustly covers Pay by bank checkout, Instant refunds, Verified payouts, Multi-market bank connectivity. Unit covers Deposit accounts, Card issuing, Payments, White label components.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Trustly: Who owns Trustly?

Nordic Capital, a private equity firm, holds a 51.1% majority stake; Alfven & Didrikson and BlackRock hold smaller stakes.

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.

Trustly: Is Trustly going public?

It has discussed an IPO but as of its most recent comments said one remained at least a year away.

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.

Trustly: What does it typically cost a merchant?

Roughly 1.15% to 3.15% of transaction value depending on volume and market, negotiated per merchant.

Unit: What does Unit cost?

Not published. Expect a platform fee, per-account and per-transaction charges, an interchange share and a minimum commitment.

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.

Trustly vs Unit

Trustly

Unit

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Trustly

Only in Unit

What people use each for

Trustly

Unit

Where each one falls short

Trustly

Unit

Pricing, plan by plan

Trustly

Unit

Which should you pick?

Choose Trustly if

Choose Unit if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Trustly

More on Unit

Keep looking

Other head to heads