Authentication services, October 2026: 1 open gap — 0 closed, 2 opened.

What was read

7 companies placed; 3 read during October 2026.

• ClerkSep 30, 2026
• Auth0Sep 30, 2026
• StytchSep 30, 2026
• WorkOSSep 30, 2026
• SupabaseOct 1, 2026
• Solo builders adding sign-inSep 30, 2026
• Auth pricing at scaleSep 30, 2026

Gaps closed and opened

4 themes were raised about two or more of 4 read companies; 1 shares no word with anything a company declares. Against the previous month: 2 gaps opened and 0 closed (0 now share a word with a declared capability, 0 no longer raised about two companies). Themes are compared by their words, so a theme the reading reworded counts as one closed and one opened.

Opened · 2

Complexity, setup and learning curve, Price increases

Now answered in the declared names · 0

—

No longer raised about two companies · 0

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• ● Price levelraised about 3 of 4
• ◌ Complexity, setup and learning curveraised about 2 of 4 · no declared match
• ◌ Price increasesraised about 2 of 4 · no declared match
• ● Usage limits and capsraised about 2 of 4

Who entered

No company was placed or sighted this month.

Pricing moves

7 of 7 read companies have a pricing entry on record; 2 pricing changes recorded across 1 company this month.

• Supabase [FACT] Oct 17, 2026 · 2 changes this monthOn the pricing page, 'Designated Support manager' was removed and replaced with 'Technical Account Management'. source
• Auth0 [COMPANY CLAIM] Sep 30, 2026Baseline pricing structure (from third-party trackers, not directly fetched from auth0.com/pricing): Free tier up to ~25,000 MAU; B2C Essentials ~$35/mo, B2C Professional ~$240/mo; B2B Essentials ~$150/mo, B2B Professional ~$800/mo; Enterprise is custom-quoted with 99.99% SLA and private deployment options. source
• Clerk [FACT] Sep 30, 2026Clerk's free Hobby plan covers up to 50,000 monthly retained users (up from a prior 10,000 MAU tier retired February 5, 2026), with Pro starting at $20/mo billed annually (or $25/mo monthly) including 50K MRUs plus one Enterprise SSO connection, and Business starting at $250/mo billed annually (or $300/mo monthly). source
• Stytch [FACT] Sep 30, 2026Stytch's pricing page states it offers 10,000 free monthly active users and AI agents, unlimited organizations, 5 SSO or SCIM connections, 1,000 M2M tokens, and the full authn/authz feature suite for $0/month, with usage-based overage pricing above these thresholds and no hard caps or pricing cliffs. source
• WorkOS [FACT] Sep 30, 2026WorkOS's official pricing page states organization-based, usage-scaling pricing: the first 1 million active users are free, with Pay as You Go plans offering automatic volume discounts, and higher tiers ('Annual Credits') adding pre-pay credit discounts, a 99.99% uptime SLA, guided migration, and guaranteed support SLA. source
• Solo builders adding sign-in [FACT] Sep 30, 2026Free-tier MAU thresholds vary widely across providers commonly recommended to solo builders: Supabase Auth is free up to roughly 50,000 MAUs with a $25/month Pro plan covering 100,000 MAUs, Firebase Auth's Spark plan is free to about 50,000 MAUs, and Clerk offers a free tier of about 10,000 MAUs before costs rise sharply at scale (estimated ~$1,825 at 100K MAUs). source
• Auth pricing at scale [FACT] Sep 30, 2026BASELINE: Auth0's free plan covers up to 25,000 monthly active users, with Essentials starting at $35/month for 500 MAU (B2C) and $150/month for 500 MAU (B2B), and Professional starting at $240/month (B2C, 1,000 MAU) or $800/month (B2B, 1,000 MAU); Enterprise is custom-priced. source

What users raised

8 themes raised by users; the most raised: Price level (3 of 4), Complexity, setup and learning curve (2 of 4), Price increases (2 of 4).

• Price level 3/4
• Complexity, setup and learning curve 2/4
• Price increases 2/4
• Usage limits and caps 2/4
• Bugs and reliability 1/4
• Data export and lock-in 1/4
• Privacy and security 1/4
• vendor lock-in risk 1/4

Funding by quarter

1 round recorded across 2 read quarters; sums are floors per currency and per tag, never combined.

• 2025-Q1not read
• 2025-Q2not read
• 2025-Q3not read
• 2025-Q4not read
• 2026-Q1not read
• 2026-Q2not read
• 2026-Q31 round
• 2026-Q40 rounds

The ledger this month

37 observed claims recorded this month, 1 inference counted apart, 1 source that did not answer.

• PRODUCT · 35
• PRICING · 2