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ZOREAL

ZOREAL Identify

Alternatives to Plaid

Plaid is a financial data network that also sells two identity products: Identity Verification, which checks a new user’s typed details against records, reads an uploaded government ID and matches a live selfie to it inside Plaid Link, and Plaid Identity, which confirms name, phone, email and address from the user’s linked bank account. ZOREAL Identify is a "Continue with ZOREAL" sign-in on standard OpenID Connect, backed by a credential the person enrols once from a government document chip in the ZOREAL ID app. This page sets a per-session onboarding verification, whose result the business keeps, beside a reusable login credential the person carries.

Information last reviewed 10 September 2026. Compared: Plaid Identity Verification at onboarding, with Plaid Identity as a bank-sourced data check, against ZOREAL Identify as a sign-in; Auth, Transactions, Transfer and the rest of Plaid’s financial data products are out of scope.

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Where ZOREAL Identify and Plaid differ

  • The guarantee

    ZOREAL guarantees that the person is real, is not an AI, exists, and is linked to a government-issued ID. One hundred percent, not ninety-nine point nine. ZOREAL is the only solution in the world today that can give that guarantee.

  • Document image or document chip

    Plaid’s Documentary Verification reads the uploaded document image and its Selfie Check verifies "a genuine, live video of a real human" matching it; chip reading is not stated in the Identity Verification product page or docs. ZOREAL reads the chip over NFC, re-runs Passive Authentication against its own trust store built from the ICAO master list, and face-matches a liveness capture to the chip portrait.

  • A session result or a reusable credential

    Plaid returns a result per Identity Verification session to the business that ran it, and a retry is billed like a new session. ZOREAL issues the person a credential once; the same ZOREAL ID logs in at every relying party, with a pairwise identifier per sector and consent remembered per sector.

  • Free allowances on both sides, priced differently

    Plaid’s Limited Production allows up to 200 API calls with each product on live data, and Identity Verification is then billed per session event (Anti-Fraud Engine, data source, document check, selfie check) at amounts shown when applying for Production access. ZOREAL’s structure: free to enrol, free tier a logins; only tier b logins charged, with the amounts on the ZOREAL price list.

Side by side

Comparison of ZOREAL Identify and Plaid (Identity Verification and Plaid Identity), from public materials reviewed on 10 September 2026.

