# GoCardless Bank Account Data vs TrueLayer

> TrueLayer has a score of 62.4 (B) against GoCardless Bank Account Data's 41.9 (E). Both do bank accounts. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 35 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gocardless-bank-account-data-vs-truelayer
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gocardless-bank-account-data-vs-truelayer.md (~1,500 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gocardless-bank-account-data-vs-truelayer.min.md (~380 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gocardless-bank-account-data-vs-truelayer.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: 2026-10-05

TrueLayer has a score of 62.4 (B) against GoCardless Bank Account Data's 41.9 (E). Both do bank accounts. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 35 points.

- GoCardless Bank Account Data: grade E, 41.9/100, rank #416 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gocardless-bank-account-data.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/gocardless-bank-account-data.json
- TrueLayer: grade B, 62.4/100, rank #217 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/truelayer.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/truelayer.json

## Which one, for what

Pick GoCardless Bank Account Data for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

Pick TrueLayer for reliability (+27), schema & documentation (+35), agent ergonomics (+16), security & auth (+16), maintenance & community (+35), transparency & trust (+11).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | GoCardless Bank Account Data | TrueLayer | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 44 | 71 | TrueLayer +27 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 54 | 89 | TrueLayer +35 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 57 | 73 | TrueLayer +16 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 50 | 66 | TrueLayer +16 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 10 | 10 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 3 | 38 | TrueLayer +35 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 55 | 66 | TrueLayer +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **41.9 · E** | **62.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | GoCardless Bank Account Data | TrueLayer |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | GoCardless | TrueLayer |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://bankaccountdata.gocardless.com/api/v2` | `https://api.truelayer.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (client libraries, unmaintained) | Apache-2.0 or MIT (signing libraries) |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2025-04-07 | 2026-06-25 |
| Popularity | 88 stars, 29k npm/wk, 4.3k PyPI/wk | 23 stars, 17k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**GoCardless Bank Account Data.** UK plus every PSD2 country, up to 24 months of history, one API shape for all of them. No public price and no confirmed free plan.

**TrueLayer.** FCA and Central Bank of Ireland authorised, holding the AISP and PISP licences itself. No public pricing anywhere on the site or in the docs.

## Before you call either

### GoCardless Bank Account Data

1. Cache the access token for its 24 hours and use /api/v2/token/refresh/ rather than minting a new pair each run
2. Create the end user agreement before the requisition when you need other than 90 days of history or access
3. Read the per-account rate limit headers; on 429 wait for the account reset time, since some banks allow 4 calls a day
4. Poll /api/v2/accounts/{id}/ until status is READY before asking for transactions
5. Call the REST endpoints directly; the Nordigen SDKs still install but get no fixes

### TrueLayer

1. Use auth.truelayer-sandbox.com and api.truelayer-sandbox.com with a separate sandbox client; live credentials don't work there
2. Send the user's IP when they're present, or a bank allows 4 calls a day per account
3. Check the retry column of the Data API error table before retrying; codes marked No need the user or a config fix
4. Set data_access_type to one_time for a single read and skip the 90-day reauthorisation
5. Append .md to any docs URL to get the page as Markdown

## Other comparisons with GoCardless Bank Account Data or TrueLayer

- [Enable Banking vs GoCardless Bank Account Data](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/enable-banking-vs-gocardless-bank-account-data.md)
- [Enable Banking vs TrueLayer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/enable-banking-vs-truelayer.md)
- [GoCardless Bank Account Data vs Plaid](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gocardless-bank-account-data-vs-plaid.md)
- [GoCardless Bank Account Data vs Salt Edge Account Information](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gocardless-bank-account-data-vs-salt-edge.md)
- [GoCardless Bank Account Data vs Teller](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gocardless-bank-account-data-vs-teller.md)
- [GoCardless Bank Account Data vs Yapily](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gocardless-bank-account-data-vs-yapily.md)
- [Plaid vs TrueLayer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/plaid-vs-truelayer.md)
- [Salt Edge Account Information vs TrueLayer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/salt-edge-vs-truelayer.md)
- [Teller vs TrueLayer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/teller-vs-truelayer.md)
- [TrueLayer vs Yapily](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/truelayer-vs-yapily.md)