WorkOS vs Clerk pricing
Both are in authentication & identity apis. WorkOS is billed per connection / mau-based; Clerk is billed mau-based. Numbers below are copied from each vendor's pricing page.
WorkOSFree tier or trial
- Free tier
- Up to 1M MAU on AuthKit; $125/connection for SSO/SCIM
- Billed
- Per connection / MAU-based
- Best for
- Enterprise SSO & SCIM for B2B
- Verified
- Jun 27, 2026
ClerkFree tier or trial
- Free tier
- 50k MAU (monthly retained users)
- Billed
- MAU-based
- Best for
- Embeddable auth UI for React/Next.js
- Verified
- Jun 27, 2026
WorkOS plans
| Plan | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Pay as You Go | Usage-based | Self-serve, automatic volume discounts, quick deployment, dedicated Slack support |
| Annual Credits (Enterprise) | Custom | Pre-pay discounts, contractual 99.99% uptime SLA, guided migration, guaranteed support |
| AuthKit (User Management) | Free up to 1M MAUs, then $2,500/mo per additional 1M MAUs | Email+password, social login, passkeys, MFA, magic auth, enterprise SSO |
| Single Sign-On / Directory Sync | $125 per connection/mo (volume discounts to $50 at 101–200) | Per-connection pricing; 16–30 conns $100 ea, 31–50 $80, 51–100 $65, 201+ custom |
| Audit Logs | $125/mo per SIEM stream + $99/mo per 1M events retained | Log streaming to SIEM plus event retention pricing |
| Radar (Bot & Fraud Protection) / Custom Domain | Radar: free first 1k checks then $100/50k; Custom Domain $99/mo | Fraud/bot checks and CNAME custom domains for AuthKit/Admin Portal/emails |
- Per-connection SSO/Directory Sync pricing ($125/connection/mo) scales with customer count, not revenue, the most common complaint
- A single SSO customer can cost more than a SaaS vendor's own lowest-tier plan, blocking SSO-on-all-tiers strategies
- Audit log and SIEM streaming add-ons stack additional monthly costs
Source: https://workos.com/pricing
Clerk plans
| Plan | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Hobby (Free) | $0/mo | Free tier; first 50,000 monthly retained users (MRUs) included free in every app. |
| Pro | $25/mo ($20/mo annual) | 50,000 MRUs included; overage $0.02/MRU (50k-100k), dropping to $0.018, $0.015, $0.012 at higher tiers. |
| Business | $300/mo ($250/mo annual) | Higher-tier plan for scaling teams; 50,000 MRUs included with same tiered overage pricing. |
| Enterprise | Custom (annual only) | Volume MAU discounts, negotiated rates, enterprise SLAs and support. |
| B2B Authentication add-on | $100/mo ($85/mo annual) | Unlimited organization members, custom roles, enterprise connection linking, verified domains. |
| Administration / Billing add-ons | $100/mo admin · 0.7% of billing volume | Unlimited user impersonations (base = 5/mo); Billing add-on charges 0.7% of subscription volume. |
- Security-adjacent and B2B features (org management, unlimited impersonation, admin) gated behind $100/mo add-ons
- Costs can climb fast at scale once past the free MRU allotment for large user bases
Source: https://clerk.com/pricing