AttributeZOREAL IdentifyPlaid
How the claim is madeEnrolment, in the ZOREAL ID app: the document is photographed, its machine-readable zone read and its chip read over NFC. The server re-runs Passive Authentication against its own trust store built from the ICAO Public Key Directory, so the issuing country’s signature over the data is checked on ZOREAL’s side, and the chip proves possession of its private key. A liveness capture with presentation-attack detection is face-matched 1:1 against the chip portrait. The device key is generated in the phone’s hardware, its attestation is verified at registration, and every evidence call carries an app-integrity assertion. Each verified document yields two holder certificates over that key under ZOREAL’s two roots (ECDSA P-384 and ML-DSA-87), one pseudonymous and one carrying the legal name, valid until the document expires. Login: ZOREAL is the OpenID Provider. The holder approves on their phone, a stock OIDC library validates the ID token against ZOREAL’s JWKS, the relying party sets the assurance per request with acr_values, max_age and prompt, and a request that cannot meet its floor is denied, never downgraded. The subject is pairwise per sector, so one ZOREAL ID is reused at every service without being linkable across them; consent is remembered per sector and re-prompted on any new scope.An Identity Verification session in Plaid Link runs an Anti-Fraud Engine check, then Data Source Verification of the typed name, address, date of birth, phone number and ID number "against available records", then optional Documentary Verification of the uploaded document and a Selfie Check that the selfie is "a genuine, live video of a real human" matching it, with SMS verification and watchlist screening through Monitor. Plaid Identity instead reads name, phone, email and address from the linked bank account and matches them to what was submitted.
GuaranteeZOREAL guarantees that the person is real, is not an AI, exists, and is linked to a government-issued ID. One hundred percent, not ninety-nine point nine.Plaid states the Selfie Check verifies "a genuine, live video of a real human" and that Plaid Identity matches fields the user’s bank holds. Chip reading and an iBeta or ISO 30107 test of the Selfie Check are not stated in the public materials we reviewed (Identity Verification product page, docs, trust center).
Who issues the credentialZOREAL is the issuer of the ID card: a reusable identity credential that logs in to other websites, with the person controlling the scopes each login discloses.Plaid issues no credential to the person; each Identity Verification session returns a result to the business that ran it. A reusable identity carried by the person between services is not stated in the public materials we reviewed (the Identity Verification product page and docs, the billing docs, the pricing page, the Identity page, the company page, the trust center and the legal page).
What the relying party receivesTwo halves. Proof that a real human is there: the ID token asserts this is one human (not one account, not one device), with the strength of that claim in a uniqueness field; that a government document chip was read and its authenticity verified, at the month given; and how this session was authenticated, in acr and amr, whether a live human was captured for this login, a registered device key was used, or a session was reused. And, when the relying party requests it and the person consents on the phone, the verified identity: name, birthdate and document details read from the chip, served from userinfo to a confidential client with a verified domain. The person sees every requested claim before approving, and the relying party receives only the scopes it was granted. It is not KYC, not a legal signature, not proof that the person consented freely, and not proof that the person is the one operating the browser.A session result per verification through Link and the API; for Plaid Identity, the name, phone, email and address held by the user’s bank, matched against what was submitted.
Cost to enrolEnrolment in the ZOREAL ID app is always free for the person holding the identity: document scan, chip read and liveness enrollment, re-enrollment, recovery and revocation. Every Tier A login is free without limit on every plan: the pairwise identifier, the assurance block, age-threshold answers and nationality, with 1 client configuration on Free. Answering an identity request is always free for the person.Identity Verification is billed per session event: the Anti-Fraud Engine, Data Source verification (cost varies by the end user’s country), the document check and the selfie check, with a retry billed like a new session. "A price list is not available in the documentation."; amounts are shown on the last step of a Production access request. Limited Production allows up to 200 API calls with each product on live data (US and Canada pricing page, September 2026).
Cost per sign-inEnrolment is free: "The ZOREAL ID app is always free for the person holding the identity, from enrollment to recovery", and "Document scan, chip read and liveness enrollment" is "Always free" on Free and Premium. Every Tier A login is free, without limit, on every plan: the pairwise identifier, the assurance block, age-threshold answers and nationality (openid, zoreal.age and zoreal.nationality, available to every registered client). Tier A logins are never charged. A charge applies only to a qualified Tier B login, where the relying party requests identity disclosure (the profile scopes, name, birthdate and document details, and email, which require a verified domain, a confidential client and client authentication), on Premium: "Identify · Identity disclosure", "Name, birth date and document details", "One charge for name, birth date or document details, even when several are returned"; "Identify · Fresh-liveness login", "Coming soon"; "Content and contract signing authorization", "Coming soon". Client configurations per website or app: 1 on Free, 10 on Premium; private-key JWT and mTLS client authentication on Premium. Premium is priced per user, monthly or yearly, with two months free on yearly billing; every organization member is a paid Premium seat; metered usage is charged separately. Enterprise: contact us. Answering an identity request is always free for the person. Current prices are on the ZOREAL price list at zoreal.com/pricing. ZOREAL Identify is the cheapest way to do KYC in the market: free to enrol, free to check, paid only for the higher disclosure tiers.An OpenID Connect or "sign in with" flow is not stated in the public materials we reviewed (Identity Verification product page and docs, Identity page), so there is no per-sign-in price to quote.
IntegrationStandard OpenID Connect from the provider at id.zoreal.com (discovery, JWKS, token and userinfo endpoints); any stock OIDC library validates the token. One client library per platform: @zoreal/oauth2-react, @zoreal/oauth2-js and @zoreal/oauth2-react-native on npm for the front end, and backends for Node (@zoreal/oauth2-node), Ruby (zoreal-oauth2), Python (zoreal-oauth2), PHP (zoreal/oauth2), Go, Java (com.zoreal:oauth2) and .NET (Zoreal.OAuth2). The React package renders the button and drives the flow itself, with no hosted script and nothing to allowlist in a Content Security Policy. Registration is self-serve in the dashboard (Identify, Assets): redirect addresses, origins and permitted scopes, with domain verification; personal-data scopes require a verified domain and a confidential client.Plaid Link on the web and Plaid’s mobile SDKs for Android and iOS, an API and a dashboard; deployment described as "No-code, hybrid, or fully integrated".
Data handling and retentionThe ID token carries no personal data, ever: a pairwise pseudonym per sector plus the assurance block. Name, birthdate, document fields and email are served only from userinfo, against a ten-minute single-audience access token with no refresh token, and only to a confidential client with a verified domain; a relying party that needs the data again asks the person again. Age is returned as registered yes-or-no thresholds, never an age or a birth year. The document portrait is a separately gated tier and is biometric data under GDPR Article 9 for the relying party that requests it. Consent is remembered per sector and re-prompted on any new scope or claim, and the consent screen shows only what ZOREAL verified about the relying party. ZOREAL, as the OpenID Provider, sees every login: which holder, which relying party, when.Identity Verification retains data about user sessions for as long as the business maintains an active Identity Verification contract with Plaid. The End User Privacy Policy (effective 8 December 2025) states data is retained only as long as it is needed, and for Illinois and Texas residents facial geometry data "will be stored no longer than three years, unless otherwise required by law".
Certifications statedOrganization-level, as zoreal.com lists them for Bynn Intelligence, Inc.: SOC 2 (attestation), PCI DSS (SAQ A), GDPR (data protection), ISO/IEC 27001:2022 (information security certification) and CSA STAR Level One (cloud security self-assessment). No Identify-specific certification or scheme recognition is stated on zoreal.com as of September 2026.Plaid Trust Center: SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 and ISO 27701, as listed in September 2026.

