Argyle vs Finch

Argyle

Graded on the REST API. One OpenAPI file covers 91 operations, llms.txt indexes Markdown docs, and a Sandbox with sample users comes with a Console sign-up. Every payroll connection needs the worker to sign in through Link. No prices are published, no idempotency keys were found, and API keys carry no per-key scopes.

Finch

Graded on the REST API. An employer grants each connection named product permissions, and limits, error codes and a 99.9 per cent uptime SLA are published. Finch reads payroll and writes deductions but cannot run a payroll. Access tokens never expire, no idempotency keys were found, and writes and most providers need a sales-led plan.

Argyle

1. Send HTTP Basic auth with api_key_id as the username and api_key_secret as the password. Sandbox keys fail with 401 on Production and the reverse
2. Create the user with POST /v2/users and an external_id, then look it up by external_id before retrying. No idempotency key was found
3. Do not read data straight after an account connects. Wait for the account and data webhooks, or for the verification status, before fetching records
4. Follow the full URL in next when paging. Do not build cursor values or fetch pages in parallel. limit defaults to 10 and stops at 200
5. Stay under 50 requests a second. On 429, queue the request and retry later, not at once
6. Treat DELETE /v2/users/{id} as permanent. It removes every resource tied to that user, with no confirmation step

Finch

1. Send Finch-API-Version: 2020-09-17 and Authorization: Bearer <access_token> on every request. A request without the version header fails with 400
2. Call GET /introspect first to see the connection's products, status and whether it is automated or assisted before choosing endpoints
3. Treat a 202 response as data not ready, not as data. Retry with backoff, and expect up to 14 days for an assisted connection's first sync
4. Stay under 20 requests a minute on organisation endpoints and 12 on pay endpoints across all tokens. Batch IDs, and on 429 wait 60 seconds
5. After a deduction write, poll the job by job_id until it completes before enrolling individuals. Enrolment overwrites an existing enrolment
6. Start the MCP server with --code-allow-http-gets or a token without the benefits product when only reads are intended