Overview
Auth0 is the customer identity platform from Okta, sold separately as Customer Identity Cloud. The product covers consumer (B2C) sign-up and sign-in, B2B SaaS multi-tenant authentication, and machine-to-machine OAuth scenarios. Auth0 is developer-first: the platform is configured primarily through SDKs, Universal Login pages, and Actions (server-side JavaScript) rather than admin-console UI.
Acquired by Okta in 2021 for $6.5B, Auth0 retains its own product team, brand, and price book. The platform competes most directly with Microsoft Entra External ID (formerly Azure AD B2C), AWS Cognito, and Ping Identity for customer identity. Auth0's strengths are its developer experience, the breadth of SDKs and quickstarts, and an Actions extensibility model that lets teams customise authentication flows without managing infrastructure.
Key Features
- Universal Login for hosted authentication pages
- Native SDKs for 30+ languages and frameworks
- Actions extensibility for server-side authentication customisation
- Social and enterprise connections (Google, Facebook, Apple, SAML, OIDC)
- Passwordless authentication with magic links, SMS, and passkeys
- Multi-factor authentication with adaptive risk
- Organisations feature for B2B multi-tenant scenarios
- Attack Protection (bot detection, brute force, breached password)
- User management with bulk import and migration tooling
- Custom domains and branding for white-label CIAM
- Compliance certifications including SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA
- Private Cloud option for regulated and high-volume scenarios
Pricing
| Edition | Model | Typical Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Up to 25,000 MAU | $0 |
| B2C Essentials | From 500 MAU / month | From $35 / month |
| B2C Professional | From 1,000 MAU / month | From $240 / month |
| B2B Essentials / Professional | From 500 MAU / month | From $150 / month (Essentials) or $800 / month (Professional) |
| Enterprise | Annual contract | Custom |
Pricing verified from auth0.com May 2026. MAU is counted as any user who authenticates at least once in a 30-day window. B2B plans cost 3–4x B2C plans because they include enterprise SAML/OIDC connections and organisation management.
Strengths
- Developer experience widely cited as the category benchmark for SDKs, docs, and quickstarts
- Actions extensibility is unusually flexible for customising authentication flows
- Organisations feature is purpose-built for B2B SaaS multi-tenancy
- Universal Login removes the burden of building secure login pages in-house
- Strong attack-protection capabilities, including breached-password detection from Have I Been Pwned data
Limitations
- MAU-based pricing escalates sharply once apps grow beyond the free tier
- Per-MAU pricing changes in 2023–2024 have been controversial; some startups report 3–5x cost increases
- B2B Essentials caps the number of enterprise connections, forcing customers up to Professional
- Backwards compatibility for Rules (deprecated in favour of Actions) requires migration work
- Some advanced features (private cloud, custom domains, advanced rate limits) require Enterprise plans