Clerk vs WorkOS: pricing, quotas & features (2026)
User management and authentication as a service
vs. The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS
Data sourced from vendor documentation · Last updated June 2026
Summary
Clerk and WorkOS are both auth platforms, addressing the same core use case with different implementation philosophies and trade-offs. Both offer a free tier, making it easy to prototype without a credit card. Clerk's paid plans start at $25/month, lower than WorkOS's entry point at $2500/month. Clerk has a broader documented feature set (15 vs 13 features). Budget-sensitive teams will find Clerk easier to justify early on. All pricing and quota data below is sourced from Clerk and WorkOS's official documentation — not generated by AI or estimated.
Clerk vs WorkOS: Comparativa de precios, cuotas y características (2026)
En esta comparativa analizamos Clerk y WorkOS lado a lado — incluyendo precios mensuales, límites del tier gratuito, características técnicas, cuotas de uso (almacenamiento, transferencia, usuarios activos mensuales) y los interfaces de desarrollo disponibles. Todos los datos proceden de la documentación oficial de cada proveedor, no de respuestas generadas por IA.
Clerk es una plataforma de la categoría auth — User management and authentication as a service. Ofrece 4 tiers de precio: Free gratuito, Pro desde $25/mes, Business desde $300/mes, Enterprise (personalizado). Su catálogo en Staxly documenta 15 características y 19 interfazes para desarrolladores.
WorkOS pertenece a la categoría auth — The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. Ofrece 3 tiers de precio: AuthKit Free gratuito, AuthKit Scale desde $2500/mes, Enterprise / Annual Credits (personalizado). Su catálogo documenta 13 características y 9 interfazes para desarrolladores.
A continuación encontrarás los tiers de precio completos de ambas plataformas, una matriz de cuotas del tier gratuito (transferencia, almacenamiento, MAU, llamadas a la API y otros límites), el listado completo de características y los interfaces (CLI, SDKs, REST, GraphQL, MCP) disponibles para integrar cada servicio.
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Pricing tiers
Clerk
WorkOS
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing hobby on Clerk vs authkit-free on WorkOS.
| Metric | Clerk | WorkOS |
|---|---|---|
| mao | 100 orgs/month | — |
| mau | 50000 users/month | — |
| mau included | — | 1000000 users/month |
| organizations | — | unlimited orgs |
| sso connections | 0 connections | — |
| staging environments | — | free envs |
Features
Clerk · 15 features
- Account Portal — Hosted sign-in/user profile pages at accounts.yourapp.com — zero UI code, fully …
- Bot Protection — Cloudflare Turnstile CAPTCHA integrated into sign-up.
- Clerk Billing — Built-in Stripe-powered billing: subscriptions, plans, proration — ties directly…
- Enterprise SSO (SAML/OIDC) — SAML and OIDC for enterprise customers. Per-domain connection. Pro+ (1 included)…
- Impersonation — Act as a user from dashboard to debug. Logged.
- JWT Templates — Custom JWT issuance for third-party backends (Supabase, Hasura, Firebase, Convex…
- Machine Tokens (M2M) — API keys and machine tokens for service-to-service auth in addition to user sess…
- Multi-Factor Auth — TOTP (authenticator apps), SMS OTP, backup codes. Forced or optional per user.
- Organizations (B2B) — Multi-tenant orgs with roles, permissions, invitations, domain allowlist, and pe…
- Passkeys (WebAuthn) — Passwordless passkey sign-in with per-device biometrics.
- Prebuilt Components — Drop-in React components: <SignIn/>, <SignUp/>, <UserButton/>, <OrganizationSwit…
- Sessions — Server-side session tokens. Sliding expiration by default; configurable absolute…
- User Management — Full user CRUD, metadata (public/private/unsafe), email/phone verification, ban/…
- Waitlist Mode — Collect sign-ups before opening the app. Approve waitlist entries to activate ac…
- Webhooks — Events: user.created/updated/deleted, session.created, organization.* — delivere…
WorkOS · 13 features
- Audit Logs — Standardized audit log pipeline with streaming to SIEMs (Splunk, Datadog, Sumo L…
- AuthKit — Complete drop-in user management UI + hosted auth flows. Built on top of WorkOS.
- Directory Sync — SCIM-based user provisioning/deprovisioning from Okta, Azure AD, Google Workspac…
- FGA (WorkOS) — Fine-grained authorization based on Google Zanzibar / OpenFGA.
- Magic Auth — Passwordless email codes + links. Good alternative to password auth for B2B.
- Multi-Factor Auth — TOTP + SMS MFA enrollment and verification APIs.
- Organizations — Multi-tenant B2B primitive. Attach SSO/Directory/Audit to specific customer orgs…
- Passkeys — WebAuthn passkeys as a first-class factor.
- Radar — Fraud protection: device fingerprinting + risk scoring at signup and login.
- Single Sign-On — Plug-and-play SAML 2.0 + OIDC SSO with 30+ identity providers pre-mapped.
- User Management — REST API + webhooks for user CRUD, email verification, sessions, MFA, metadata.
- Vault — Secret storage for tokens + per-tenant credentials.
- Widgets — Embeddable admin portals (SSO setup, directory mapping) that your customers self…
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Clerk | WorkOS |
|---|---|---|
| SDK | @clerk/astro, @clerk/backend / @clerk/clerk-sdk-node, @clerk/chrome-extension, @clerk/clerk-expo, @clerk/clerk-js (vanilla), @clerk/clerk-react, @clerk/clerk-react-native, @clerk/nextjs, @clerk/nuxt, @clerk/remix, @clerk/tanstack-start, @clerk/vue, clerk-sdk-go, clerk-sdk-python, clerk-sdk-ruby | @workos-inc/authkit-nextjs, workos-go, workos-java, workos-node, workos-php, workos-python, workos-ruby |
| REST | Backend REST API, Frontend API | WorkOS REST API |
| MCP | Clerk MCP | — |
| OTHER | Webhooks (Svix) | Webhooks |
Key takeaways
- Both Clerk and WorkOS offer a free tier — Clerk ("Free") and WorkOS ("AuthKit Free") — with no credit card required to start.
- The entry-level paid plan is $25/month for Clerk (Pro) vs. $2500/month for WorkOS (AuthKit Scale).
- Clerk has a broader documented feature set (15 features) vs. WorkOS (13 features) in Staxly's catalog.
- Developer integrations differ: only Clerk offers MCP.
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