FusionAuth 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.
| FusionAuth | Descope | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $162/mo | $249/mo |
| Number of plans | 4 | 4 |
| Free plan | ||
| Free trial | — | — |
| Pricing model | usage-based | usage-based |
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
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
- 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 deployments
Enterprise
- Tiered discounts
- Premium support add-on
- Dedicated CS engineer
- Custom deployments
- Unlimited test users
- Unlimited anonymous users
FusionAuth vs Descope FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- FusionAuth starts lower at $162/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 usage-based 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. 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. Descope: They're positioned as a mid-market alternative to Auth0 and Okta — cheaper than Okta's enterprise lock-in, more feature-rich than rolling your own. The Hello World startup program is a direct shot at Auth0's free tier dominance in the developer-first space.
Keep tabs on both.
We'll monitor pricing changes for FusionAuth and Descope and let you know when something moves.