Collectly vs Waystar (2026)
Two revenue cycle platforms that now overlap at the front of the visit. Waystar runs the payer side rails at scale, clearing claims, eligibility and payment transactions for about one million providers. Its AltitudeAI layer adds denial prioritization, drafted appeals and, since 2026, agentic features, and the platform also covers patient payments and financial clearance. Collectly works the patient's financial path across the visit, from check in, an eligibility and benefits agent and cost estimates to statements, payment plans and Billie, its billing agent. If denials and payer lag dominate your receivable, Waystar reaches the bigger pool. If the balance is increasingly owed by patients and you want one patient facing layer from eligibility to payment, Collectly is built for that.
- One patient facing layer from eligibility and cost estimates to statements, payment plans and a billing agent in more than 250 languages.
- A bidirectional Epic integration listed in Connection Hub, and more than 20 record and practice management systems.
- Patient financing options, through a Sunbit partnership and the Pledge Health acquisition, both in 2026.
- The clearinghouse rails at scale: claims, eligibility and payment transactions for about one million providers, with integrations to more than 500 record and practice management systems.
- AI inside the platform: denial prioritization by expected value, drafted appeal packages, charity care screening and propensity to pay scoring.
- Attestations stated in a public filing: HITRUST, SOC 2 Type II and PCI DSS Level 1.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. Collectly and Waystar are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials and the regulatory record, under the AI Health Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| Fact | Collectly | Waystar |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | RCM & Prior Auth AI | RCM & Prior Auth AI |
| Founded | Not recorded | 2017 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California | Lehi, Utah and Louisville, Kentucky |
| Website | collectly.co | waystar.com |
Side by Side
Select any grade to read the note behind it.
Product updates
The latest logged changes from each vendor, newest first, each linked to its source.
Waystar
-
Product / capability
Waystar launched agentic AI capabilities inside its AltitudeAI platform, moving from software that scores and routes work to agents that carry the work out.
Source
Each vendor in one paragraph
Written to be quoted whole. Each paragraph opens the AI Health Index profile of the vendor: what the product is, who buys it and what it does.
Collectly sells AI revenue cycle automation for patient financial work across the visit. Before the visit, pre-visit intake automation handles digital check-in, insurance card capture, coverage checks, demographic validation and consents. An AI eligibility and benefits agent verifies coverage, retrieves benefits from clearinghouses and payer portals, interprets copays, deductibles and carve-outs, and identifies prior authorization requirements, and AI cost estimation produces patient responsibility and good faith estimates.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
Waystar's AltitudeAI capabilities on its healthcare revenue cycle platform, which clears claims, eligibility and payment transactions for about one million providers and roughly 60 percent of US patients.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
Questions buyers ask
How are Collectly and Waystar priced and sold?
Collectly sells through demo requests to medical groups, health systems, billing and revenue cycle companies (which white-label it) and record system vendors (which embed it); the demo form asks for provider count.
Waystar's annual report on Form 10-K says contracts generally combine a subscription fee with a volume-based component, sometimes only one; initial terms run two or three years and renew automatically for one-year terms with standard price escalators; billing is monthly; and more than 99 percent of revenue is recurring subscription or predictable volume. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 25, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How do Collectly and Waystar handle patient data?
Collectly describes encryption, access control, audit logs and card tokenization through its processor. It also says Billie 'has been trained on hundreds of thousands of real-world patient billing questions', without saying whose conversations those were, whether they were de-identified, or whether customers' patient interactions continue to train the agent.
For Waystar, the website privacy policy covers site visitors, keeping web analytics data 24 months and no longer than five years, and says support staff are trained and bound by confidentiality. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 25, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Which settings and specialties do Collectly and Waystar cover?
Collectly sells to solo and group practices, health systems, urgent care, billing and revenue cycle companies and record system vendors, and reports more than 3,000 healthcare facilities.
In Waystar's case, the company's filing reports more than 30,000 client organizations and about one million providers, with revenue split roughly 30 percent hospitals and health systems to 70 percent ambulatory and alternate sites. The AI features run across that platform; results specific to them are not broken out by setting. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 25, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
What evidence is published for Collectly and Waystar?
A 2021 case study published through the athenahealth marketplace credits Collectly at CleanSlate Centers, an addiction treatment provider with 76 centers in 10 states, with patient collections up by over 250 percent, paper statements down by over 80 percent and a return on investment above 650 percent.
With Waystar, a 2023 third-party survey reports 94 percent satisfaction with automation and EHR integrations. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 25, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers.
Both records were reviewed on this site in September 2026. Both now retrieve benefits from payers, so the old line between payer side and patient side has blurred; compare them on the workflow you need.
Waystar scores propensity to pay, and Collectly's billing agent escalates to staff with no published rule for when. Outreach that performs unevenly lands hardest on the patients least able to absorb a balance, so ask both how they check for it.