Launch in Production checklist

Check off these recommended steps before launching your app in Production

Below is a list of recommended steps to take before launching your Plaid integration in production. While they might not all be required for the minimal operation of your application, the steps below will help to make your Plaid integration more robust, secure, efficient, and maintainable.

For a similar list of steps in an easy-to-follow, PDF guide format, see the Plaid implementation handbook.

Production setup

You must migrate to Production to use more than 100 live (non-Sandbox) Items. Note that Items created on the Sandbox or Development environments cannot be migrated to Production.

If you haven't already done so, request Production access.

Complete your application profile and company profile, which are required to access certain institutions that use OAuth-based connections.

Complete your security questionnaire, which is required to access certain US institutions that use OAuth-based connections.

For European Union countries and the UK, there is a separate compliance process required to access financial institutions in Production. If your Plaid integration will support financial institutions in Europe (including the UK), and your business is not based in Europe, file a support ticket to request Production access for Europe. Allow at least one week for your request to be processed.

Configure both Plaid Link and your server-side code to use the Production environment by setting the appropriate value when configuring your client object or (if not using a client library) your HTTP request. For language-specific details, see the GitHub page for your client library, or API host information if not using a library.

Ensure you are using your Production secret, which can be found on the dashboard.

If migrating from Sandbox, ensure that you remove any usage of Sandbox-specific functionality, such as the user_good test user or calls to /sandbox/ endpoints.

Add teammates to the dashboard to give other users access. For more details, see Plaid teams.

Link setup

Follow the steps below to assist users in completing the Link flow, help ensure compliance with Plaid's policies, and avoid being billed for unneeded products.

Implement OAuth support. Some institutions in both Europe and the US require the use of OAuth-based connections. While OAuth will typically "just work" on desktop, as long as you have completed your application profile, company profile, and security questionnaire, you may need to implement client-side redirect logic for users on mobile devices.

Make sure your OAuth integration works with all the test cases recommended in the OAuth documentation.

To avoid unnecessary billing and user confusion, implement logic for preventing duplicate Items.

Configure Link customizations within the dashboard and ensure that the countries and languages selected for the customizations match the settings provided to /link/token/create. For more details, see Link customization.

Ensure the client_name parameter of /link/token/create is set to display your company's name as you'd like it to appear within Link.

Ensure that the products parameter of /link/token/create includes only the products you intend to use. The products listed here will influence which institutions and accounts appear in Link (only institutions and account types that support all specified products will appear in Link) and will trigger a billing event for listed products upon successful token exchange.

For more details on optimizing the products parameter when using multiple products, see Choosing when to initialize products

Provide any notice and obtain any consent required for Plaid to process end user information in accordance with Plaid's End User Privacy Policy.

You may find it helpful to know that some of our customers link to Plaid's privacy policy within their own privacy policy, while others surface a separate just-in-time notice and consent page during their onboarding flow. Ultimately, it is up to you to determine how to obtain any legally required consents.

To maximize the number of users who complete the Link flow, review Plaid's recommendations for optimizing Link conversion and implement any practices relevant to your use case, such as providing pre-Link messaging or enabling the returning user experience.

Callbacks

Handle callbacks beyond just onSuccess in order to gracefully handle errors and build analytics around Link.

Listen to the onExit() and onEvent() callbacks for error_type and error_code in order to implement error handling.

Listen to the onEvent() callback for exit_status or timestamp in order to implement Link conversion analytics.

Webhook configuration

Plaid uses webhooks for many common flows. If your integration does any of the following, webhooks are required or strongly recommended:

(Any product) Your application is calling a Plaid endpoint for an Item repeatedly, over a period of time, not just immediately after Link.
(Transactions or Investments) You are accessing transactions made after the end user linked their Item.
(Auth) You are using automated micro-deposits for account verification.
(Assets) You are creating Asset Reports.
(Income) You are verifying a user's income.
(Payment Initiation (UK and Europe)) You are initiating payments.
(Virtual Accounts (UK and Europe) or Transfers) You are sending or receiving funds.

Make sure Link has been initialized with your URL for receiving webhooks via /link/token/create.

(For Transfer or Payment Initiation, as well as optional Auth micro-deposit events) Make sure to configure account level webhook URLs via the Plaid Dashboard.

Make sure you can receive webhooks from Plaid's webhook IPs.

