Plaid billing

Learn about pricing, what is considered a billable event, and how to monitor your bill

Pricing plans

Plaid offers two types of pricing plans:

Pay as you go – has no minimum spend.
Custom (aka Scale) – minimum spend (typically $500/month) but lower per-use costs. Minimums can apply across the entire Plaid account or by product.

To view the exact pricing you may be eligible for, apply for Production access. Pricing information for pay-as-you-go plans will be displayed on the last page before you submit your access request. For exact pricing details for scale plans, select the scale pricing option on the last page, and Sales will get in touch to inform you what volume discounts you may be eligible for. Or, you can contact Sales via the contact form.

Pricing models

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

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

One-time fee

You will incur charges for one-time fee products whenever an Item is initialized with that product. This occurs when an Item has been successfully created by Link and this product was included in Link's product array. An Item is considered successfully created if an access_token was generated. If the Item was not initialized with the product at the time of creation, it can also be initialized later by calling a product endpoint belonging to that product on the Item.

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

Products that use one-time fee pricing are: Auth, Identity, and Income.

Subscription fee

The subscription fee model is similar to the one-time fee model, except that the Item will incur a monthly subscription fee as long as it exists, even if API calls cannot be successfully made for the Item. Removing the Item will end the subscription. Once an Item has been initialized with a subscription fee product, it is not possible to end the subscription without removing the Item via /item/remove. 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.

Products that use subscription fee pricing are: Transactions (except for the /transactions/refresh endpoint), Liabilities, and Investments.

Per-request flat fee

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), /transactions/refresh, /asset_report/audit_copy/create, and /asset_report/pdf/get.

Per-request flexible fee

For per-request flexible fee products, a fee is charged for each successful API call to that product endpoint. The fee may vary depending on the amount of information requested in the API request. For example, an Asset Report created with an extended transaction history (more than 61 days of transaction history) or a large number of Items may incur a higher fee.

Products and endpoints that use per-request flexible fee pricing are: /asset_report/create.

Per-payment fee

For per-payment fee products, a fee is charged for each payment initiated with the product. 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 network used to transfer the payment.

The per-payment 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.

Products that use per-payment fee pricing are: Payment Initiation (UK and Europe), Transfer, and Transfer UI.

Guarantee fee model

For Guarantee (Transfer), a fee is charged if Plaid guarantees the transaction. This fee will be charged regardless of whether the transaction is ultimately executed. If Plaid cannot guarantee the transaction, this fee will not be charged. If the transfer is executed despite not having a guarantee, the regular per-payment fee will apply.

Products that use per-guarantee fee pricing are: Guarantee (Transfer).

Monitor fee model

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.

Identity Verification fee model

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

Base check (the first verification check run, typically when the end user enters their phone number to begin SMS verification. If this is skipped, the base check 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 base check fee and the document check fee.)
Lightning verification (cost varies based on the end user's country, see your pricing contract for details)
Document check
Selfie check

Partnerships pricing

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. If you have questions about the partner's API activity, contact the Plaid partner.