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Cybersecurity · head to head

Unit21 vs Very Good Security

Unit21 logo

Unit21

Cybersecurity

No-code fraud and AML risk operations platform for fintechs and neobanks

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Very Good Security logo

Very Good Security

Cybersecurity

Tokenisation proxy that keeps card and personal data out of your own systems and out of PCI scope

From
$1000/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Unit21 it is built for fintech scale rather than card issuer scale, so organisations reaching very high transaction volumes generally re-evaluate against heavier platforms and face a migration.; Very Good Security vGS sits in the live path of every request carrying sensitive data, so its latency and availability become yours, and an outage in the proxy is a payment outage no matter how healthy your own systems are.
  • They diverge on capability: Unit21 covers No-code rule builder, Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Unit21 and Very Good Security actually diverge.

Attributes where Unit21 and Very Good Security differ
AttributeUnit21Very Good Security
Starting priceOn request$1000/month
Pricing modelquotePer month
PlatformsWebWeb, API

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cybersecurity).

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 Unit21

  • No-code rule builder
  • Case management
  • SAR filing
  • Backtesting
  • Identity and device signals
  • Data ingestion API

Only in Very Good Security

  • Aliasing proxy
  • PCI scope reduction
  • Network tokenisation
  • Processor optionality
  • Card issuing data
  • Vault and access controls
  • Data residency options
  • Compliance artefacts

What people use each for

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

Unit21

  • A neobank whose sponsor bank requires a documented monitoring programme before it will keep the BIN sponsorshipnot Very Good Security
  • A crypto exchange needing SAR filing and case management without building an internal compliance engineering teamnot Very Good Security
  • A payments startup where the fraud lead needs to ship a new rule the same day a new attack pattern appearsnot Very Good Security
  • A lender consolidating fraud alerts from three point tools into one investigator queue with a single audit trailnot Very Good Security

Very Good Security

  • A marketplace facing its first PCI DSS Level 1 assessment that wants to keep card data off its own estate rather than harden a dozen servicesnot Unit21
  • A merchant negotiating with a second acquirer that needs card credentials portable so the negotiation is real rather than theoreticalnot Unit21
  • A fintech collecting bank account and identity documents that wants sensitive fields absent from logs, backups and analytics warehouses by constructionnot Unit21
  • A card issuer that must display a full PAN in its own mobile app without the app or its backend touching cardholder datanot Unit21

Where each one falls short

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

Unit21

  • It is built for fintech scale rather than card issuer scale, so organisations reaching very high transaction volumes generally re-evaluate against heavier platforms and face a migration.
  • No-code rule authoring shifts power to the risk team, which is the point, but without governance it produces rule sprawl that nobody can explain to an examiner two years later.
  • Detection quality depends on the signals you feed it, so a thin integration produces thin results and the platform cannot compensate with proprietary consortium data the way larger vendors do.
  • Pricing is quoted by volume with an annual commitment, so a fintech whose growth stalls pays for headroom it did not use.
  • SAR filing coverage is oriented to United States FinCEN reporting, so firms filing in the United Kingdom, European Union or Asia handle those submissions outside the tool.

Very Good Security

  • VGS sits in the live path of every request carrying sensitive data, so its latency and availability become yours, and an outage in the proxy is a payment outage no matter how healthy your own systems are.
  • Token portability is the whole selling point yet leaving VGS means migrating tokens back out, a project the vendor has no incentive to streamline, so the lock-in you removed from your acquirer partly moves to VGS.
  • Entry pricing at around one thousand US dollars a month is real money for a pre-revenue fintech, and it buys volume-limited throughput, so cost scales with exactly the growth that made you buy it.
  • Scope reduction is not scope elimination: your QSA still assesses how you integrate, and teams regularly discover that a support tool or an internal admin screen pulled plaintext back in and dragged systems into scope again.
  • Proxy-based interception constrains how you design request flows, and non-standard payloads, streaming uploads or binary formats often need custom routing rules that make debugging production issues noticeably harder.

Pricing, plan by plan

Unit21

On request
  • Unit21 Platform$undefined/year
    • Priced by monitored volume and modules, annual contract
    • Fraud, AML and case management packaged separately
    • Implementation and historical data backfill quoted with the subscription

Very Good Security

$1000/month
  • Starter$1000/month
    • Aliasing proxy
    • Vault storage
    • PCI scope reduction
  • Growth$undefined/month
    • Network tokenisation
    • Multiple processors
    • Data residency options
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Custom vault architecture
    • Dedicated support and SLA
    • Contractual compliance coverage

Which should you pick?

Choose Unit21 if

  • You need no-code rule builder.
  • You also want case management.
Unit21 review

Choose Very Good Security if

  • You need aliasing proxy.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want pci scope reduction.
Very Good Security review

Questions people ask

Is Unit21 or Very Good Security better?
Neither clearly leads. Unit21 starts at On request and Very Good Security at $1000/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Unit21 or Very Good Security?
Unit21 starts at On request and Very Good Security at $1000/month.
Does Unit21 or Very Good Security run on more platforms?
Unit21 runs on Web. Very Good Security runs on Web, API.
What is Unit21 best used for?
Unit21 is most often used for a neobank whose sponsor bank requires a documented monitoring programme before it will keep the bin sponsorship, a crypto exchange needing sar filing and case management without building an internal compliance engineering team, a payments startup where the fraud lead needs to ship a new rule the same day a new attack pattern appears, a lender consolidating fraud alerts from three point tools into one investigator queue with a single audit trail. Of those, a neobank whose sponsor bank requires a documented monitoring programme before it will keep the bin sponsorship and a crypto exchange needing sar filing and case management without building an internal compliance engineering team are not what Very Good Security is typically brought in for.
What can Unit21 do that Very Good Security cannot?
Unit21 covers No-code rule builder, Case management, SAR filing, Backtesting. Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy, PCI scope reduction, Network tokenisation, Processor optionality.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Unit21: Do we need engineers to run it?

Only for the initial data integration. After that the design intent is that risk and compliance staff author and deploy rules themselves.

Very Good Security: Does VGS make me PCI compliant?

No. It removes cardholder data from your systems so your assessment covers a far smaller boundary, but you still complete an assessment and your integration is part of it.

Unit21: Does it file SARs?

Yes, it generates and electronically files suspicious activity reports to FinCEN. Non-US regimes are not covered to the same depth.

Very Good Security: Can I move to another processor without re-collecting cards?

Yes, that is a core reason people buy it. The vault reveals stored credentials to whichever processor you route to.

Unit21: Can we test a rule before it goes live?

Yes. Backtesting against historical data to see projected alert volume is one of the more useful parts of the product, because alert volume is the real cost.

Very Good Security: What does it cost?

Published entry pricing is about one thousand US dollars per month; growth and enterprise tiers are quoted.

Very Good Security: Is it only for card data?

No. The proxy handles any sensitive field, including bank details, national identifiers and documents, though payments is where the product is now focused.

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