Clerk Pricing 2026: 50k Free MRU, Pro and Business

Clerk is free for the first 50,000 monthly retained users per app on Hobby. Pro costs $25 a month, or $20 billed annually, and adds MFA, passkeys and branding removal, then charges $0.02 per retained user past 50,000. Business is $300 a month ($250 annually) for SOC 2 and 10 dashboard seats, and Enterprise is a custom annual contract.

All prices below are as of Oct 2026, verified on vendor pages: Clerk's pricing page, including its full price breakdown and FAQ. The figure that moves a B2B bill, though, is not users: it is organizations, SSO connections and dashboard seats.

Toolradar data: Toolradar, the software directory we run, evaluated 103 identity and access tools for its identity and access ranking, and only 4 of the 10 it lists have a free plan. Developer auth APIs like Clerk compete there with password managers and workforce identity suites. The directory record is Clerk on Toolradar, and the product writeup on this site is the Clerk review.

Plan	Price	Best for	What changes the bill
Hobby	$0	Side projects and early apps with simple sign-in	Hard switch to Pro past 50,000 MRU per app
Pro	$25/mo, or $20/mo billed annually	Production apps that need MFA, passkeys, custom sessions	Retained users past 50,000, extra SSO connections, SMS
Business	$300/mo, or $250/mo billed annually	Teams that need a SOC 2 report and admin logs	Same meters as Pro, plus seats past 10
Enterprise	Custom, billed annually	99.99% SLA, HIPAA BAA, migration support	A sales contract

How Clerk counts users: retained, not active

Clerk bills monthly retained users (MRU), not monthly active users. The pricing FAQ says a user counts as retained only when they come back at least 24 hours after signing up. Someone who signs up, looks around and never returns is never billed, which Clerk calls "First Day Free".

That definition matters most for apps with heavy top-of-funnel traffic. A product with a free trial, a waitlist or a viral signup page can have far more sign-ups than retained users, and Clerk's bill follows the smaller number. A consumer app where most users return daily gets little discount from the rule, because nearly every active user is also retained.

Organizations follow a similar rule. A monthly retained organization (MRO) needs at least 2 members, and at least one of them must be a retained user that month. A single-person workspace or a dormant team does not count, so a B2B app with many solo accounts pays for fewer organizations than it has.

Hobby: what the free plan leaves out

Hobby includes 50,000 MRU per app, unlimited applications, up to 3 dashboard seats, a custom domain, bot protection, webhooks, custom JWT templates and full data exports. For a side project or an MVP with email and Google sign-in, it covers everything users see.

The gaps are in security and polish. Hobby has no MFA, no passkeys, no biometric sign-in, no SMS codes and no custom email templates, and it allows up to 3 social connections. Sessions are fixed at 7 days, application logs keep 1 day, and the "Secured by Clerk" badge stays on the prebuilt components. Email support covers billing and abuse questions only.

Passing 50,000 retained users forces the upgrade. The FAQ says you will be required to move to Pro, with a one-month grace period so the app keeps working while you do. Unlimited applications means a separate app gets its own 50,000, which helps an agency or a studio running several small products.

Clerk has no time-limited trial. Every Pro feature works in a development instance, and the dashboard tags the ones that need a paid plan in production, so you can build MFA or passkeys before paying for them.

Pro and Business: the plan fee and the per-user meter

Pro is the plan most production apps need. It keeps the 50,000 included MRU per app and adds MFA, passkeys, biometric sign-in, branding removal, custom session lifetimes, user bans, allowlists, simultaneous sessions, unlimited social connections and 7 days of application logs. One SSO connection and one Directory Sync connection are included per app.

Above 50,000 MRU, Clerk publishes a banded rate, shown below. The bands are per app, so two apps with 60,000 retained users each both pay for 10,000 extra.

Monthly retained users	Price per user per month
Up to 50,000	Included
50,001 to 100,000	$0.02
100,001 to 1,000,000	$0.018
1,000,001 to 10,000,000	$0.015
10,000,001 and up	$0.012

Business changes very little about users. It adds a SOC 2 report, 10 dashboard seats with extra seats at $20 a month each, enhanced dashboard roles, enterprise SSO for your own workspace, priority support, and 30 days of application and admin logs. Buy Business when a customer's security review asks for Clerk's SOC 2 report; the per-user rates are the same as Pro.

