# Check vs Finch

> Finch scores 71.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Check's 67.5 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Check leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth. Both do payroll employees. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/check-payroll-vs-finch
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/check-payroll-vs-finch.md (~2,250 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/check-payroll-vs-finch.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/check-payroll-vs-finch.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Finch scores 71.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Check's 67.5 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Check leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth. Both do payroll employees.

- Check: grade B, 67.5/100, rank #208 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/check-payroll.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/check-payroll.json
- Finch: grade BB, 71.6/100, rank #104 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/finch.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/finch.json

## Which one, for what

### Check (B)

Good for: A software platform that wants to sell US payroll inside its own product and can sign a partnership, with Check handling tax calculation, money movement and filings.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 83 against 71
- Security & auth, 74 against 66

Watch for: No public price and no self-serve signup. The documentation says to request an API key through Check's sales contact

### Finch (BB)

Good for: An application that needs to read employees, pay runs and pay statements from whatever payroll or HR system an employer already uses, or to write benefit deductions back.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 78
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 5
- Maintenance & community, 84 against 72
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 62

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: Finch cannot create, preview or approve a payroll. Writes are limited to deductions and contributions, on Pro and Premier plans


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Check | Finch | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 84 | Finch +4 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 87 | Finch +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 83 | 71 | Check +12 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 74 | 66 | Check +8 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 5 | 30 | Finch +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 72 | 84 | Finch +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 74 | Finch +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **67.5 · B** | **71.6 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Check | Finch |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Check Technologies, Inc. | Profound Platform Inc. (dba Finch) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.checkhq.com` | `https://api.tryfinch.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Check's terms of service and partner agreement. The MCP server and CLI on GitHub are MIT | Proprietary service under Finch's Master Service Agreement. The SDKs and the MCP server on GitHub are Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | 2 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated | 2021-09-03 | 2026-08-07 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-04-18 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 18 stars | 16k npm/wk, 26k PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**Check.** Graded as embedded payroll through a partner API key, not access to an existing employer's payroll account. The API has idempotency keys on writes, a required preview before approval and queryable request logs. No price is public, a sandbox key comes through Check's sales team, and one API key carries the whole partner account.

**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.

## Before you call either

### Check

1. Use https://sandbox.checkhq.com with the sandbox key and https://api.checkhq.com with the production key. A key is not valid across environments
2. Preview a payroll before approving it, then pass `preview_started_at` to POST /payrolls/{id}/approve so a stale preview fails with 409
3. Send `X-Idempotency-Key` on every write. Keys expire after 24 hours, so list the resource before retrying later than that
4. On 429 wait for `Retry-After`. The limit is 10 requests a second in sandbox and for partners paying fewer than 1,000 payees a month, with 100 concurrent requests
5. Connect the MCP server with `?read_only=true` or `X-MCP-Readonly: true` unless writes are intended. In production, approving a payroll moves money

### 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

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Check or Finch?

Finch scores 71.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Check's 67.5 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Check leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth.

### Do Check and Finch need an API key?

Check takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Finch uses an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Check and Finch without installing anything?

Yes. Check has a hosted endpoint at https://api.checkhq.com and Finch at https://api.tryfinch.com.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/check-payroll-vs-finch.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/check-payroll-vs-finch.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "check-payroll", "b": "finch"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare check-payroll finch`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/check-payroll.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/finch.json

## Other comparisons with Check or Finch

- [Argyle vs Check](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/argyle-vs-check-payroll.md)
- [Argyle vs Finch](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/argyle-vs-finch.md)
- [Check vs Paychex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/check-payroll-vs-paychex.md)
- [Employment Hero Payroll vs Finch](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/employment-hero-vs-finch.md)
- [Everee vs Finch](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/everee-vs-finch.md)
- [Finch vs Gusto](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/finch-vs-gusto.md)
- [Finch vs Paychex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/finch-vs-paychex.md)
- [Finch vs Salsa](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/finch-vs-salsa.md)
- [Finch vs Zeal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/finch-vs-zeal.md)
- [Check vs Employment Hero Payroll](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/check-payroll-vs-employment-hero.md)
- [Check vs Everee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/check-payroll-vs-everee.md)
- [Check vs Gusto](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/check-payroll-vs-gusto.md)
- [Check vs Salsa](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/check-payroll-vs-salsa.md)
- [Check vs Zeal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/check-payroll-vs-zeal.md)