Plaid pricing and billing

Plaid offers three types of pricing plans:

• Pay as you go – has no minimum spend or commitment.
• Growth – Minimum spend, annual commitment. Lower per-use costs than Pay as you go plans.
• Custom (aka Scale) – Higher minimum spend and annual commitment but provides access to the lowest per-use costs. Minimums can apply across the entire Plaid account or by product and can apply across both Plaid and Plaid Check. For a Custom plan, contact Sales.

To change your plan, see Viewing or changing pricing plans.

For customers based in the EU or UK, or who will be serving end users based in the EU or UK, only Custom plans are offered. In addition, Signal, Transfer, and Plaid Check products (e.g. Consumer Report) are currently offered only via Custom plans.

Plaid has multiple different pricing models, depending on the product. These models only apply to Production traffic; usage of Sandbox is always free.

Note that the details outlined below are general information and guidance about typical pricing structures and policies for new customers. Your specific pricing and billing structure is governed by your agreement with Plaid. If you have questions about your bill, contact Support.

Endpoints that are not associated with any particular product are typically available to Plaid customers free of charge. Examples of these free-to-use endpoints include Institutions endpoints, Item endpoints, /accounts/get (not to be confused with /accounts/balance/get, which is associated with the Balance product), and user management endpoints.

You will incur charges for one-time fee products whenever the product is successfully added to an Item. This occurs when an Item has been successfully created by Link and this product was specified in /link/token/create. An Item is typically considered to be successfully created if a public_token was exchanged, but sometimes (e.g. when using micro-deposit Auth flows, or the in-Link Identity Match flow) it may be considered created once the public_token was created. If the Item was not initialized with the product at the time of creation, the product can also be added to the Item later by calling a product endpoint belonging to that product on the Item.

For one-time fee products, it does not matter how many API calls are made for the Item (or user); the cost is the same regardless of whether the product's endpoints are called many times or zero times.

For the Auth and Identity products, if the product was added to the Item via the optional_products parameter in the /link/token/create call, you will not incur charges for those products until their corresponding endpoint is called. For example, if you initialize an Item with auth in the products parameter and identity in the optional_products parameter, you will not be charged for Identity on that Item until you call /identity/match or /identity/get for that access token. Note: Identity Match is a Per-request flat fee product, so calling /identity/match multiple times will result in repeated charges for Identity Match, but only one charge for Identity.

For Document Income and Payroll Income, charges will be incurred when data is available to be accessed. This will typically be indicated by the INCOME_VERIFICATION webhook firing with the status of VERIFICATION_STATUS_PROCESSING_COMPLETE. For Document Income, the fee depends on the documents processed and which processing options are enabled (i.e. fraud, document parsing, or both). For bank statements, the fee is based on the number of pages in the statement; for all other document types, there is a flat fee per document.

For Hosted Link, each session delivered via SMS or email will incur a one-time fee. There is no fee to use Hosted Link if you are not using Plaid to deliver sessions.

When using Transfer, each Item initialized with Transfer (unless created using the /transfer/migrate_account endpoint) will also incur the one-time Auth fee, and no additional fee will be incurred for using Auth endpoints with that Item.

Products that use one-time fee pricing are:

• Auth
• Identity
• Income (except for /credit/bank_income/refresh and /credit/payroll_income/refresh, which use per-request pricing)

Under the subscription fee model, an Item will incur a monthly subscription fee as long as a valid access_token exists for the Item. Removing the Item via /item/remove will end the subscription. Once a subscription fee product has been added to an Item, it is not possible to end the subscription without removing the Item via /item/remove. If the Item's subscription is active, Plaid will charge for the subscription even if no API calls are made for the Item or API calls cannot be successfully made for the Item (e.g. because the Item is in an error state). Plaid's subscription cycle is based on calendar months in the UTC time zone; each month begins a new cycle. Fees for Items created or removed in the middle of the month are not pro-rated.

If you add a subscription-billed product to an Item using your free API request allocation (for example, by creating an Item initialized with Transactions, Investments, or Liabilities in Limited Production), you will be not be charged for that subscription unless you continue to use the Item after using up your free API requests and receiving full Production access.