Enterprise is billed annually only, at a custom price. It adds annual committed-use discounts, a 99.99% uptime SLA, a dedicated Slack channel, custom log retention, log streaming to a SIEM, a HIPAA BAA, onboarding and migration support, and custom security questionnaires. A health-data app has no lower plan option, because HIPAA is Enterprise-only.

Add-ons and per-use fees

The add-ons are where B2B apps spend. B2B Authentication is free up to 100 MROs per app and 20 members per organization, with admin and member roles, custom permissions and invitations. Past either limit you need the Enhanced add-on at $100 a month, or $85 billed annually.

Enhanced removes the member cap and adds custom roles and role sets, verified domains with automatic invitations, and linking enterprise connections to organizations. Each organization above 100 is billed on its own ladder: $1 a month each to 1,000, $0.90 to 10,000, $0.75 to 100,000, and $0.60 beyond.

Add-on or fee	Included	Price beyond that
B2B Authentication, Enhanced	100 MROs per app, 20 members per org on the free tier	$100/mo ($85 annually), then from $1 per MRO
SSO connections (SAML, OIDC, EASIE)	1 per app on Pro and Business	$75/mo each for 2 to 15, $60 for 16 to 100
Directory Sync (SCIM, Google Workspace)	1 per app on Pro and Business	$75/mo each for 2 to 15, billing starts January 1, 2027
Administration, Enhanced	5 user impersonations a month	$100/mo ($85 annually) for unlimited
SMS codes	None	$0.01 per SMS in the US and Canada, market rate elsewhere
Satellite domains	None	$10/mo each on Pro and Business
Clerk Billing	All plans	0.7% of billing volume, on top of Stripe's fees

Two lines deserve a calendar note, because both arrive after the plan is chosen. Directory Sync connections beyond the included one start billing on January 1, 2027, so a team adding SCIM for several customers this quarter should budget $75 each from that date. Clerk Billing takes 0.7% of what you charge through it, which is $70 on $10,000 of monthly subscription revenue, before Stripe's own 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction.

Machine authentication is metered too, though a typical web app never reaches the allowance; it matters for products that hand API keys to their own customers. API keys include 1,000 creations and 100,000 verifications a month, then cost $0.001 per creation and $0.00001 per verification. M2M tokens include 2,500 creations on the same verification allowance.

What three B2B teams pay in a month

We priced three B2B profiles from the published rates, applying each band's rate to the users or organizations inside it. Monthly billing first, annual billing in brackets.

Profile	MRU	MROs	SSO connections	Seats	Monthly bill
Early B2B SaaS on Pro	8,000	60	1	3	$25 ($20)
Mid-market SaaS on Pro	30,000	400	5	3	$725 ($705)
Growth SaaS on Business	120,000	2,000	20	15	$5,010 ($4,945)

The early team pays only the plan fee, because 60 organizations, one SSO customer and 8,000 users all sit inside Pro's included amounts. Hobby would cover the users and organizations too; the Pro fee buys MFA, passkeys and branding removal.

The mid-market team pays the Pro fee, the Enhanced B2B fee, $300 for 300 organizations above the free 100, and $300 for 4 extra SSO connections. Users cost nothing extra, since 30,000 is under the included 50,000. If 2 of those enterprise customers also want SCIM, the second Directory Sync connection adds $75 a month from January 2027.

At the growth profile, organizations become the largest line. 2,000 MROs cost $1,900 including the Enhanced fee, against $1,360 for 70,000 users above the included 50,000, and $1,350 for 19 extra SSO connections. The Business fee and 5 seats beyond the included 10 make up the rest. For a B2B app, model organizations and SSO connections before you model users.

How Clerk compares with other auth providers

Clerk is cheapest for B2B apps that need SSO early and for products with many one-time sign-ups. One SSO connection is included on the entry paid plan, extra connections have a published price, and users who never return cost nothing. It is more expensive for large free consumer audiences, where each retained user past 50,000 costs at least $0.012 a month; Clerk's own FAQ points those apps toward cheaper options.