Review Plaid's webhook best practices to ensure your webhook handling logic is robust to outages and traffic spikes.

Error handling

Sometimes, Plaid API calls may fail due to intermittent outages or connectivity errors at supported institutions. Implement retry logic or error handling as necessary for product API calls.

Link in update mode

Update mode is used to fix Items that have entered an error state (for example, because a user changed their password). If your application needs to access an Item repeatedly over a period of time, rather than just immediately after Link, implementing update mode logic is strongly recommended.

Handle the ITEM_LOGIN_REQUIRED and PENDING_EXPIRATION Item error states by launching update mode to ensure your users retain access to their Items. For more information, see Updating Items via Link.

Listen for the NEW_ACCOUNTS_AVAILABLE webhook to learn when an Item has a new account associated with it. To request access to that account, launch Link in update mode.

Storage & logging

Log Plaid identifiers and IDs properly to enhance security, when contacting Support about a specific request or callback, and for finding specific entries in the Activity Log. For more information, see Dashboard logs and troubleshooting.

Access tokens and Item IDs are the core identifiers that map your users to their financial institutions. Store them securely and associate them with users of your application. Make sure, however, that these identifiers are never exposed client-side. Keep in mind that one user can create multiple Items if they have accounts with multiple financial institutions.

The same storage requirements apply to other types of tokens used instead of access tokens by certain products, such as asset report tokens (used with Assets), payment profile tokens (used with Transfer) and user tokens (used with Income).

Ensure that the following identifiers are securely logged, as they will be needed when contacting Support about a specific request or callback.

link_session_id: Included in the onExit, onEvent, and onSuccess callback of a Link integration.

request_id: Included in all Plaid API responses.

account_id: Included in all successful Plaid API responses that relate to a specific Item or account.

item_id: Included in all successful Plaid API responses that relate to a specific Item.

Item management

Delete Items using /item/remove when they are no longer being used. For example, you may wish to allow users to remove linked Items through your app's account management interface, or you may want to delete Items when a user deletes their account with your service or becomes inactive, or if the Item has been in an error state for an extended period. Deleting unneeded Items is a security best practice and will also prevent you from being charged for these Items when using a subscription-based product such as Transactions.

Multi-app use cases

If you anticipate having multiple apps that use Plaid or having multiple teams at your company using it, consider creating a single shared backend service to handle functions such as logging and token storage in a consolidated place.

Product-specific recommendations

Auth

If you are using Auth for an account funding use case, see the Plaid account funding guide for use case specific recommendations.

If launching in the US, support the Automated micro-deposit and Same-day micro-deposit flows for maximum institution coverage.

If supporting the Instant Match, Automated micro-deposit, or Same-Day micro-deposit flows, make sure that the country codes parameter provided to /link/token/create (or directly to Link, if using a legacy public key implementation) for these flows includes only the US and no other countries.

If supporting the Automated micro-deposit flow, make sure to listen for Auth webhooks to know when the transaction is completed.

Make sure you are not displaying account numbers in your app's UI, even if truncated or masked, to avoid user confusion when working with institutions that provide virtualized or temporary account numbers. Always use values from the mask field instead.

Balance

If you are using Balance for an account funding use case, see the Plaid account funding guide for use case specific recommendations.

Make sure to specify min_last_updated_datetime when calling /accounts/balance/get to ensure balance calls to Capital One can succeed.

Identity

If you are using Identity for an account funding use case, see the Plaid account funding guide for use case specific recommendations.

Transactions

If fetching historical Transactions data using /transactions/get or /transactions/sync, make sure your app implements pagination logic. For sample code, see the integration instructions or the API Reference for the endpoint.

If you use /transactions/sync, make sure your app properly handles errors that occur during pagination by restarting the pagination loop. For more details, see TRANSACTIONS_SYNC_MUTATION_DURING_PAGINATION.

Handle Transactions webhooks, see Handling Transaction webhooks.

Investments

Handle the HOLDINGS-type DEFAULT_UPDATE webhook if your app needs to keep holdings, values, and balances up-to-date.

Handle the INVESTMENTS_TRANSACTIONS-type DEFAULT_UPDATE webhook if your app needs to keep Investments transactions up-to-date.

If fetching historical Investments transactions using /investments/transactions/get, make sure your app implements pagination logic. For sample code, see the /investments/transactions/get API Reference (pagination examples available in Python and Ruby code samples).