B2B SaaS products
Teams selling to customers that require SSO, SCIM, audit trails and organization-level security policies.
Independent tool overview
WorkOS at a glance
WorkOS is a developer platform for adding authentication and enterprise requirements—such as SAML/OIDC SSO, SCIM directory sync, admin onboarding, audit logs and authorization—to B2B software.
Visit the official WorkOS site ↗
- Product type
- B2B identity and enterprise-feature APIs
- Primary auth product
- AuthKit and User Management
- Enterprise identity
- SAML/OIDC SSO and SCIM Directory Sync
- Integration style
- Hosted UI, widgets, APIs and server SDKs
- Testing
- Free staging environment for all products
- Pricing unit
- MAUs, enterprise connections, events or security checks by product
Overview
What WorkOS is
WorkOS helps software companies satisfy identity, security and IT-administration requirements without building a separate integration for every enterprise customer. Teams can adopt its complete AuthKit user-management layer or add individual products such as Single Sign-On and Directory Sync to an existing authentication stack.
AuthKit supports passwords, social login, magic authentication, MFA, passkeys, SSO, organizations and role-based permissions through a hosted interface or APIs. The wider platform adds an Admin Portal, audit events and SIEM streaming, fine-grained authorization, secure data vaulting, API-key widgets, domain verification and bot or abuse checks through Radar.
The pricing model is unusually important: AuthKit is free for the first one million monthly active users, while SSO and Directory Sync are billed per enterprise connection. A customer using both counts as two billable connections, so cost should be modeled against enterprise accounts and feature adoption rather than total seats alone.
Use cases
Who WorkOS is best for
The strongest fit depends on the job you need the product to complete, not the size of its feature list.
Startups moving upmarket
Developers who need enterprise features quickly without replacing every part of an existing application.
Multi-tenant applications
Products that model organizations, memberships, roles and customer-admin onboarding as first-class concepts.
Capabilities
Core WorkOS features
AuthKit user management
Hosted or API-driven sign-up and sign-in with passwords, social providers, magic auth, MFA, passkeys, sessions and organization-aware policies.
Enterprise Single Sign-On
One integration supports SAML and OpenID Connect connections across many enterprise identity providers.
Directory Sync
Normalize SCIM and HRIS directory users and groups, then receive lifecycle changes through events and webhooks.
Admin Portal and widgets
Embed or link self-service setup experiences for customer IT admins, including SSO, directories, users and API keys.
Audit Logs
Define typed compliance events, retain and export them, and stream logs to supported SIEM or storage destinations.
Authorization
Use role-based permissions or a fine-grained authorization service for access decisions beyond basic authentication.
Enterprise platform services
Additional products cover bot and fraud checks, domain verification, feature flags, secrets vaulting, third-party connections and common workflow widgets.
Process
How the WorkOS workflow works
Step 1
Model users and organizations
Decide how identities, tenants, memberships, roles and enterprise connections map to the application's own database.
Step 2
Integrate in staging
Use AuthKit's hosted flow or APIs, test redirect and session handling, and verify webhook processing before enabling production billing.
Step 3
Add enterprise capabilities
Enable SSO, Directory Sync, Admin Portal and audit events only where customer requirements justify the recurring connection cost.
Step 4
Enforce authorization in the app
Validate tokens and permissions on the server, scope every resource to the correct organization and handle membership changes promptly.
Step 5
Plan failure and migration paths
Monitor identity events, make webhook consumers idempotent, document emergency access and keep enough local data to recover or migrate safely.
Cost
WorkOS pricing and free plan
WorkOS prices products independently. AuthKit is free through one million monthly active users, while SSO and Directory Sync start at $125 per enterprise connection per month with automatic volume discounts. One customer using both products creates two connections.
AuthKit
Free up to 1M MAUs
User management and authentication for the first million monthly active users.
- $2,500 per month for each additional 1 million active users
- Hosted UI or API integration
- Organizations, authentication methods, MFA and RBAC
Single Sign-On
Starts at $125 per connection / month
A SAML or OIDC connection for one enterprise customer.
