# Udibo vs Clerk Clerk gives you prebuilt sign-in components for your framework and a free plan that covers 50,000 retained users. Udibo gives you hosted sign-in behind a standard OAuth 2.0 boundary, with organizations, roles, and resource permissions included on every plan. Start with the account experience you need: embedded components are Clerk's strength; hosted sign-in and resource permissions are Udibo's model. Then compare the feature gates and retained-user rates below. **Pricing checked October 2, 2026** against [Clerk's pricing page](https://clerk.com/pricing). Udibo's prices are on its [pricing page](https://www.udibo.com/pricing). **Udibo usage assumptions and API access reviewed October 2, 2026.** The vendor check date above applies to its pricing and feature claims. ## The short version | If you need | Start with | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ | | Drop-in React or Next.js components and the fastest first login | Clerk | | Multi-factor authentication, custom roles, and organizations on Free | Udibo | | Permissions checked on your server, per organization or per resource | Udibo | | Passkeys, SAML, or SCIM at launch | Clerk, or another provider that ships them today | | A bill that does not step up at 50,000 users | Udibo | ## Why teams pick Udibo over Clerk - **The controls are included, not upsold.** Clerk's free plan holds back multi-factor authentication, custom session lifetime, allowlists, user bans, and custom email templates for Pro at $25 a month, and puts custom roles and unlimited organization members in a $100 a month add-on. Every one of those is on Udibo's Free plan. Clerk includes device tracking and session revocation on its free Hobby plan. - **Organizations without a ceiling.** Clerk's free plan allows 100 retained organizations of 20 members each; going past either needs the $100 add-on. Udibo places no cap on organizations or members on any plan, and a person can hold a different role in each. - **Permissions your server can enforce.** Udibo lets you register the permissions your application interprets, attach them to roles across a tenant, inside an organization, or on one resource, and read the result from the token or a hosted check. Clerk's roles and permissions stop at the organization; per-resource grants are yours to build. - **A lower rate above the allowance.** Udibo's rate is $3 per 1,000 retained users. Clerk Pro charges $0.02 each from 50,001–100,000: 100,000 retained users is about $290 on Udibo and $1,025 on Clerk. - **A standards boundary instead of a vendor SDK.** Your application talks to Udibo through OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect, with the active organization and its roles in the token. Use an OpenID Connect client that supports your application's flow. A shared protocol reduces sign-in coupling; a migration still needs identity mapping, session changes, and a review of claims and permissions. - **Your brand at the door.** Udibo puts your name, logo, and colors on the hosted pages with no vendor badge on any plan. Removing Clerk's branding is a Pro feature. - **A record you can take with you.** At least 90 days of audit history on every plan, exportable as CSV or NDJSON, against one day of application logs on Clerk's free plan and seven on Pro. ## Why Clerk may still be the right choice - **Prebuilt UI.** Clerk's components for Next.js, React, and native frameworks are the fastest way to a polished account experience. Udibo hosts the sign-in pages and returns to your app; the account screens inside your product are yours to build. - **50,000 retained users free.** If you can ship with Clerk's branding, without MFA, and inside the organization caps, a consumer app pays nothing until it is large. - **Passkeys, SAML, and SCIM.** Clerk offers passkeys on Pro and enterprise connections from one included on Pro. Udibo does not offer hosted passkeys, SAML, or SCIM today. ## Pricing side by side Clerk's prices and Udibo's pricing assumptions were checked October 2, 2026. Clerk bills retained users, and Udibo prices them: "A person who returns more than 24 hours after creating their account counts once in that UTC calendar month." | You need | Udibo | Clerk | | -------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Free plan | 500 retained users, 25,000 hosted permission checks, 1,000 emails | 50,000 retained users per app, with Clerk branding | | First paid plan | $5 a month plus usage: 5,000 users, 250,000 checks, 10,000 emails included | Pro, $25 a month ($20 billed annually) | | Multi-factor authentication | Included on Free | Pro | | Custom roles and permissions | Included on Free | Basic Admin/Member roles with custom permissions on Hobby; custom roles and rolesets in the Enhanced B2B add-on, $100 a month | | Organizations and members | No cap | Free: 100 organizations of 20 members; unlimited members in the $100 add-on | | Remove vendor branding | Included on Free | Pro | | Custom session lifetime | Included on Free | Pro | | Enterprise SSO connections | No per-connection fee for OpenID Connect providers; SAML not yet available | 1 on Pro, then $75 each (2–15) and $60 each (16–100) | | Audit or application log history | At least 90 days on every plan | 1 day on Free, 7 days on Pro | | Sign-in email | Free: 1,000 emails. Standard: 10,000, then $1 per 1,000; your own sender is counted but not billed | Included; SMS $0.01 (US and Canada) | | Users beyond the allowance | $3 per 1,000 retained users | Graduated Pro rates: $0.02 each from 50,001–100,000; $0.018 to 1,000,000; $0.015 to 10,000,000; $0.012 above | | Hosted permission checks | $10 per 1,000,000 past the allowance | No equivalent product | | Machine-to-machine tokens | No per-token charge; technical and abuse limits apply | $1 per 1,000 token creations past 2,500 and $10 per million remote verifications past 100,000 ([docs](https://clerk.com/docs/guides/development/machine-auth/m2m-tokens)) | Three worked examples, with the same assumptions on both sides: | Scenario | Udibo | Clerk | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Consumer