CONNECT USER DATA TO YOUR AI APP

There are three ways to give your AI product its users' email, calendar, chats and documents: build the OAuth stack yourself, rent integration infrastructure, or plug into a managed personal data layer. AI Passport is the third kind. Here is an honest comparison of all three.

THE THREE OPTIONS

Build it yourself

Full control and no vendor. You own OAuth clients, token rotation, scope reviews, provider terms and deletion requests for as long as the product lives. Right when you need one or two providers, deeply.

Integration platforms

Nango, Merge and Paragon give you managed auth, sync and an authorization widget your users click through. They are built for developers and all three now target AI products. What stays with you: you choose the scopes, not the person the data is about; under GDPR they act as processors while your company remains the controller, so DSARs, deletion and the consent relationship stay yours; and by default a copy of the data usually lives with the platform you chose.

A managed personal data layer

With AI Passport the person holds the account, not your app. They approve category-scoped passes, every access leaves a receipt they can read, and they can revoke or delete without going through you. Your servers never hold the tokens or the raw archive. One flat price.

THE COMPARISON

	Build it yourself	Integration platforms	AI Passport
Who holds the account	You per provider	Your app, per vendor dashboard	The user
Who picks the scopes	You	You (developer-set)	The user approves per category
Who holds tokens and data	You	The platform, and you remain GDPR controller	AI Passport, with the user as the account owner
Revocation	You build it	Through your app or the vendor API	The user, any time, without you
Pricing shape	Engineering time	Nango from $50 per month plus $1 per connection; Merge $650 per month for 10 linked accounts then $65 each; Paragon quote-based	$1,000 per month flat, unlimited users and connectors
What you still build	Everything	Consent UX, compliance, the answer layer	Your product

WHEN TO PICK WHICH

Build it yourself

Build for one or two deep provider integrations.

Nango

Pick Nango when you want code-first rails cheaply and are ready to own consent and compliance.

Merge

Pick Merge when you need many normalized B2B categories like HRIS, ATS and accounting.

AI Passport

Pick AI Passport when you are a consumer AI product that wants user-held consent, receipts and zero data custody.

Per-connection invoices can be cheaper than our flat price at small scale. The case for AI Passport is what you no longer have to build and hold.

FAIR QUESTIONS

Is an integration platform not enough?

They are good plumbing. The person whose data it is still has no account of their own, the scopes are set by the developer, and your company keeps the controller obligations. AI Passport moves the account, the consent and the custody to the user.

Is Nango not open source?

Nango is source-available under the Elastic License 2.0, and free self-hosting covers auth and proxy. Functions, webhooks, the MCP server, SSO and RBAC sit in its enterprise plan.

What does AI Passport cost?

3 months free, 6 for YC companies, then $1,000 a month flat with unlimited users, storage and connectors. The offer is on the startup page.

Can users bring data from other apps?

Yes. A passport is one account the person carries across AI apps. Connect once, grant each app the slice it needs, revoke any of them independently.

START WITH THE STARTUP OFFER

Three months free, six for YC companies, then $1,000 a month flat.

APPLY FOR THE OFFER Read the docs

Vendor pricing and platform facts checked 22 August 2026.