- Automatic volume discounts
- Each customer using SSO counts as one connection
- Provider and end-user count do not change the connection unit
Directory Sync
Starts at $125 per connection / month
A SCIM or supported directory connection for one enterprise customer.
- Automatic volume discounts
- Billed separately from SSO
- Users, groups, events and self-service setup
Audit Logs
Usage-based add-ons
Compliance event storage and streaming.
- $125 per month per SIEM connection
- $99 per month per million events stored
- Exact base estimate depends on configured usage
Radar
First 1,000 checks free
Realtime bot, fraud and abuse protection.
- $100 per month per 50,000 checks after the free allowance
Custom Domain
$99 per month
Custom domain for AuthKit, Admin Portal and email sender address.
- Optional add-on
Annual Credits
Contact sales
Prepaid terms and support for teams seeking predictability.
- Prepay credit discounts
- Guided migration and onboarding
- 99.99% uptime and support SLAs listed
Pricing checked . Check current pricing at the source ↗
Assessment
WorkOS strengths and limitations
Where it stands out
- Lets a product adopt complete authentication or only the enterprise features missing from an existing stack.
- Per-connection pricing aligns SSO and SCIM costs with enterprise customer adoption rather than employee count.
- AuthKit's first one million monthly active users are free under the current published pricing.
- Staging access makes it possible to test all products before putting real customer data into production.
- Admin Portal and widgets can shift routine enterprise setup from the vendor's support team to the customer's IT administrator.
What to consider
- A customer using both SSO and Directory Sync creates two separately billed connections.
- Identity is a critical application dependency; teams must design for WorkOS, network and identity-provider outages.
- WorkOS authentication does not replace application-level authorization, tenant isolation or secure database queries.
- Migrating users, sessions, credentials and enterprise connections later can be substantial work, so export and exit requirements should be reviewed early.
- Webhooks and directory events require idempotent processing, replay handling and monitoring to prevent stale access.
- Some costs sit in separate products and add-ons, making a realistic quote more useful than comparing only AuthKit's free allowance.
- Annual support and uptime commitments require commercial terms rather than the standard pay-as-you-go account.
Compare
WorkOS alternatives
The right alternative depends on the specific output, workflow, controls and budget your project requires.
Coding
Google Firebase
Choose Google Firebase when a broader application backend with consumer-oriented authentication is more important than specialized B2B SSO and SCIM.
Explore Google Firebase →Coding
BuilderKit
Choose BuilderKit when you want to own and customize starter application code, accepting more responsibility for identity and enterprise integrations.
Explore BuilderKit →Coding
Retool
Choose Retool for building internal business applications; it is adjacent infrastructure rather than a drop-in customer identity platform.
Explore Retool →Questions
WorkOS FAQs
What is WorkOS used for?
WorkOS supplies authentication and enterprise capabilities for software products, including AuthKit, SSO, Directory Sync, Admin Portal, audit logs, roles and fine-grained authorization.
Is WorkOS free?
Staging is free, and AuthKit is currently free for up to one million monthly active users. Production SSO, Directory Sync, audit-log add-ons, Radar volume and custom domains use separate pricing.
How does WorkOS count an SSO connection?
Each enterprise customer supported with SSO counts as one connection regardless of identity provider or end-user count. Directory Sync is a separate connection, so one customer using both counts twice.
Can WorkOS work with an existing authentication system?
Yes. Single Sign-On, Directory Sync, Admin Portal and other products can be adopted individually. AuthKit is available when a team wants WorkOS to manage the full user-authentication layer.
Does WorkOS support SCIM?
Yes. Directory Sync connects to supported SCIM and directory providers, normalizes user and group data and sends lifecycle changes through events and webhooks.
Does using WorkOS make an application secure by default?
No. It handles important identity and enterprise primitives, but the application must still validate sessions, enforce authorization, isolate tenants, protect secrets, process events reliably and maintain incident procedures.
Bottom line
Our WorkOS verdict
WorkOS is a compelling choice for B2B SaaS teams whose roadmap includes enterprise SSO, SCIM and IT-admin workflows. The modular product line and generous AuthKit allowance reduce initial friction, but the real buying exercise is to model connections per customer, test authorization and lifecycle events rigorously, and understand the operational consequences of making a third party part of the login path.
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