The consumer-scale math is in authentication pricing compared, which prices Clerk, Auth0, Supabase Auth and Firebase at 10,000, 100,000 and 1 million users. The head-to-head with Auth0 on plans and enterprise features is Clerk vs Auth0, and the Auth0 review covers that vendor alone.

For enterprise SSO as the main requirement, the WorkOS review covers a provider built around SAML and SCIM. If auth is one part of a backend you are choosing anyway, Supabase pricing and the Firebase review show what bundled auth costs, Supabase vs Firebase compares those two backends, and the authentication providers roundup ranks the whole field.

Which Clerk plan should you pay for?

Stay on Hobby while the app is a prototype or a small consumer product with email and social sign-in, and while no customer has asked for MFA. The 50,000-user cap is generous, and the one-month grace period means you will not lose sign-ins the day you cross it.

Move to Pro at launch if you sell to businesses or handle anything sensitive. MFA, passkeys and session control are the features a buyer's checklist asks about, and annual billing cuts the monthly fee by $5. Pre-negotiated startup discounts are available through partners such as Stripe Atlas and Y Combinator, for companies up to a year after launch with up to $5 million in venture funding.

Choose Business when a deal needs Clerk's SOC 2 report or your team outgrows 3 dashboard seats, and Enterprise for HIPAA, an uptime SLA or a migration you want Clerk to run. Whatever the plan, the bill above it is set by organizations, SSO connections and SMS volume, so forecast those first.

How we checked these prices

We read Clerk's pricing page, its full price breakdown table and its pricing FAQ in October 2026. Scenario bills apply the published band rates to the users, organizations and connections inside each band, and include the plan fee and Enhanced B2B add-on where the profile requires them. SMS, satellite domains and Clerk Billing fees are left out of the scenarios. Confirm current rates on Clerk's pricing page before you commit.

FAQ

How much does Clerk cost in 2026?

Clerk's Hobby plan is free up to 50,000 monthly retained users per app. Pro is $25 a month, or $20 a month billed annually, and Business is $300 a month, or $250 billed annually. Both paid plans charge $0.02 per retained user from 50,001 to 100,000, with lower rates above that. Enterprise is a custom annual contract.

What is a monthly retained user on Clerk?

A monthly retained user is someone who uses your app in a given month at least 24 hours after signing up. Users who sign up and never return are not billed. That makes Clerk's count lower than monthly active users for apps with many one-time sign-ups, trials or waitlists.

Is Clerk free?

Yes, Hobby is free with no credit card and covers up to 50,000 retained users per app, unlimited apps, 3 dashboard seats and the prebuilt sign-in components. It excludes MFA, passkeys, SMS codes and branding removal, and sessions are fixed at 7 days. Past 50,000 retained users you must move to Pro, after a one-month grace period.

How much does SSO cost on Clerk?

Pro and Business include one SSO connection per app, covering SAML, OIDC or EASIE. Connections 2 to 15 cost $75 a month each and 16 to 100 cost $60 each, with larger volumes by quote. Linking SSO connections to organizations needs the Enhanced B2B add-on, a separate monthly fee.

What does Clerk charge for organizations?

The first 100 monthly retained organizations per app are free, with up to 20 members each. Beyond that you need the Enhanced B2B add-on at $100 a month, plus $1 per organization per month up to 1,000, then $0.90, $0.75 and $0.60 at higher volumes. An organization only counts when it has 2 or more members and at least one retained user that month.

Is there a Clerk free trial?

There is no time-limited trial. Every Pro feature can be used in a development instance, and the dashboard marks which features need a paid plan in production. That lets you build and test MFA, passkeys or custom sessions before paying, then upgrade when you deploy.

Cite this: Devshot, "Clerk Pricing 2026: 50k Free MRU, Pro and Business", October 2026.

Devshot's free daily email tracks price changes across auth, hosting and the rest of the developer stack. Subscribe at devshot.co.

Some offers on this page may be paid placements or contain affiliate links.