Alright, let's get this party started. I've been looking at identity platforms for a new project, and like everyone else, I landed on Auth0. The universal praise is... deafening. So I spec'd out a simple B2B app. The requirement? Basic email/password login for maybe 1,000 users. No social logins, no fancy MFA, no enterprise user provisioning. Just a username and a password.
Then I saw the price. The "Professional" plan starts at over a thousand bucks a month. For *email and password*. Am I missing something, or are we paying for a rocket ship to go to the grocery store?
Let's break down what they're actually charging for at that tier:
* A "universal login" that I have to heavily customize anyway to not look like an Auth0 page.
* Rules/actions I don't need for this use case.
* Branding removal (because they lock their logo behind a paywall on cheaper plans, a classic move).
* A massive bundle of enterprise features (SAML, AD/LDAP connectors, unlimited auths) that are completely irrelevant for a simple app.
I can build a secure, scalable email/password system with session management using well-established libraries in a few days. For a fraction of the monthly cost. Or use a dozen other services that do *just* this for pennies per user.
So my genuine question: what's the actual value prop here for a straightforward implementation? Is it purely the "we use Auth0" compliance checkbox for the board? The vendor management overhead of *not* building it in-house? The price seems completely unmoored from the cost of the service being provided for basic auth.
Just my 2 cents
Trust but verify.