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SuperTokens vs Clerk

SEPT 2026 audit

A comparison of SuperTokens and Clerk built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.

Reviewed by Palash BagchiUpdated 25 criteria comparedSources last checked

The short answer

Choose SuperTokens if…

Teams that want to run auth themselves and keep the user table in their own database, with a managed option priced per user rather than per plan.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Choose Clerk if…

Getting a complete, styled sign-in flow running quickly, with 50,000 users free before any bill starts.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Consider something else if…

  • SuperTokens: The $100 monthly minimum makes it expensive below about 5,000 users, and MFA is a separate per-user charge rather than an included feature.
  • Clerk: Enterprise connections are $75/month each after the first, so a B2B product selling to several SSO-using customers pays per logo.

Neither quite fits? Every other option, ranked by iScore: SuperTokens alternatives · Clerk alternatives

8 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.

Visit SuperTokens documentationVisit Clerk documentation

No affiliate links, sponsored placements or paid rankings appear on this site. Ordering follows the sourced data and the stated criteria.

01.

At a glance.

CriterionSuperTokensClerk
Pricing
Free tierYesYes
Kind of free offerAlways freeFree tier
What the free plan includesThe open-source features are free at any scale when self-hosted, with no user cap; only the paid add-ons and the managed service are billed. The managed dashboard is free for the first three users.50,000 monthly retained users per application with one day of application-log retention, and no credit card to start.
Entry paid plan
$100 per month minimum billing on the managed Cloud service; anything from 1 to 4,999 MAU bills at that $100 floor.
$25/month for Pro, or $20/month billed annually. Business is $300/month.
Pricing modelPer monthly active user with add-ons metered on top rather than bundled: $0.02 per MAU base, plus $0.01 per MAU for multi-factor auth, plus $0.005 per MAU for account linking, plus $20 per dashboard user per month beyond the 3 free ones — all against a $100/month minimum on the managed Cloud plan. Self-hosting the open source features is free with no MAU limit.A monthly base price plus per-user billing above the included 50,000, with enterprise connections, extra dashboard seats and satellite domains each priced as separate add-ons at $75, $20 and $10 a month.
Auth
Users included
No fixed allowance — billing is $0.02 per monthly active user against a $100 monthly minimum, so the first 4,999 users are covered by the floor.
50,000 monthly retained users per app, on the free Hobby plan and on Pro alike. Beyond that, $0.02 each falling to $0.012 above 10 million.
SCIM provisioning
Not supported — Not shipped; the post shows how to build SCIM endpoints on top of SuperTokens yourself.
Supported
Multi-factor authenticationSupportedSupported
Compliance
SOC 2Advertised as SOC2 compliant with 100+ controls and tests; the site does not state the audit type (Type I or II) or report availability.SOC 2 Type 2 certified since May 6, 2022. Report available on Business plan and above via support request.
GDPR / data residency
Listed as compliant on "Compliance (SOC2, GDPR)" in the pricing page's own comparison table (SuperTokens column: Yes). A self-comparison table; no data-residency or EU-hosting option is given there.
Self-certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, its UK Extension, and the Swiss-U.S. DPF, effective February 22, 2024.

Only criteria both providers publish appear here; a tinted cell marks a real difference. Criteria only one of them documents are listed below, and an absence there means we found no source — not that the feature is missing. How we source this.

The small bar above a value is inetGeek's own lean toward that side — computed from the same facts shown, never a number the provider published. See the picker below "The short answer" to weigh only the criteria you care about.

02.

Where they differ.

Kind of free offer

SuperTokens
Always free
Clerk
Free tier
Sources (2) →

What the free plan includes

SuperTokens
The open-source features are free at any scale when self-hosted, with no user cap; only the paid add-ons and the managed service are billed. The managed dashboard is free for the first three users.
Clerk
50,000 monthly retained users per application with one day of application-log retention, and no credit card to start.
Sources (2) →
  • SuperTokens Pricing ↗

    “In self hosted, you can use the open source features of SuperTokens for free at any scale and pay only for the paid features mentioned in "Scale". [...] free for first 3 users”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Pricing — Clerk ↗

    “Hobby Free No credit card required [...] 50,000 MRU limit per app [...] Application Logs 1 day retention”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

Entry paid plan

SuperTokens
$100 per month minimum billing on the managed Cloud service; anything from 1 to 4,999 MAU bills at that $100 floor.
Clerk
$25/month for Pro, or $20/month billed annually. Business is $300/month.
Sources (2) →

