Originally published at finovo.tech/blog/mfd-vanilla-vs-enterprise — the canonical version has the latest updates.
India has 250,000+ registered MFDs (Mutual Fund Distributors). They range from a single CFP working from home to large national distributors with hundreds of sub-ARNs. The platform a 1-ARN MFD needs is fundamentally different from what a 200-ARN distributor needs — and trying to use one for the other ends in tears.
When to pick MFD vanilla
MFD vanilla fits if:
- You're a single ARN (one license, one MFD)
- < 2,000 customers
- You're fine with a Finovo-branded customer app (or your customers don't notice / care)
- You don't have sub-distributors under you
- Pricing pressure is on per-AUM cost, not feature surface
The vanilla product gives you BSE StAR Connect (transactions), customer self-signup for SIPs / SWPs / switches, an iOS + Android app the customer downloads, statement-on-demand, and the full KYC + re-KYC pipe.
It onboards in about a week. You log in, configure your name and ARN, customers can sign up the next day.
When to pick MFD enterprise
MFD enterprise fits if:
- You have multiple ARNs (or sub-distributors)
- You want a custom-branded app on your domain (App Store + Play Store under your developer account)
- You have a hierarchy: master distributor → regional → individual ARN
- You need per-distributor commission splits
- You have your own RM team that needs a desktop dashboard
- > 5,000 customers, or you'll be there within 6 months
Enterprise gives you the full vanilla feature set plus:
- White-label: your logo, your domain, your design tokens, your push-notification certs
- Sub-ARN hierarchy: every customer is tagged to the ARN that brought them in; commissions split automatically
- Per-region commission overrides (when sub-ARNs negotiate slightly different splits)
- Desktop RM dashboard (separate from the customer app)
- Custom domain mobile-app deep linking
- HRMS for your RMs (attendance, sales targets, pipeline)
- A dedicated migration engineer for the first 90 days
The hidden cost of starting on the wrong tier
Most MFDs we work with started on a vanilla product (often a competitor's), grew past 3,000 customers, and then realized they needed sub-ARN logic — at which point they had to migrate every customer. The migration is doable but takes 6-8 weeks of disruption.
Rule of thumb: if you'll be at 5K customers within 6 months, start on enterprise. The marginal cost vs. vanilla pays for itself in the migration you didn't have to do.
What "white-label app" really means
The most-requested feature for enterprise is the white-label mobile app. People often underestimate what's involved:
- App Store + Play Store accounts in the distributor's name (not Finovo's)
- App-store screenshots, copy, age-rating per their listing
- Apple Developer enterprise certs for code-signing
- Android upload key + Play Console permissions
- Push-notification credentials (APNs + FCM) per app
- App-tracking-transparency consent (iOS)
We handle the build pipeline, the cert management, the per-version review submission. The distributor's marketing team owns the listing copy. First app release is typically 3 weeks; subsequent updates are 2-4 days.
What stays the same
The actual transaction engine (BSE StAR), the AMC integrations, the KYC pipe, the SEBI reporting — all the same code. You're not losing engineering quality going to vanilla; you're just choosing how much of the surrounding infrastructure to take.
Pricing shape
- Vanilla: flat per-customer monthly + per-transaction. Cheap until you grow.
- Enterprise: platform fee + per-transaction (no per-customer). Cheaper at scale.
The breakeven for most distributors lands somewhere between 8K and 12K customers.
For a deeper dive, see our how to become mutual fund distributor india.
For a deeper dive, see our best app for mutual fund distributor.
For a deeper dive, see our how to start mutual fund distribution.
Migration path
Vanilla → enterprise is a no-code migration: same backend, new app shell + admin tools provisioned. Customer accounts persist, transaction history persists, ARN tagging gets re-applied. Typical downtime: zero (the new app ships alongside the old one for 30 days; old app is force-updated to the new one).
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