Assessment
Basis Theory is used by software platforms, merchants, and fintechs whose engineers want to store card numbers and other sensitive data in a vault they control and reuse that data with several payment providers. Pinterest, Melio, and MoneyGram are among its customers. Its buyers are developers, with a published starting plan of $995 a month, which puts it at the mid-price end of the market. Its closest competitors are Spreedly, Very Good Security, Evervault, IXOPAY, and PCI-PAL for a different buyer.
The company was founded in 2020 by Brian Billingsley, Colin Luce, and Ben Milne, and Luce is chief executive. A $33M Series B in October 2025 brought total funding to about $50M, and it had more than 40 full-time employees at that point. It holds PCI Level 1, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, and HIPAA credentials, and it leads an Agentic Commerce Consortium of more than 20 companies.
It fits a team that wants to avoid lock-in to one payment processor and can run its own integration. It is a weaker fit for a business that wants a managed checkout from one vendor or needs a phone and chat payment capture tool for agents, because that is a different product.
Rating by criterion
We score each of the eight criteria out of 100.
Sector criteria
Basis Theory is a vault and tokenization layer, not a processor. Branch’s chief technology officer describes this type of service as “Stripe without the processing,” so a merchant still needs payment providers.
A developer-first API, hosted Elements for collecting cards, and a Proxy that reshapes payloads for any provider. Branch built a proof of concept in one day and went live within a few weeks.
PCI Level 1, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, and HIPAA compliance, and the Starter plan includes a PCI Attestation of Compliance.
The vault works with multiple payment providers and partners, and the Agentic Commerce Consortium that Basis Theory leads links more than 20 companies.
Vendor criteria
Product scope has grown from tokens to payment method discovery, data consolidation, and agent-ready payments, and the Series B funds more engineering.
The Enterprise plan adds onboarding, integration help, and P1 support options. The Starter plan is built for self-serve teams.
The Starter plan is published at $995 a month with 20,000 tokens, in a US environment only. Enterprise pricing needs a call.
A Master Services Agreement and terms are posted, but enterprise limits, uptime guarantees, and log access are set per customer.
Against its peers
These are the other companies in payments and acquiring, with their ratings.
User comments
We read the customer stories Basis Theory publishes on its own site to see what buyers value, and set them against the main limit a buyer meets.
Where customer reviews couldn't be found, our analysts attempted to give a voice to buyer sentiment, drawing on real information from review sites, forums and product documentation.
Based on: Basis Theory, pricing page; Basis Theory, Series B announcement.
Fact file
| Legal entity | Basis Theory Inc. |
|---|---|
| Chief executive | Colin Luce, co-founder |
| Series B | $33M, October 14, 2025, led by Costanoa |
| Credentials | PCI Level 1, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, HIPAA |
| Starter plan | $995 a month for 20,000 tokens |
| Team | More than 40 full-time employees, October 2025 |
Source pages
- Basis Theory home page: https://basistheory.com/ (As of October 29, 2026)
- Basis Theory pricing: https://basistheory.com/pricing (As of October 29, 2026)
- Series B announcement: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/basis-theory-raises-33m-to-power-agentic-commerce-and-the-next-era-of-merchant-payments-302582581.html (As of October 29, 2026)
- Branch case study: https://blog.basistheory.com/case-studies/branch (As of October 29, 2026)
- Lithic, Fintech Layer Cake interview: https://www.lithic.com/blog/the-future-of-payments-is-agentic-and-tokenized-with-basis-theory-ceo-colin-luce-and-cto-james-armstead (As of October 29, 2026)
Competitive landscape
Payment vault and tokenization vendors a merchant would compare with Basis Theory.
Basis Theory: 80
- Basis Theory80
- Spreedly79
- PCI-PAL70
- Very Good SecurityNot reviewed
- EvervaultNot reviewed
- IXOPAYNot reviewed
Comparisons
Key leadership
Colin Luce is co-founder and chief executive of Basis Theory, which he started in 2020 with Brian Billingsley and Ben Milne.
How this review was created
This profile gives our own assessment of Basis Theory to companies selecting a Payments & acquiring provider. The Fintech Index receives nothing for featuring a firm, for sponsorship, or for advertising, and Basis Theory gave us no payment for the profile.
The rating equals the average of eight criteria, with every criterion running from 0 to 100. Four address buyer needs in this sector, and four address the company together with its commercial terms.
Ratings are our editorial judgment, made from public information: pricing and legal pages, product documentation, compliance disclosures, public reviews and filings. Fact-checking took place on October 29, 2026.
Joe Emison, CTO, Branch / Basis Theory case study / retrieved October 29, 2026