WorkOS and Auth0 are not like-for-like products, and the biggest practical difference for a B2B SaaS team is what each one counts when it builds your bill. WorkOS is best known as a set of enterprise-readiness features (single sign-on, directory sync through SCIM, audit logs and an admin portal) that you add beside or in front of your existing login, and its enterprise features are commonly priced per connection, meaning per customer identity provider you connect. Auth0 is a full customer identity platform, an identity management as a service (IDaaS) product that handles sign-up, login, tokens and enterprise federation for you, and it is commonly priced by monthly active users (MAU). Which one is cheaper and simpler for you depends on whether your growth shows up as more end users or as more enterprise customers.
This post compares the two models rather than the price lists, because the numbers change often and the shape of the meter is what decides how your costs behave over a few years. Check WorkOS’s pricing page and Auth0’s pricing page for current plan limits; this post describes the shape of each meter, not the numbers.
Who is each product for?
WorkOS is aimed at teams that already have an application and a login, or that want a modern hosted login, and now need to say yes to enterprise buyers. Those buyers ask for SAML or OIDC single sign-on with their own identity provider (Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, Google Workspace), for SCIM provisioning so that joiners and leavers are mirrored automatically, and for audit logs. WorkOS packages these as APIs and offers an admin portal that your customer’s IT administrator can use to configure the connection without waiting on your engineers. Our Keycloak vs WorkOS comparison goes deeper on that shape.
Auth0 is aimed at teams that want one platform to own customer identity end to end: sign-up and login screens, social login, multi-factor authentication, token issuance, an extensibility layer called Actions, and enterprise connections for the customers that need them. Auth0 also has a B2B-oriented feature set called Organizations, which we cover in Auth0 B2B Connect vs Keycloak Organizations. If you want a broader look at where Auth0 sits against its peers, the Keycloak vs Auth0 comparison guide is the place to start.
WorkOS is usually bought to close enterprise deals, and Auth0 is usually bought to run the whole customer login. The two can overlap, and teams do use them together, but the purchase decisions are different.
How do the billing models differ?
There are three meters worth knowing about, and each one grows for a different reason.
| Model | What is counted | What makes it grow | Typical fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per MAU (commonly Auth0’s customer identity plans) | Distinct users who sign in during a month | Consumer or prosumer user growth, product adoption, seasonal spikes | Large user bases where few customers need enterprise SSO |
| Per connection (commonly WorkOS SSO and directory sync) | One enterprise customer’s identity provider link, counted separately for SSO and for directory sync | Number of enterprise customers that bring their own identity provider | Smaller user bases with many enterprise logos |
| Infrastructure-based (a managed IdP such as Skycloak) | The plan, the cluster size and count, and any add-ons, not users or connections | Moving to a larger plan or adding clusters, which login rate influences, not user or customer count | Teams that want the bill to track infrastructure |
Neither vendor uses exactly one meter. Auth0 has enterprise connection limits that depend on plan. WorkOS also offers a hosted login product, AuthKit, and if you use it as your login as well, WorkOS meters users there too beyond a free allowance, so a WorkOS-for-everything setup carries both a user meter and a connection meter (WorkOS, pricing page). The exact plan structure on each vendor’s pricing page is what you should rely on.
What does the bill do as you add enterprise customers?
A simple scenario shows why the meter matters. Suppose your product has 50,000 active users a month, and over the next year you sign 12 enterprise customers who each want SSO with their own identity provider, and a few of them also want SCIM provisioning.
Under a per-MAU model, the 12 enterprise customers do not change the meter by themselves. Their employees are already counted among your active users, or they add to the count only to the extent that they are new users. The meter grows when your user base grows, so a consumer-style growth curve moves the bill and a quiet enterprise-only expansion barely does. The catch is that enterprise features such as multiple enterprise connections can sit on higher plan tiers, so it is worth reading how the vendor gates them.
Under a per-connection model, the 50,000 users are mostly irrelevant. The meter is the 12 customers, and it moves by one every time a customer’s IT team connects an identity provider. If three of those customers also want directory sync, those are commonly counted as separate connections, so the count is 12 plus one for each customer that also uses directory sync. A customer with several identity providers, for example after an acquisition, can add more than one. A product with a small number of very large enterprise customers pays little, and a product with thousands of small business customers who each want SSO sees the connection count grow with logos rather than with users.
Under an infrastructure-based model, neither number appears. A managed Keycloak service is priced by plan, cluster size and count, and add-ons, not by users or connections. Keycloak’s sizing guidance on keycloak.org sizes clusters by request rate: roughly one vCPU per 15 password logins per second, plus about 150 percent CPU headroom, with about 1250 MB of base memory per pod. Fifty thousand users who sign in once a day produce a very low rate, and 12 more identity provider links add no per-customer charge, because Keycloak’s SAML and OIDC identity brokering does not meter connections. The bill grows when you move to a larger plan or add clusters, which your peak login rate influences, and not when your user or customer count grows.
A product with many users and few enterprise logos pays more under a per-MAU meter, a product with few users and many enterprise logos pays more under a per-connection meter, and a product that has both should model both curves for the next two or three years before choosing.
What do you still build or buy in each model?
