# Finch vs Worklio

> Finch scores 71.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Worklio's 38.6 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do payroll employees. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/finch-vs-worklio
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/finch-vs-worklio.md (~2,200 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/finch-vs-worklio.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/finch-vs-worklio.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 Worklio's 38.6 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do payroll employees.

- Finch: grade BB, 71.6/100, rank #116 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/finch.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/finch.json
- Worklio: grade E, 38.6/100, rank #812 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/worklio.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/worklio.json

## Which one, for what

### 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:
- Reliability, 84 against 25
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 71
- Agent ergonomics, 71 against 44
- Security & auth, 66 against 48
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 25
- Maintenance & community, 84 against 25
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 48

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Runs on your own machine
- No incidents deducted, where Worklio loses 3 points for them

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

### Worklio (E)

Good for: A software platform, PEO or payroll bureau that wants to sell US payroll under its own brand and can sign a partner agreement, with Worklio handling tax filing and money movement.

Watch for: No rate limits, 429 handling or idempotency keys were found in the reviewed documentation


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Finch | Worklio | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 84 | 25 | Finch +59 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 71 | Finch +16 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 71 | 44 | Finch +27 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 66 | 48 | Finch +18 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 25 | Finch +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 84 | 25 | Finch +59 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 48 | Finch +26 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **71.6 · BB** | **38.6 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Finch | Worklio |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Profound Platform Inc. (dba Finch) | Worklio, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.tryfinch.com` | `https://api.worklio.com` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Finch's Master Service Agreement. The SDKs and the MCP server on GitHub are Apache-2.0 | Proprietary service. The public Terms of Use date from 2014 and the partner agreement isn't public. The front-end library sits in a private repository |
| Tools exposed | 2 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-05 | 2026-06-30 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-07 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |
| Popularity | 16k npm/wk, 26k PyPI/wk | none |

## Verdicts

**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.

**Worklio.** Worklio documents 853 REST operations with an OpenAPI fragment on every reference page, and a developer can register for the sandbox without a sales call. No rate limits or public SDK were found, the status page is password protected, and the payroll guide tells callers to treat an HTTP 500 as the signal to finalise.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Worklio

1. Send `api-version: 2.0` on `/wep` calls. The reference marks the header as required
2. Get a token from `POST https://api.worklio.com/connect/token` with the password grant and scope `api`. It lasts 24 hours, so fetch a new one daily
3. Run payroll as start, `next` until it answers 500 with "Next step operation is not allowed", then `finalize`. Don't treat that 500 as a failure
4. Don't retry bonus, off-cycle, void or termination payroll starts blindly. The reference says those calls are not idempotent
5. Most `/wep` list endpoints return the whole result set. Paging, `filter` and `sort` work only under `/api/public`, and a `DataToken` expires after 60 seconds

## Questions

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

Finch scores 71.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Worklio's 38.6 (E), and leads in every scored category.

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

Both use an OAuth sign-in.

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

Yes. Finch has a hosted endpoint at https://api.tryfinch.com and Worklio at https://api.worklio.com.


## For agents

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

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