Auth0’s pricing is based on Monthly Active Users (MAUs), but the real cost driver is the features you need.
Let’s see how this plays out. Imagine you’re building a simple SaaS app for a few dozen early adopters. You need basic login, maybe social logins, and that’s it.
{
"name": "My Awesome App",
"auth0_tenant": "my-awesome-app.auth0.com",
"plan": "Free",
"features_enabled": [
"Username-Password Authentication",
"Social Logins (Google, Facebook)",
"Basic User Profile Management"
],
"estimated_maus": 50
}
The Free plan for Auth0 is surprisingly generous, covering up to 7,000 MAUs with core authentication features. This includes email/password, social logins (like Google, Facebook, GitHub), and basic user profile management. It’s perfect for getting started, prototyping, or for applications with a very small user base.
As your app grows, or if you need more advanced capabilities, you’ll look at the Essentials plan. This plan starts at $24/month for the first 1,000 MAUs and scales up. It unlocks features like multi-factor authentication (MFA) using SMS or TOTP, brute force protection, and basic enterprise federation (like SAML for a single identity provider).
Here’s where the MAU count can feel a bit abstract. If you have 1,000 users, and 500 of them log in during a calendar month, you’re using 500 MAUs. If another 500 log in the next month, those are still 500 MAUs for that billing cycle. It’s not a cumulative count of unique users over time, but rather the peak number of unique users who logged in within any given month.
The next tier is the Business plan, which begins at $349/month for the first 1,000 MAUs. This is where you get into more robust enterprise-grade features. Think unlimited enterprise federation (connecting to multiple SAML or WS-Fed providers), advanced security features like anomaly detection and custom database integrations, and dedicated support.
Let’s say you’re building an internal tool for a company with 2,000 employees. They want Single Sign-On (SSO) via their existing Okta instance.
{
"app_type": "Internal Enterprise Tool",
"auth0_tenant": "corp-internal.auth0.com",
"required_features": [
"Username-Password Authentication",
"Enterprise Federation (SAML 2.0)",
"Multi-Factor Authentication (SMS, TOTP)",
"Brute Force Protection"
],
"estimated_maus": 2000,
"identity_providers": ["Okta"]
}
For this scenario, the Essentials plan might be sufficient if your Okta integration is the only enterprise connection you need. However, if you anticipate needing to connect to other IdPs in the future, or if you need more advanced security policies, the Business plan becomes the more appropriate choice. The pricing difference isn’t just about the MAU count; it’s about the feature enablement.
Auth0 also offers Enterprise and custom plans for very large deployments or unique requirements, often involving dedicated account management, higher SLAs, and custom feature development. These are negotiated directly and are tailored to specific organizational needs.
The one thing most people don’t realize is how granularly Auth0 can track and attribute MAUs. If you have multiple applications under a single Auth0 tenant, and a user logs into both applications within the same month, they are still counted as one MAU for that tenant. This consolidation can sometimes lead to a lower overall MAU count than if each application had its own separate tenant, which is a subtle but important cost-saving consideration.
Understanding your feature requirements before looking at the MAU count is the key to choosing the right Auth0 plan.