FusionAuth vs Clerk Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
| FusionAuth | Clerk | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $162/mo | $25/mo |
| Number of plans | 4 | 4 |
| Free plan | ||
| Free trial | — | — |
| Pricing model | usage-based | hybrid |
Community
- Core authentication standards & features most apps need
- Community support (forums, Slack, Github)
- Self-host FusionAuth on your own infrastructure for free.
Starter
Popular- Premium authentication features
- Breached Password Detection, authentication, Machine-to-Machine, and more
- Community support (forums, Slack, Github)
- Includes basic hosting
Essentials
- Advanced connectivity, MFA, & security features
- Custom OAuth scopes
- Email support (24 to 48 hour response time during business hours)
- Includes business hosting
Enterprise
- Advanced threat detection
- SSO Tenant Manager
- 24/7 support (email and phone)
- Private Slack channel (with contract)
- Solution architect guidance
- Advanced governance & contract requirements
- Includes High availability hosting
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
- Priority support
- Application and Admin Logs
Enterprise
- Annual committed use discounts
- 99.99% Uptime SLA
- Enterprise SSO for workspace
- Premium support SLA + dedicated slack channel
- Application and Admin Logs
- Log sink destinations
- HIPAA compliance available with BAA
- Onboarding & migration support
- Custom security questionnaires
FusionAuth vs Clerk FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- Clerk is the cheaper option, starting at $25/mo vs $162/mo for FusionAuth.
- 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?
- Different approach here. FusionAuth uses usage-based pricing, while Clerk goes with hybrid. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. FusionAuth: FusionAuth sits in the mid-market auth space competing with Auth0 and Okta CIC, and they're clearly positioning as the more developer-friendly, cost-transparent alternative. At $162/mo for 1K MAUs, they're not the cheapest (Clerk and Stytch have aggressive lower tiers) but they undercut Auth0 significantly at scale, targeting teams that got burned by Auth0's pricing as they grew. Clerk: Sitting comfortably in the mid-market between bare-bones DIY auth (Firebase, Supabase Auth) and heavyweight enterprise identity platforms like Okta or Auth0, Clerk's $25 entry point undercuts Auth0's typical dev-tier pricing while still packing in prebuilt UI components. They're chasing developer-first teams who want auth solved fast without babysitting infrastructure, not enterprises with existing IAM investments.
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