When using subscription fee products in Production, it is important to persist the access token so that you can remove the Item when needed to avoid being billed indefinitely. If you have created access tokens for which you are being billed but did not store the tokens, contact support for assistance.

Products that use subscription fee pricing are:

• Transactions (except for the /transactions/refresh endpoint)
• Recurring Transactions
• Liabilities
• Investments (except for the /investments/refresh endpoint)

Investments has two separate subscriptions that can be associated with an Item: Investments Holdings and Investments Transactions. Adding Investments to an Item via /link/token/create or by calling /investments/holdings/get adds the Investments Holdings subscription. Calling /investments/transactions/get on an Item adds the Investments Transactions subscription.

For per-request flat fee products, a flat fee is charged for each successful API call to that product endpoint.

Products and endpoints that use per-request flat fee pricing are:

• Balance (/accounts/balance/get)
• Refresh endpoints, except for Statements Refresh (/transactions/refresh, /investments/refresh, /credit/bank_income/refresh, /credit/payroll_income/refresh)
• Most Consumer Report products from Plaid Check (/cra/check_report/base_report/get, /cra/check_report/income_insights/get, /cra/check_report/partner_insights/get, /cra/check_report/network_insights/get, and /cra/check_report/pdf/get).
• Asset report PDF and Audit Copy (/asset_report/audit_copy/create, /asset_report/pdf/get)
• Transfer Risk Engine (/transfer/authorization/create), see Transfer fee model for more details
• Identity Match (/identity/match), see below for more details
• Signal (/signal/evaluate)
• Beacon Account Insights (/beacon/user/account_insights/get)

There is also a flat fee for each link delivered through SMS or email via Link Delivery (beta), when using Hosted Link with the optional Link Delivery feature enabled.

Identity Match can optionally be enabled via the Dashboard. In this integration mode, the Identity Match check is automatically performed during Link and you never call the /identity/match endpoint directly. The billing trigger for Identity Match in this situation is when Plaid successfully obtains Identity data from the Item. If Plaid could not obtain any Identity data for the Item, you will not be billed.

For per-request flexible fee products, a fee is charged for each successful API call to that product endpoint. The fee will vary depending on the amount of information requested in the API request.

For Assets, the fee is calculated based on the number of Items in the report as well as the number of days of history requested. An additional fee is charged for an Asset Report containing more than 5 Items; this fee will be charged twice if the Asset Report contains more than 10 Items, and so on. An "Additional History" fee is also charged for each Item for which more than 61 days of history is requested. The Additional History fee is a flat fee regardless of how many days of additional history are requested; it does not matter how many days beyond 61 are requested.

For Enrich, the flexible fee is based on the number of transactions sent to be enriched.

For /statements/refresh, the flexible fee is based on the number of statements available when calling /statements/refresh. Note that you will still be charged for any statements you already had access to on the Item before calling /statements/refresh.

Products that use per-request flexible fee pricing are:

• Assets
• Statements Refresh
• Enrich

For per-Item flexible fee products, a fee is charged when the Item is created, which is deemed to occur when the public_token is created. The fee will vary depending on the amount of information requested when creating the Item.

For Statements, the flexible fee is calculated based on the number of statements available within the date range requested when calling /link/token/create. The fee will be charged even if you do not call any Statements endpoints.

Products that use per-Item flexible fee pricing are:

• Statements (excluding /statements/refresh, which is charged as a per-request flexible fee)

A fee is charged for each payment initiated. A payment is considered initiated if the end user reached the end of the payment flow and received a confirmation success screen. Standing orders (recurring payments) are considered a single payment but are billed on a separate pricing schedule from one-time payments. Fees will vary depending on the payment amount and the network used to transfer the payment.

When working with Transfer, there are three fees: The Auth fee, the Risk Engine Fee, and the per-transfer fee.

Auth fee

When using Transfer, each Item with the Transfer product (unless created by the /transfer/migrate_account endpoint) will also have Auth added to the Item and will incur a one-time Auth fee in addition to the per-payment Transfer fee.

