# MX Platform API vs Plaid

> Plaid scores 69.8 (B) on agent readiness against MX Platform API's 62.5 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do bank accounts. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mx-vs-plaid
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mx-vs-plaid.md (~2,300 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mx-vs-plaid.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mx-vs-plaid.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: 2026-10-08

Plaid scores 69.8 (B) on agent readiness against MX Platform API's 62.5 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do bank accounts.

- MX Platform API: grade B, 62.5/100, rank #336 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mx.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mx.json
- Plaid: grade B, 69.8/100, rank #147 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/plaid.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/plaid.json

## Which one, for what

### MX Platform API (B)

Good for: A US or Canadian bank, credit union or fintech with a signed MX contract that wants aggregation, verification and categorised transactions plus embeddable finance widgets.

Watch for: No public price, SLA or client agreement. Production keys are requested from MX in the Client Dashboard

### Plaid (B)

Good for: US and Canadian account, transaction, identity and income data, with Transfer for payments.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 68 against 63
- Schema & documentation, 93 against 85
- Agent ergonomics, 82 against 74
- Security & auth, 67 against 60
- Maintenance & community, 83 against 71
- Transparency & trust, 79 against 63

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- Open source

Watch for: No prices before a Production application, and Transactions, Liabilities and Investments bill per Item each month until removed


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | MX Platform API | Plaid | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 63 | 68 | Plaid +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 93 | Plaid +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 82 | Plaid +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 60 | 67 | Plaid +7 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 15 | 15 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 83 | Plaid +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 79 | Plaid +16 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **62.5 · B** | **69.8 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | MX Platform API | Plaid |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | MX Technologies, Inc. | Plaid |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.mx.com` | `https://production.plaid.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service. The SDKs and the OpenAPI files on GitHub are MIT | MIT (SDKs and MCP server) |
| Tools exposed | none | 4 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-24 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2025-12-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2025-12-01 |
| 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 | 9 stars, 2.6k npm/wk, 2k PyPI/wk | 586 stars, 1.3M npm/wk, 657k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**MX Platform API.** Three public OpenAPI files, llms.txt, Markdown docs and a written version policy with 18 months of support and `Deprecation` and `Sunset` response headers. No price, client agreement or SLA is published, production keys need MX's approval, every calling IP address must be allowlisted, and the status page records three platform-wide error incidents since 10 July 2026.

**Plaid.** Public OpenAPI file, llms.txt with about 250 entries and a Markdown twin of every docs page. No prices before a Production application, and Transactions, Liabilities and Investments bill per Item each month until removed.

## Before you call either

### MX Platform API

1. Send `Accept: application/json`, `Accept-Version: v20260929` and Basic auth of `client_id:api_key` on every call. A missing version returns 406
2. Ask the owner to allowlist the calling machine's static IP in the Client Dashboard first. Other addresses get 403, and some failed authentication returns 404
3. Test against `https://int-api.mx.com` with institution `mxbank`, username `mxuser` and any password. It has no aggregation throttle
4. Set your own `id` when creating users and members. A repeat returns 409, which makes a retried create safe
5. Expect 202 without an error when a standard aggregation is throttled (three hours by default). Balance checks stop at 5 per member every 2 hours with 429
6. Pass `includes[]=merchant` or `includes[]=category` as an array on transaction lists. A comma-separated string returns 400

### Plaid

1. Point calls at https://sandbox.plaid.com until you hold a Production secret; request shapes are the same
2. Create a sandbox Item with /sandbox/public_token/create and ins_109508, then /item/public_token/exchange, no Link UI needed
3. Use /transactions/sync with its cursor and back off on 429 RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED yourself, since no Retry-After comes back
4. Call /item/remove when the user is done, or subscription products keep billing
5. Send an idempotency_key on `/transfer/authorization/create` so a retried request can't authorise twice

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, MX Platform API or Plaid?

Plaid scores 69.8 (B) on agent readiness against MX Platform API's 62.5 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Do MX Platform API and Plaid need an API key?

MX Platform API needs an API key. Plaid takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call MX Platform API and Plaid without installing anything?

Yes. MX Platform API has a hosted endpoint at https://api.mx.com and Plaid at https://production.plaid.com.

### Are MX Platform API and Plaid open source?

No open-source release is listed for MX Platform API. Plaid is open source (MIT (SDKs and MCP server)).


## For agents

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

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