Clerk is a Security & identity tool: Drop-in authentication and user management.

How much does Clerk cost?

Clerk uses a Freemium model; paid plans start at $25 per month.

What are the best alternatives to Clerk?

Community-listed alternatives to Clerk include Auth0, Better Auth, Scalekit, Snyk.

What does Clerk integrate with?

Clerk integrates with Next.js, React, Remix, Expo, Supabase, Convex and more.

Clerk

Drop-in authentication and user management

Freemium · $25Security & identity Developer tools

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Clerk is a security & identity tool for Developers, offered as freemium ($25/mo). Based in United States, founded in 2019. Popular alternatives include Auth0, Better Auth, Scalekit.

About Clerk

Clerk is an authentication and user management service built for modern JavaScript applications, based in San Francisco. Instead of writing sign-in flows yourself, you drop in prebuilt React components such as SignIn, SignUp, UserButton, UserProfile and OrganizationSwitcher that look polished out of the box and handle the security details behind them.

Clerk supports email and password, magic links, one-time codes, passkeys and more than twenty social providers, along with multi-factor authentication, bot protection, session management and device tracking. Organizations, roles and permissions cover B2B SaaS needs, and SDKs exist for Next.js, React, Remix, Expo, Astro, Vue and backend frameworks. Since February 2026 the free Hobby plan covers up to 50,000 monthly retained users per app, replacing the earlier 10,000-user limit; Pro and Business are flat monthly fees with per-user charges above the included volume, and SAML SSO and advanced MFA sit in paid tiers. In 2025 Clerk Billing, built on Stripe, added subscription plans and feature gating tied to users and organizations.

Clerk fits React and Next.js teams that want production-grade auth with excellent UX on day one. The trade-offs are that user data lives with a third party, per-user costs grow with scale, and non-JavaScript stacks are less well served. Auth0 targets enterprises with broader protocol support, Supabase Auth and Firebase Auth come bundled with a backend, and Better Auth or Keycloak let you own the data entirely.

Key features of Clerk

Prebuilt UI components for auth and user profile
Email, password, passkeys, OTP and 20+ social providers
Organizations, roles and permissions (B2B)
MFA, bot protection and session management
Clerk Billing for subscriptions and feature gating
SDKs for Next.js, React, Remix, Expo, Astro and more

Pros and cons

Pros

Beautiful components save weeks of work
Generous free tier
Organizations and B2B features built in
Excellent Next.js integration and docs

Cons

User data lives with a third party
Per-user (MRU) cost grows with scale
Enhanced features (SAML, MFA) cost extra
Less control than self-hosted auth

Clerk pricing

Clerk uses a freemium model.

Plan	Price	Includes
Hobby	$0	50,000 monthly retained users per app, 3 dashboard seats
Pro	$25 / mo	$20/mo billed annually; 50k MRUs, then from $0.02/MRU
Business	$300 / mo	$250/mo billed annually; 10 dashboard seats
Enterprise	Custom	Annual billing; 99.99% uptime SLA, volume discounts

Source: clerk.com · checked on Oct 20, 2026

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Price changes for Clerk

Verified changes to Clerk's prices and plans, newest first.

All price changes

Free planFebruary 5, 2026 · Effective

Clerk raises its free tier from 10,000 monthly users to 50,000 monthly retained users

Clerk's pricing article says it ran a 10,000-user free tier from December 2023 until February 2026, and on February 5, 2026 raised the free allotment to 50,000 monthly retained users (MRU). It describes MRU as a narrower unit than monthly active users.

Sources:Clerk, pricing explained Clerk pricing page (current 50,000 MRU limit)

How Clerk compares in Security & identity

Rank by votes: #1 / 33
Starting price: $25
Free alternatives: 4

Clerk ranks #1 of 33 security & identity tools by community votes and is priced above most tools in the category.

Common use cases

1Next.js SaaS with organizations and role-based access
2Mobile app with Expo needing social login
3Startup gating features by subscription via Clerk Billing
4Internal tool with SSO on the enhanced add-on

Best for

React and Next.js teams who want production auth with great UX immediately.

Not ideal for

Teams requiring full ownership of auth data (Better Auth, Keycloak) or non-JS stacks.

Integrations

Next.js
React
Remix
Expo
Supabase
Convex
Firebase
Stripe (Billing)
Slack
Webhooks

Our take

Clerk is the fastest route to excellent auth in a React app and free for most early products. Decide early whether owning user data matters; migrating later is painful.

FAQ

What is Clerk?: Clerk is a Security & identity tool: Drop-in authentication and user management.
How much does Clerk cost?: Clerk uses a Freemium model; paid plans start at $25 per month.
What are the best alternatives to Clerk?: Community-listed alternatives to Clerk include Auth0, Better Auth, Scalekit, Snyk.
What does Clerk integrate with?: Clerk integrates with Next.js, React, Remix, Expo, Supabase, Convex and more.
Which platforms does Clerk support?: Clerk is available on web.
Who is Clerk for?: React and Next.js teams who want production auth with great UX immediately.

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