app: 10,000 retained users, 5,000 sign-in emails, MFA on, your own branding | $20 (Standard base plus 5,000 users above allowance) | $25 (Pro; Free would be $0 but with Clerk branding and no MFA) | | B2B app: 200 users, 5 organizations of 30 members, custom roles, MFA | $0 on Free, or $5 on Standard | $125 (Pro plus the Enhanced B2B add-on for custom roles and members) | | Consumer app at 100,000 retained users | About $290 | $1,025 | Sources: [Clerk pricing](https://clerk.com/pricing) and Udibo's [pricing page](https://www.udibo.com/pricing). Both change; check the vendor's current page before you decide. ## Cost at scale Users only, with the same retained-user count on both sides. These rows use Udibo Standard's prices and Clerk Pro's monthly billing price, with MFA and vendor-brand removal. They exclude email overages, hosted permission checks, organization add-ons, and enterprise connections. | Retained users | Udibo | Clerk Pro | | -------------- | ------------- | --------- | | 1,000 | $5 (Standard) | $25 | | 10,000 | $20 | $25 | | 100,000 | About $290 | $1,025 | | 1,000,000 | About $2,990 | $17,225 | At one million retained users, Clerk's total is $25 plus 50,000 × $0.02 plus 900,000 × $0.018. The published volume bands are graduated, rather than one rate applied to every user above the allowance. See [Clerk's pricing explanation](https://clerk.com/articles/clerk-pricing-explained). Clerk's free plan is $0 through 50,000 retained users if Clerk's branding, no MFA, and the organization caps are acceptable. With MFA and vendor-brand removal enabled, the users-only totals above favor Udibo Standard below roughly 11,700 retained users. Clerk Pro costs less from there until roughly 56,800 retained users; above that point Udibo Standard costs less. Organization add-ons, email, and permission-check usage can change the complete bill. ## What the integration looks like With Udibo, register an application and its callback, send people to the hosted sign-in page, and finish the authorization-code flow on your server. Your backend holds the session and the browser gets a cookie, never a token. The [first-login guide](https://www.udibo.com/docs/identity/get-started) walks each checkpoint, and the [organizations](https://www.udibo.com/docs/identity/organizations) and [permissions](https://www.udibo.com/docs/identity/permissions) guides cover a person with a different role in each of two organizations. With Clerk, you mount its provider and components in your framework and use its SDK for session and organization state. Clerk documents quickstarts for full-stack, frontend, and native frameworks ([Clerk quickstarts](https://clerk.com/docs/getting-started/quickstart/overview), [Clerk architecture](https://clerk.com/docs/guides/how-clerk-works/overview)). Neither approach removes your responsibility to protect application data on the server. A valid session says who someone is; your backend still decides what they may read. ## Where Udibo needs a closer look Udibo does not currently offer hosted passkeys, SAML, or SCIM. The `@udibo/oauth2` package supplies protocol building blocks, not drop-in UI components. Customers administer tenants through the dashboard today; there is no self-serve management API credential for a script or backend. See the [API guide](https://www.udibo.com/docs/identity/apis#the-management-api). If your product needs a particular account-management screen, test that whole journey before committing; a successful login alone does not establish parity. ## Moving an existing Clerk application Inventory every place your application uses Clerk's user, session, organization, or component APIs. Give your own user records stable IDs and record the mapping from the old issuer and subject to the new one; do not use email alone as an automatic account-linking rule. Replace one server-side authentication boundary first, then account UI and organization selection. Password hashes in a supported format import and upgrade on first sign-in; MFA enrollment and sessions do not move, so plan a re-enrollment path. See [migration planning](https://www.udibo.com/docs/identity/migrate) and [user import](https://www.udibo.com/docs/identity/user-import). **Try next:** complete [one Udibo login](https://www.udibo.com/docs/identity/get-started), then give a person two organizations and a different role in each. Before you have an account, the [agent integration brief](https://www.udibo.com/docs/identity/agents) lets your coding assistant prepare the integration. ## Frequently asked questions **Is Udibo cheaper than Clerk?** Both free plans can cover a small consumer app within their allowances. Between 501 and 50,000 retained users, Clerk can remain free with its branding and without MFA, while Udibo's prices call for Standard. For a product that needs MFA, custom roles, more than 20 members in an organization, or its own branding, Udibo's Free or $5 plan replaces Clerk's $25 Pro plan and its $100 add-on. Clerk's published graduated rates above 50,000 retained users start at $0.02 each and fall at higher volumes; compare the complete monthly bill, including organization add-ons, with Udibo's total. **Does Udibo have prebuilt components like Clerk?** No. Udibo hosts the sign-in, account-recovery, and MFA pages on its side and returns to your app through OAuth 2.0; the account screens inside your product are yours to build, and the `@udibo/oauth2` package supplies the protocol pieces rather than UI. **Can I move from Clerk to Udibo without making users re-register?** Profiles and social identities can be imported and linked by the provider's stable subject. Password hashes Clerk can export are imported with an upgrade on first sign-in; MFA enrollments and active sessions do not move, so plan a re-enrollment path. See [migration planning](https://www.udibo.com/docs/identity/migrate). **Does Udibo support SAML or SCIM like Clerk?** Not today. Udibo connects to any OpenID Connect provider with no per-connection fee; SAML federation, SCIM provisioning, and hosted passkeys are not available. _Last verified 2026-10-02._