Risk Engine fee

When using the Transfer Risk Engine, calls to /transfer/authorization/create will incur a per-request flat fee. If you have opted out of the Transfer Risk Engine and are instead checking for transfer risk in another way, such as via direct calls to Balance or Signal endpoints, you will not be charged for calls to /transfer/authorization/create. If the Transfer Risk Engine is unable to assess the return risk of the transaction (i.e. it returns a value of approved with a non-null rationale_code), you will not be charged for the /transfer/authorization/create call.

Per-transfer fee

A fee is charged for each transfer made. A transfer is considered made if it was successfully created via /transfer/create. The per-transfer fee is charged even if the payment is later reversed or clawed back. In such cases, a reversed payment fee may be charged as well. Fees will vary depending on the payment amount and the network used to make the payment.

A per-transfer fee is also applied to funds transfers between your bank account and your balance held with Plaid, such as sweeps, or payments to and from the Plaid Ledger.

Monitor uses a model with two fees:

• A base fee, which is incurred the first time a new user is scanned
• A rescanning fee, which is incurred based on the number of users rescanned each month

The rescanning fee is calculated based on the number of users on a rescanning program in a given month and works similarly to the subscription fee model. Plaid's subscription cycle is based on calendar months in the UTC time zone; each month begins a new cycle. Fees for users added to or removed from a rescanning program in the middle of the month are not pro-rated.

To avoid being rebilled for a user you no longer need recurring scans for (e.g., a user who has closed their account with you), create a program specifically for former users, make sure rescans are disabled, and move the user into that program when they are offboarded from your system.

For Identity Verification, a fee is charged based on the end user performing certain activities during the Link flow. The following events are billed:

• Anti-Fraud Engine (the first verification check run, typically when the end user enters their phone number to begin SMS verification. If this is skipped, the Anti-Fraud Engine fee will be incurred later on. For example, if the SMS check is skipped in favor of the document check, the document check will incur both the Anti-Fraud Engine fee and the document check fee.)
• Data Source verification (cost varies based on the end user's country, see your pricing contract for details)
• Document check
• Selfie check

If a retry is issued for a session, the retry will be billed like a new session, including the Anti-Fraud Engine and any other verification checks included in the retried session.

If you are using a Plaid partner, you will be charged for Plaid API usage performed by the partner using your processor token in the same way as if the calls had been made by you. The partner's API usage will not be included in your Plaid Dashboard usage report. If you have questions about the partner's API activity, contact the Plaid partner.

To view billable activity for your account, see the Production Usage page on the Dashboard.

Invoices will be sent each month to the billing contact configured for the team.

For some products, you can set a cost center using the PLAID-COST-CENTER-ID header to set an arbitrary string of 3-30 printable ASCII characters as a cost center ID.

This header should be applied when calling /item/public_token/exchange. If the billable event occurs later (i.e. when using an endpoint billed on a per-request fee model, like /identity/match or /accounts/balance/get, or when using post-Link initialization it should be applied when calling the billable endpoint. For Identity Verification, the header should be added when calling /identity_verification/create or /identity_verification/retry.

If a PLAID-COST-CENTER-ID is set, the cost center will be reported in billable activity reports and invoices.

Products that support setting cost centers are:

• Auth
• Identity
• Identity Verification
• Balance
• Transactions

Pay as you go customers can update payment method and billing contact information on the Plaid Dashboard. Custom plan customers should contact their account manager to update this information.

To view your currently enabled products, see the Products page on the Dashboard under the Team Settings section. To add additional products to your Plaid account you can submit the product request form located on the Dashboard. This form is also accessible via the Products page.

To view current pricing or to switch between pricing plans, customers on Pay as you go or Growth plans can use the Plans page within the Dashboard. Customers with Pay as you go plans can upgrade their plan at any time. Customers with Growth plans can submit a request to upgrade or downgrade their plan at any time; requests will take effect after the minimum commitment period on the existing Growth plan has been satisfied. Customers on Custom plans should contact Support or their Plaid Account Manager.