Paragon is an embedded integration platform as a service (iPaaS) that lets you integrate with your customers’ applications and build workflow automations that work across the connected systems.

Like other embedded iPaaS solutions, the platform offers pre-built connectors, a white label UX, basic integration monitoring features, and the ability to host the integrations either on the cloud or on-premises.

To better understand whether the platform is the right fit for scaling your product integrations, we’ll review Paragon’s pricing model and some of the issues it presents.

Note: This article was written on 2/19. The information presented here can change in the future.

Overview on Paragon’s pricing

Paragon currently offers two pricing plans: Pro and Enterprise.

Neither plan offers specifics on pricing, so you can’t find out how much Paragon will cost until you connect with their sales team. That said, they currently charge based on Connected Users (i.e., connected customers) for any of their supported integrations.

There are a few notable differences between their Pro and Enterprise plans:

• The Enterprise plan offers more security features and capabilities, like SSO and role-based access control

• The Enterprise plan lets you use Dynamic Field Mapping to sync customers’ custom fields with your product

• The Enterprise plan enables you to keep logs of executed tasks for longer than 90 days as well as access previous tasks via an API endpoint

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Drawbacks of Paragon’s pricing plans

Before moving forward with Paragon, it’s worth considering the following issues in their pricing model.

A financial investment is required beyond a brief 14-day trial

Since Paragon doesn’t offer a free plan, you can only try out their integrations through a 14-day free trial before having to invest in their platform.

Given the stakes involved in picking the right integration partner, this can cause meaningful harm to your business. For example, you might end up finding out that Paragon’s integrations don’t work as well as expected, leading your customers to grow frustrated and, eventually, churn. 

Core security features are only on the Enterprise plan 

Paragon doesn’t offer two essential security features on their Pro plan: single-sign on (SSO) and role-based access control. 

Without these features, your integrations are more likely to be modified in ways that aren’t in your/your customers’ best interests, and sensitive data (e.g., API logs with employees’ social security numbers) is more likely to be made available to inappropriate individuals—leading you to violate data privacy and protection laws and regulations. 

Pricing isn’t transparent

Paragon doesn’t offer any specifics on the cost per connected user. This ambiguity can make your evaluation difficult and can force you to engage in a conversation with their team only to find that their pricing plans are completely out of your budget.

Minimal go-to-market support

As you bring your integrations to market, you’ll need to decide how to price them, support them, market them, and more.

And while Paragon claims to offer onboarding support, this is likely just support for onboarding you to their platform. Your team will still have to navigate the more holistic go-to-market (GTM) questions for your integrations, which can prove difficult and lead to harmful mistakes.

How Merge’s pricing model addresses these issues

Merge, the leading unified API solution, lets you build to a single, aggregated API to access hundreds of integrations for your product.

Here’s how Merge overcomes Paragon’s pricing issues:

Every customer can test Merge for free

Given how important product integrations are, we want every prospect to test drive our integrations and fully trust us before moving forward. That's led us to offer proof of concepts for all of our customers as well as offer a free “Launch” plan to get started.

Every customer can access enterprise-grade security features 

Merge allows customers—regardless of the plan they’re on—to use security features like role-based access control, multi-factor authentication, and Common Model Scopes. This allows all of our customers to follow the principle of least privilege and prevent any security incidents over time.

You can receive best-in-class GTM support

Our post-sales teams have helped companies across industries, regions, and sizes navigate all of their go-to-market questions. 

It’s one of the benefits that often come up in our case studies.

For example, a Senior Product Manager at BILL, Alex Giddens, said this in our recently-published case study with their team:

Ready to scale your customer-facing integrations? Learn how Merge can help by scheduling a demo with our team.