Head to head · Kyc business · October 2026 research run
Middesk vs Persona
Persona scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against Middesk's 59 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do kyc business.
Which one, for what
Middesk C
Good for An agent onboarding or re-checking US businesses for a bank, lender or marketplace that already holds a Middesk contract, with registry, TIN, sanctions and lien data in one object.
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
No public price. Fees are set in an order form, and every docs page ends with a prompt to contact sales
Persona B
Good for A company that already runs Persona and wants an agent to create inquiries from templates, read verification and report results, screen against watchlists and work review cases with a permission-limited key.
Ahead on
- Agent ergonomics, 74 against 56
- Security & auth, 73 against 56
- Payments & pricing, 35 against 10
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 64
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 61
Watch for
Production access needs Persona's approval and a 12-month plan from $250 a month, and API-only integration is limited to Enterprise plans
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Middesk | Persona | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 73 | 70 | Middesk +3 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 82 | 85 | Persona +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 56 | 74 | Persona +18 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 56 | 73 | Persona +17 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 10 | 35 | Persona +25 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 64 | 75 | Persona +11 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 61 | 68 | Persona +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 59 · C | 69.5 · B |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Middesk | Persona |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Middesk, Inc. | Persona Identities, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.middesk.com/v1 | https://mcp.withpersona.com |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Middesk's Business Verification Terms and Conditions. The Claude Code and Codex plugins on GitHub are MIT | Proprietary service under Persona's terms of service. The persona JavaScript client on npm is MIT |
| Tools exposed | 11 | 190 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-05 | 2026-09-29 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 2 stars | 570k npm/wk |
Verdicts
Middesk
A public OpenAPI 3.1 contract for 87 operations, llms.txt, Markdown docs and a dated weekly changelog make the REST API readable to an agent, and OAuth has a read-only scope. Access is sales-led. No price, self-serve signup or official SDK was found, and the hosted MCP server rejects sandbox keys.
Persona
The REST API has a public OpenAPI 3.1 file, llms.txt, API keys with per-resource permissions, idempotency keys on every POST and a 60-day sandbox trial with no card. Production needs a business review and a 12-month plan from $250 a month. The status page lists 11 incidents since 10 July 2026, including 70 minutes of timeouts across all products.
Before you call either
Middesk
- Match the key to the host.
mk_testkeys work only at https://api-sandbox.middesk.com/v1 andmk_livekeys only at https://api.middesk.com/v1 - Name the
ordersonPOST /v1/businesses. Omitting them places a verification order plus every package the account runs automatically, all billed - Send
address_line1andaddress_line2. The API ignoresaddress_line_1without an error - A 201 means the business was created, not verified. Wait for the
business.updatedwebhook or poll untilstatusleavespending - Stay under 20 requests a second per account, and in sandbox wait the seconds in
Retry-Afterafter a 429 on business creation
Persona
- Ask for a dedicated key limited to the permissions the task needs. A new key has every standard permission until it's limited
- Send
Persona-Versionon every call and anIdempotency-Keyon every POST. A replayed key returns the first result, including a 500 - Treat redact calls as irreversible. They permanently delete personal data and cascade to downstream objects
- Stay under 300 requests a minute in production, read
RateLimit-RemainingandQuota-Remaining, and back off on 429 because rejected requests still count - Use
fieldsandincludeto cut response size. Through MCP these parameters aren't exposed, and only 14 tools takefilter
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Middesk or Persona?
Persona scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against Middesk's 59 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.
Do Middesk and Persona need an API key?
Middesk takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Persona needs an API key.
Can an agent call Middesk and Persona without installing anything?
Yes. Middesk has a hosted endpoint at https://api.middesk.com/v1 and Persona at https://mcp.withpersona.com.
Other comparisons with Middesk or Persona
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/middesk-vs-persona.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/middesk.json·/api/v1/tools/persona.json - From a terminal
anchor compare middesk persona(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "middesk", "b": "persona"}at/mcp, no key