Clerk vs Descope Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
| Clerk pricing | Descope pricing | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $25/mo | $249/mo |
| Number of plans | 4 | 4 |
| Free plan | ||
| Free trial | — | — |
| Pricing model | hybrid | hybrid |
Price is one row. To weigh the features too, use our feature comparison template →
Hobby
- Up to 3 dashboard seats
- Unlimited applications
- 50,000 MRU limit per app
- Up to 5 user impersonations
- APIs and prebuilt UIs for sign-up, sign-in, and user profile
- Custom domain
- Fixed, 7 day session lifetime
- Application Logs
- Machine Authentication
Pro
Popular- 50,000 MRU included per app
- 1 Enterprise connection included
- Remove Clerk branding
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
- Satellite domains
- Custom session lifetime
- Application Logs
- SMS Authentication available
- Machine Authentication
Business
- 10 dashboard seats included
- SOC2 Report
- Enhanced dashboard roles
- Enterprise SSO for workspace
- Priority support
- Application and Admin Logs
Enterprise
- Annual committed use discounts
- 99.99% Uptime SLA
- Premium support SLA + dedicated slack channel
- Application and Admin Logs
- Log sink destinations
- HIPAA compliance available with BAA
- Onboarding & migration support
- Custom security questionnaires
Free Forever
- 7,500 Monthly active users (MAUs)
- 10 Monthly active tenants
- 3 SSO connections
- 1 Federated app (OIDC)
- 5 Test users
- 10,000 M2M exchanges
- 2,000 Monthly active consents (MACs)
- 2,000 Monthly active tokens (MATKs)
- All auth methods
- Role-based access control
- MFA / step-up authentication
- Secure session management
- Self-service admin widgets
- Third-party connectors
- No Descope watermark
- Community support
- 99% SLA
Pro
Popular- 10,000 Monthly active users (MAUs)
- 35 Monthly active tenants
- 5 SSO connections
- 2 Federated apps (SAML / OIDC)
- 100 Test users
- 50,000 M2M exchanges
- 5,000 Monthly active consents (MACs)
- 5,000 Monthly active tokens (MATKs)
- Custom Domain
- Google One Tap
- Custom OIDC Provider
- SSO for third-party apps
- Self-service SSO setup
- CI / CD integration
- Localization
- Web and email support
- SOC 2 reports
- 99.99% SLA
Growth
- 25,000 Monthly active users (MAUs)
- 100 Monthly active tenants
- 10 SSO connections
- Unlimited Federated apps (SAML / OIDC)
- 500 Test users
- 100,000 M2M exchanges
- 10,000 Monthly active consents (MACs)
- 10,000 Monthly active tokens (MATKs)
- Bot protection
- 1M Anonymous users
- Zero-downtime SSO migration
- SCIM provisioning
- Admin Portal
- Fine-grained authorization
- External audit connectors
- Multi-region data residency
- HIPAA BAA
- FedRAMP High add-on
Enterprise
- Tiered discounts
- Premium support add-on
- Dedicated CS engineer
- Custom deployments
- Unlimited test users
- Unlimited anonymous users
Clerk vs Descope FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- Clerk starts lower at $25/mo, compared to $249/mo for Descope.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Both offer free plans, so you can try each without paying. Start with whichever fits your workflow better and upgrade when you hit the limits.
- How do they charge?
- Both use a hybrid model, so the comparison is straightforward — it comes down to features and limits at each price point.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. Clerk: Clerk isn't the cheap auth API (that's more like Supabase Auth or raw Firebase) — it's priced as a premium, dev-experience-first product competing with Auth0 and WorkOS for teams who'll pay more to ship faster. The free tier is generous enough to hook indie devs, but the real target is funded startups who'll outgrow Hobby fast and don't blink at $300+/mo once they're making money. Descope: Descope sits mid-to-premium in the CIAM space — pricier than bare-bones auth libraries but cheaper than enterprise incumbents like Okta or Auth0 at scale. They're going after teams that outgrew DIY auth but aren't ready for a six-figure enterprise contract yet.
Still deciding? See the best Clerk alternatives or the best Descope alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.
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