White label API integration: benefits, drawbacks, and tools

As you look to make your product more valuable for customers and more attractive to prospects, you can leverage a solution that provides white label API integrations.

We’ll break down the benefits and drawbacks of white-labeling integrations. And we'll help you get started in building them by walking through several types of platforms you can use.

But first, let’s align on the definition of a white label API integration.

What is a white label API integration?

It’s an API-based integration between your product and another application that’s powered by a 3rd-party solution. There’s little-to-no explicit mention of the 3rd-party solution powering the integration, making it seem as though it was built and is supported by your engineers.

Related: What is a white label iPaaS?

Pros and cons of white label API integrations

Deciding whether to white label your integrations isn’t always easy. Before you can decide on whether it’s right for your business, you’ll need to carefully weigh the pros and cons of doing it.

Here are some of the benefits of white-labeling API integrations:

• You can provide a better UX. Since the end-to-end integration experience uses your company’s branding, you’re able to provide a more consistent in-app experience for users  

• You can receive less questions and concerns about the 3rd-party solution. Informing customers that you’re working with a 3rd-party integration solution to collect, store, and sync their data might give them anxiety—even when it isn’t warranted. Through white-labeling, these potential concerns can be avoided altogether 

• Your engineering and product teams can appear bigger and more credible. Having customers and prospects believe that your team can build and maintain several customer-facing integrations can convince them that you have enterprise-scale technical resources in-house. This, in turn, can give them confidence that your engineering and product teams can also manage other critical aspects effectively

Unfortunately, white-labeling API integrations can also come with drawbacks. Here are a few to keep in mind:

• Any issues with the 3rd-party solution will be interpreted as issues with your team. In other words, if integrations break, sync data slowly, or experience any other issues, your customers can and will only blame your team

• Can make customers feel misled if they find out later down the line. Some customers want to know whether a 3rd-party is accessing their data from the get-go. Failing to make this information available and easily-accessible can lead them to become upset when they eventually learn about the 3rd-party

Related: Is API integration hard?

White label API integration solutions

Here are a couple integration solutions you could choose from:

Workato

Workato offers an embedded iPaaS that lets you and/or your customers implement product integrations.

Through its white label offering, you can also customize the UI elements of the platform in your product. This includes the colors that are used, the logo that appears, etc.

While its white label offering is fairly simple, building integrations and automations in the platform is anything but. 

The platform forces you to build one integration at a time, and it requires technical expertise to use. Taken together, your engineers will have to invest a lot of their time in learning and using the platform, which negates the benefits of using a 3rd-party tool.

Related: A guide to Workato alternatives 

Pandium

Pandium is an embedded iPaaS that also lets you build and customize an integration marketplace.

You can white label both its integrations and its in-app marketplace, making it seem as though your team is powering the entire integration experience. 

However, like Workato, Pandium’s platform requires technical expertise to use and it doesn’t let you build integrations in batches. As a result, its ability to meet your customers’ and prospects’ integration needs is compromised.

Merge

Merge, the leading universal API platform, lets you add hundreds of integrations to your product through a single integration build. 

Your customers' only direct experience with Merge is when they’re authorizing specific integrations via Merge Link—a UI component that lets your users establish a specific connection. 

White-labeling Merge, therefore, simply involves removing the Merge branding that appears at the bottom of Merge Link. 

Since Merge lets you not only add hundreds of integrations with ease but also maintains them and helps your customer-facing team manage them, the platform offers significantly more reliable and performant integrations compared to solutions like Workato and Pandium.

‍You can learn more about white-labeling your integrations with Merge by scheduling a demo with one of our integration experts.

White label API integration FAQ

In case you have any more questions on white label integrations, we’ve addressed several more below.

What’s a white label API? 

It’s a specific set of endpoints from an API provider that consumers can access and leverage in their product without having to use the API provider’s branding in any way.

What’s white label authentication?

It’s when a platform offers an in-app authentication and authorization process for an integration that doesn’t compromise on the platform’s branding. 

Our earlier example of Merge Link also serves as an instance of white label authentication.

What are the challenges of providing white label integrations?

Most product integration solutions simply don’t offer the ability to white label their integrations. And even if they do, it's likely an expensive add-on, which can deter you from using it.

What’s the difference between white label integrations and SDKs?

A white label integration refers to a connection between a company and a 3rd-party platform that doesn’t compromise on the former's branding, while software development kits (SDKs) consist of a pre-packaged set of tools and functionality that can help you build integrations, among other items, like applications.

What’s the difference between an API integration that’s white labeled and one that isn’t?

An API integration that’s white labeled is when a platform offers a customer-facing integration that doesn’t use the underlying API provider’s branding, while an API integration that isn’t white labeled is when the platform uses the API provider’s branding in some capacity.

How does white label differ from an API?

An API is a specific method of accessing data and functionality from a 3rd-party application, while white label refers to the concept of taking something that another party created and packaging and distributing it as though you made it yourself.