by ClerkAuthentication and user management
Prebuilt sign-in and user management, free for 50,000 monthly retained users, with bot and breached-password protection on every plan.
Ready-made sign-in and user management, free for 50,000 retained users, with SSO and MFA from $25 a month at published prices.
Clerk replaces the sign-up, sign-in and profile screens you would otherwise build, with APIs and prebuilt UIs on every plan. It bills only users who come back at least a day after signing up, so one-time sign-ups do not count, and it puts bot protection, account lockout and breached-password checks on the free plan.
Against 3 other products we reviewed in Authentication and user management: what you pay for with each, the five access facts, the plan limits we recorded and each review's bottom line. The note under the table says how each one was checked.
| Metric | Clerk | Supabase Auth | Firebase Authentication | WorkOS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Saves engineering timeReady-made sign-in and user management, free for 50,000 retained users, with SSO and MFA from $25 a month at published prices. | Worth the price100,000 monthly active users on the $25 Pro plan, SSO priced per user, and SOC 2, ISO 27001 and a HIPAA BAA on the self-serve Team plan. | Worth the priceSign-in that plugs into Firebase and Google Cloud, free to 50,000 monthly users, with SAML at $0.015 per user and a self-serve Google Cloud BAA. | Saves engineering timeEnterprise SSO and directory sync at a published $125 per connection, on top of user management that is free for up to 1 million monthly users. |
| Overall score | 8.2 | 9.3Best | 8.4 | 7.9 |
| Free option | Free plan | Free plan | Free plan | Free plan |
| Card to start | No card needed | –Not measured | No card needed | No card needed |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $25/mo | $25/mo | $0.0055/MAU above 50,000 | $125/SSO connection/mo |
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Usage-based | Usage-based | Usage-based |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices |
| Free plan | 50,000 MRU per app, no card | 50,000 MAU; paused after 1 week inactive | 50,000 MAU; Spark capped at 3,000 a day | 1,000,000 MAU, no card until production |
| Entry paid plan at 10,000 users | $25/mo (Pro), $20 billed annually | $25/mo (Pro), 100,000 MAU included | $0 (Blaze), 50,000 MAU at no cost | $0 (users free up to 1M) |
| Enterprise SSO | 1 connection on Pro, then $75/mo each | 50 SSO users on Pro, then $0.015 each | 50 SAML/OIDC users free on Blaze, then $0.015 each | $125/mo per connection (1–15), down to $65 at 51–100 |
| SOC 2 report | Type 2, on Business ($300/mo) | Type 2, on Team ($599/mo) | SOC 2 (Google), via Compliance Reports Manager | Type II, from the Trust Center on request |
| HIPAA BAA | Enterprise plan | Team plan, paid add-on | Google Cloud BAA, accepted in the console | Enterprise plans |
| Data region | US only | 17 AWS regions, EU included | US only | US (per the DPA) |
| Log retention on the entry paid plan | 7 days of application logs (Pro) | 7 days of auth audit logs (Pro) | 30 days in Cloud Logging (activity logs, opt-in) | 90 days of events via the Events API |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, Clerk offers the largest free allowance here and clear prices from the first user to SSO. Check US-only hosting and the plan that unlocks the SOC 2 report against your customers’ requirements. | From its public pages, Supabase Auth is the least expensive per user of the three and the only one with a BAA on a self-serve plan. It fits best when the rest of your app runs on Supabase. | From its public pages, Firebase Authentication is the least expensive route here to SAML SSO and a self-serve BAA, inside the Firebase platform. Check US-only processing and the protections it does not list. | From its public pages, WorkOS offers the largest free user allowance here and clear per-connection prices for enterprise SSO. Budget $125 a month per SSO customer and check US-only hosting. |
Evidence: Clerk: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Supabase Auth: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Firebase Authentication: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; WorkOS: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
Review from public pages
Written from Clerk's public pages (pricing, security or privacy, and docs) as read on Oct 15, 2026. We did not sign up, and no hands-on run is published yet.
