Authentication · decision tool

What Clerk really costs at your usage

Clerk priced at YOUR usage from verified pricing pages — 50,000 monthly retained users (MRU), full features. See the free-tier ceiling, the per-unit overage, and exactly when it starts costing real money.

Prices verified 2026-07-15 against official pricing pages · fit weights are our estimates (see methodology) · share the URL to share your configuration

As of Jul 2026, with 150,000 monthly active users, a $50 budget for this slot, Clerk ranks first for these inputs at 44% fit and a StackSays-estimated $2025.00/month. Fit weights are our estimates; prices trace to official pages. Change any input below and the verdict recomputes.

Your situation

The verdict updates as you move these.

Monthly active usersusers who actually sign in each month — the billing metric for most providersBudget for this slot ($/mo)what you'd accept paying for the auth provider layerTeam size1 = solo; bundled platforms save glue time for small teams

Clear pick for your inputs

Clerkfit 44% · est $2,025.00/mo

Plug-and-play auth with the best prebuilt UI; you pay for the polish as you grow

Clerkfit 44%

$2,025.00/mo

Comparing 1 tools head-to-head. Open the full field (7 options) →

The decision, in plain words

For a solo builder at 150,000 monthly active users and a $50.00/mo budget for the auth provider slot, Clerk leads at 44% fit and $2025.00/mo. The two rules doing the work: batteries included (Bundles prebuilt sign-in UI, organizations/teams, enterprise SSO — fewer services to glue at team size 1); ecosystem maturity (established — our estimate from ecosystem age, docs and hiring pool).

Honest weak spot of the pick: ~$2025/mo is 4050% of your $50/mo budget — over it.

Generated from the calculation above — every number traces to the sourced data; nothing here is written by an AI making things up.

Why Clerk scores 44%

Budget fit (weight 30, our estimate) — ~$2025/mo is 4050% of your $50/mo budget — over it-30

Batteries included (weight 12, our estimate) — Bundles prebuilt sign-in UI, organizations/teams, enterprise SSO — fewer services to glue at team size 1+12

Exit cost (weight 4, our estimate) — Hosted user store — migrating away means a coordinated export (password hashes via support)-1.2

Ecosystem maturity (weight 8, our estimate) — established — our estimate from ecosystem age, docs and hiring pool+8

Free-tier runway (weight 10, our estimate) — Free tier exists (50,000 monthly retained users (MRU), full features) — a cheap staging/dev lane even after you outgrow it+4

Total (lines sum exactly)-7.2

Possible range −64…+64 (sum of active rule weights) · fit % = (total + max) / (2 × max)(-7.2 + 64) / 128 = 44%

How the $2,025.00/mo estimate is calculated

Pro base — includes 50,000 mau$25.00

MAU overage — 100000 over 50000 included × $0.02/unit$2,000.00

Note — Billed on monthly RETAINED users (MRU); B2B organizations are a separate $100/mo add-on$0

Monthly total (lines sum exactly)$2,025.00

What could change this verdict

No single input change within the tested range changes the winner.

Cost risk

Estimated now (StackSays estimate, not your final bill)$2,025.00/mo · Pro

Free-tier statusFree tier exceeded (mau 150,000 > 50,000 cap)

Official prices verified 2026-07-15; calculation is deterministic code over those prices.

At a glance

Tool	Free tier	Paid entry	Verified
Clerk	50,000 monthly retained users (MRU), full features	Pro $25/mo	2026-07-15

Where did you land?anonymous, one click

Data sources

Tool	Source	Verified
Clerk	Clerk pricing page	2026-07-15

A monitor re-checks these pages for changes; when a vendor moves a price, the date updates and every verdict recomputes.

Keep deciding