Neither product removes all of the work, and the remaining work is different.
| Concern | Typical WorkOS shape | Typical Auth0 shape | Infrastructure-based managed IdP shape |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your own login and user store | Your own, or WorkOS’s hosted login | Included | Included |
| Organizations (tenants) | An organization object that links users to a connection | Organizations feature, plan-dependent | Realm per tenant, or Keycloak Organizations |
| Customer-facing admin portal for SSO setup | Built in, one of its main selling points | Self-service SSO setup is offered, check the plan | You build it, or customers use support-assisted setup |
| SCIM provisioning | Directory sync product, usually its own connection | Enterprise feature, check the plan | Keycloak’s native SCIM API (26.8 and later) is inbound only and enabled per realm; per-customer provisioning means a realm per customer or an extension, see SCIM |
| IdP-initiated SAML | Supported with documented caveats; check configuration | Supported with documented caveats; check configuration | Supported with documented caveats; check configuration |
| Audit logs | Dedicated product | Logs and log streaming, retention varies | Event logs from the IdP |
IdP-initiated SAML deserves a specific check, because it is the sign-in that starts at the customer’s identity provider portal instead of at your login page, and it is a common line item on enterprise security questionnaires. Our SAML decoder is useful when you need to see what a customer’s assertion actually contains.
On the Keycloak side, the native SCIM API arrived in 26.8, as described in Keycloak 26.8 native SCIM. It receives provisioning requests from a customer’s directory, it is enabled per realm, and organization group membership cannot be managed through it, so a realm per customer or an extension is what gives you a WorkOS-style directory sync per customer. It also does not push changes outward to other applications.
You also still own your authorization model. If you are working out how roles map to organizations, see our page on RBAC, and for how provisioning events reach your own database, user provisioning explained covers the flow.
Can you use WorkOS and Auth0 together?
Yes. WorkOS documents an Auth0 Enterprise Connection integration, which its docs list as a feature preview available through WorkOS support and which does not currently support IdP-initiated SSO. A combined setup also means two vendors’ meters and two sets of configuration.
What does leaving look like?
Exit cost is worth checking before you sign. The questions are whether you can export your users, whether you can export password hashes so that users keep their passwords after a move, and whether you can reuse your enterprise customers’ SAML and OIDC settings or must ask every customer’s IT team to reconfigure.
For a platform that stores your users and passwords, which is the Auth0 case and also WorkOS’s case if you use its hosted login, ask the vendor in writing how password hashes can be exported and in which hash format. Vendors commonly handle a hash export through a support request rather than a self-service button, and if the request is not granted, users must reset their passwords after the move. The WorkOS enterprise-feature model has a smaller footprint if you only use SSO and directory sync beside your own login, because your user table stays with you, but each customer’s SSO connection still has to be recreated elsewhere, and customers must change their identity provider settings (the assertion consumer service URL and the entity ID) to point at the new place.
A concrete migration is described in our guide to migrating from Auth0 to Keycloak, which also covers user and hash import, so you can see what the process involves.
When is this the wrong comparison?
If you need an identity provider that you control, with your own token claims, your own login flows and no per-customer or per-user meter, then asking WorkOS or Auth0 which is cheaper may not be the right question. In that case you are comparing categories: an enterprise-readiness layer, a hosted customer identity platform, and an IdP you run or have hosted for you. Our post is Keycloak right for B2B SaaS works through that third option, while the top IDaaS providers and the explainer what is IDaaS lay out the category split. If you are already leaning toward leaving one of the two, WorkOS alternatives for developers and Auth0 alternatives, open source and managed cover the options, and Clerk vs WorkOS looks at a third popular choice.
Skycloak is one managed option in that third category, hosting and operating Keycloak’s 26.x line; the B2B SaaS solution page describes how that maps to a multi-tenant product.
What should you do before choosing?
Model both meters over two to three years, one for monthly active users and one for customer connections, using your own forecast. Get user export and password hash export terms in writing from any vendor that would store your users. Check IdP-initiated SSO support against the configuration your largest prospects will use.
Frequently asked questions
Can you use WorkOS with Auth0?
Yes. WorkOS documents an Auth0 Enterprise Connection integration, which its docs list as a feature preview available through WorkOS support and which does not currently support IdP-initiated SSO.
Which is cheaper, WorkOS or Auth0?
It depends on whether your growth is in users or in enterprise customers. A per-MAU meter costs more as the user base grows, and a per-connection meter costs more as the number of customer identity providers grows. Model both curves against your own forecast, including the number of customers who will want directory sync as well as SSO, and compare the result with an infrastructure-based option if you expect both curves to be steep.
Is WorkOS an identity provider?
WorkOS is best understood as an enterprise-readiness layer that lets your application accept sign-ins from your customers’ identity providers, plus directory sync, audit logs and an admin portal. It also offers a hosted login product, so it can act as your user store too. Auth0 is a full customer identity platform whose Universal Login, user database and tokens are the center of the product.
Does Auth0 support enterprise SSO for B2B?
Yes. Auth0 supports SAML and OIDC enterprise connections and has an Organizations feature for B2B. The details that matter for budgeting are how many enterprise connections each plan includes and whether Organizations is available on the plan you need, which you should verify on Auth0’s current pricing page.
What happens to our users if we leave either vendor?
You need a written answer from the vendor about user export and password hash export before you commit, and you need a plan for asking each enterprise customer to update their identity provider settings. If hashes cannot be exported, users will need to reset passwords on first login to the new system.
What if we need neither a per-user nor a per-connection meter?
An infrastructure-based hosted identity provider, such as a managed Keycloak service, is priced by plan, cluster size and count, and add-ons rather than by users or connections, at the cost of you owning more of the configuration.