Third-party details on this page reflect what each provider publicly stated on the review date shown above and may have changed since. Where a provider does not state something publicly, this page says so rather than assuming. Statements about what Plaid offers reflect its public materials on the review date; absence of a feature from those materials does not mean it is unavailable. ZOREAL's current prices are on the ZOREAL price list.

Where ZOREAL Identify and Plaid agree

Both verify a government document and a live face before a person is trusted. Plaid’s Documentary Verification reads the uploaded document and its Selfie Check requires a genuine, live video of a real human that matches it; ZOREAL reads the document chip in the ZOREAL ID app and face-matches a liveness capture to the chip portrait. Both treat liveness as a gate rather than a score the business can ignore.

Both publish a retention position. Plaid states that session data is kept while the Identity Verification contract is active and that facial geometry data for Illinois and Texas residents is stored no longer than three years unless the law requires otherwise. ZOREAL states that the ID token carries no personal data, that identity attributes are served only from userinfo against a ten-minute access token, and that the document portrait is a separately gated tier and biometric data under GDPR Article 9 for the relying party that requests it.

Both publish a plan structure with a free allowance: Plaid’s Limited Production gives 200 API calls per product on live data, and ZOREAL’s Free plan gives free enrolment, Tier A logins free without limit and one client configuration. And both sit in different layers, which is why a fintech can use them together: Plaid Identity for bank-account ownership at payment setup, which ZOREAL does not perform, and "Continue with ZOREAL" for a verified-human login.

ZOREAL Identify may fit you if

  • You want the document chip read and its authenticity verified on the provider’s side, with a live face matched to the chip portrait and a hardware-bound device key
  • You want one enrolment reused at every relying party, with a pairwise identifier per sector and no personal data in the ID token by default
  • You want the pricing structure published before the sales call: free to enrol, free tier a logins; only tier b logins charged
  • You want a standard OpenID Connect provider that any stock library validates, with client libraries for the front end and for Node, Ruby, Python, PHP, Go, Java and .NET

Plaid may fit you if

  • You already use Plaid for bank connections and want identity verification billed in the same account
  • You need bank-account ownership confirmed from bank-held name, phone, email and address (Plaid Identity)
  • You want a stated library of 16,000+ ID types across 200 countries and territories inside Plaid Link
  • You want to test with 200 free live API calls per product before committing

Other alternatives to Plaid

35 more vendors compared under ZOREAL Identify, from their own public materials.

All 36 Identify comparisons

Common questions

How we compared

This comparison is based on publicly available information from Plaid’s official website, documentation, pricing and published materials, and on ZOREAL’s own published product pages and pricing, as reviewed on 10 September 2026. Features, pricing and availability may change at any time. Verify current details directly with each provider before deciding.

Nothing on this page is legal advice. Which electronic signature method satisfies which law, what level of identity assurance a regulation requires, and whether a content signature or provenance mark meets a given standard all depend on the jurisdiction and the regulator’s guidance. ZOREAL Sign asserts no legal effect for the signatures it records. Confirm your obligations with qualified counsel before choosing a method.

Sources

ZOREAL is operated by Bynn Intelligence, Inc. and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Plaid. Third-party names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used only to identify the products being compared.

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A product walkthrough, pricing or volume terms, with the ZOREAL team.

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