We read Clerk's pricing and security pages on Oct 15, 2026; we did not sign up for this review. The pricing page leads with the unit: Clerk bills monthly retained users, counting a user only when they return 24 hours or more after signing up. Hobby is free for 50,000 of them per app with no credit card; Pro is $25 a month, or $20 billed annually.
The page is detailed down to the overage tiers, the price of each extra SSO connection and per-SMS fees. Security basics are not held back for paid plans: bot protection, account lockout and breached-password checks are on Hobby, while MFA, passkeys and the first SSO connection start on Pro.
The security page is a status table that includes what Clerk does not have. SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA are held since May 2022; the SOC 2 report comes with the Business plan and the BAA with Enterprise. ISO 27001 is not held, and regional data residency is not offered: data is hosted in the US, with EU, UK and Swiss data transferred under the Data Privacy Framework.
Hobby is free for 50,000 monthly retained users per app, with no credit card.
vs Auth0: Auth0’s free plan covers 25,000 monthly active users.
Bot protection, account lockout and breached-password checks are included on Hobby.
vs Auth0: Auth0 lists bot detection as an Enterprise add-on and breached-password detection from Professional.
One connection on Pro, then $75/mo each up to 15 and $60/mo each up to 100.
vs Auth0: Auth0’s extra connections start at $100 a month on its B2B plans.
Full user data exports are listed as included on all plans.
It states what Clerk does not hold, including ISO 27001 and regional data residency, so a review has its answers without a ticket.
Clerk does not offer region selection; EU, UK and Swiss data is transferred to the US under the Data Privacy Framework.
The security page says Clerk is not ISO 27001 certified; its infrastructure providers are.
The report is available from the $300/mo Business plan; the HIPAA BAA needs Enterprise.
Hobby does not include MFA or passkeys.
Workaround: Pro features can be tried in a development instance before upgrading, according to the pricing FAQ.
Clerk bills monthly retained users per app. Hobby is free up to 50,000; past that the FAQ says you must upgrade, with a one-month grace period. Pro is $25 a month ($20 billed annually) and Business $300 ($250 annually); both include 50,000, then $0.02 each up to 100,000, $0.018 to 1 million, $0.015 to 10 million and $0.012 beyond.
What raises the bill: SSO connections beyond the first at $75/mo each (2–15), satellite domains at $10/mo, SMS at $0.01 per message in the US and Canada, extra Business seats at $20/mo, and the B2B and Administration Enhanced add-ons at $100/mo each. Directory Sync connections start billing on Jan 1, 2027.
The pricing page lists full user data exports on every plan and says you can export user data from the dashboard at any time without assistance; migration assistance is part of Enterprise.
From its public pages, Clerk offers the largest free allowance here and clear prices from the first user to SSO. Check US-only hosting and the plan that unlocks the SOC 2 report against your customers’ requirements.
| Limit | As recorded |
|---|---|
| Free plan | 50,000 MRU per app, no card |
| Entry paid plan at 10,000 users | $25/mo (Pro), $20 billed annually |
| Enterprise SSO | 1 connection on Pro, then $75/mo each |
| SOC 2 report | Type 2, on Business ($300/mo) |
| HIPAA BAA | Enterprise plan |
| Data region | US only |
| Log retention on the entry paid plan | 7 days of application logs (Pro) |
Read from the vendor's public pages on Oct 15, 2026. No hands-on run is published yet. How we check
We have not published a sign-up run for Clerk yet. The access facts above were read from its sign-up and pricing pages on Oct 15, 2026.
We have not published API calls for Clerk yet.
Clerk lists 4 plans. The cheapest paid plan, Pro, costs $25/mo.
Prices as listed, USD, excluding tax; observed 2026-10-15.
Source: clerk.com pricing page. Prices change; the observed date above is when our agent read them.
We read the pricing, security and docs pages of three authentication services on the same day and scored them on the same six indicators. What each one sells, what 10,000 users and five SSO connections cost, and who should pick which.