Pricing model

SuperTokens
Per monthly active user with add-ons metered on top rather than bundled: $0.02 per MAU base, plus $0.01 per MAU for multi-factor auth, plus $0.005 per MAU for account linking, plus $20 per dashboard user per month beyond the 3 free ones — all against a $100/month minimum on the managed Cloud plan. Self-hosting the open source features is free with no MAU limit.
Clerk
A monthly base price plus per-user billing above the included 50,000, with enterprise connections, extra dashboard seats and satellite domains each priced as separate add-ons at $75, $20 and $10 a month.
Sources (2) →
  • Pricing & Features for SuperTokens ↗

    “Cloud Self-hosted $0.02 per MAU [...] Multi-factor Authentication $0.01 / MAU [...] Account Linking $0.005 / MAU [...] Number of Dashboard users (3 free users) $20 / user / month”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Pricing — Clerk ↗

    “Base price $0 $25/mo [...] Additional $0.02/mo each [...] Additional $75/mo each [...] Additional $20/mo each [...] Additional $10/mo each”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

Users included

SuperTokens

No fixed allowance — billing is $0.02 per monthly active user against a $100 monthly minimum, so the first 4,999 users are covered by the floor.

Clerk

50,000 monthly retained users per app, on the free Hobby plan and on Pro alike. Beyond that, $0.02 each falling to $0.012 above 10 million.

Sources (2) →
  • Pricing — SuperTokens ↗

    “$0.02 per MAU Number of unique logged in users that are on your prod [...] if you have 5,000 MAUs, that will be ( $0.02 + $0.005 ) * 5000 = $125”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Pricing — Clerk ↗

    “50,000 MRU limit per app [...] 50,000 MRUs included per app 50,001 - 100,000 $0.02/mo each 100,001 - 1,000,000 $0.018/mo each 1,000,001 - 10,000,000 $0.015/mo each 10,000,001+ $0.012/mo each”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

SCIM provisioning

SuperTokens
Not supported — Not shipped; the post shows how to build SCIM endpoints on top of SuperTokens yourself.
Clerk
Supported
Sources (2) →

SOC 2

SuperTokens
Advertised as SOC2 compliant with 100+ controls and tests; the site does not state the audit type (Type I or II) or report availability.
Clerk
SOC 2 Type 2 certified since May 6, 2022. Report available on Business plan and above via support request.
Sources (2) →

GDPR / data residency

SuperTokens
Listed as compliant on "Compliance (SOC2, GDPR)" in the pricing page's own comparison table (SuperTokens column: Yes). A self-comparison table; no data-residency or EU-hosting option is given there.
Clerk
Self-certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, its UK Extension, and the Swiss-U.S. DPF, effective February 22, 2024.
Sources (2) →

When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.

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03.

Documented by only one.

These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing — except where we say we read the other provider's own page on a given date and it does not state it. Those rows lean, and the provider can correct them with a link.

Credit card to startClerk: No
Startup credit programClerk: Clerk for Startups: 50,000 monthly retained users and 100 monthly retained organizations free, plus a discretionary discount on Pro features (amount disclosed only on approval). Requires within 1 year of launch and up to $5M in venture funding.
RegionsSuperTokens: Attack Protection Suite calls go to one of three published regional endpoints: US (N. Virginia), EU (Ireland) and APAC (Singapore). Attack Protection Suite endpoints only; the managed core's own region list is not enumerated on the site.
Uptime SLAClerk: 99.99% on Enterprise, which is custom-priced and annual only. Hobby, Pro and Business publish none.
Self-hostableSuperTokens: Supported
Price per SSO connectionClerk: One enterprise connection included on Pro, then $75/month each.
SAML single sign-onClerk: Supported
Audit logsClerk: Application logs with 1-day retention on the free Hobby plan; longer retention is a paid-plan feature Clerk lists without publishing the window.
Support on entry paid planClerk: No support tier is named until Business: Hobby and Pro, the entry paid plan at $20/month, list none. Business adds priority support and Enterprise a premium support SLA with a dedicated Slack channel.
ISO 27001Clerk: Not ISO 27001 certified. Underlying infrastructure providers (Google Cloud, Cloudflare) hold it.
HIPAAClerk: HIPAA certified since May 6, 2022; BAA available on the Enterprise plan.
PCI DSSClerk: Makes no PCI DSS claim — Clerk states it never stores cardholder data.
Encryption at restSuperTokens: Trust centre control "Data encryption utilized": datastores housing sensitive customer data are encrypted at rest.
Role-based access controlSuperTokens: Built-in User Roles feature: create roles and permissions, assign them to users and limit access based on application logic.
Private networking / VPCSuperTokens: Self-hosted only: docs say to run the Core and PostgreSQL on private networks, or a subnet reachable only by your own backend. Self-host deployment guidance, not a managed-service private-link or VPC-peering offering.
04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Entry paid plan: SuperTokens or Clerk?

SuperTokens: $100 per month minimum billing on the managed Cloud service; anything from 1 to 4,999 MAU bills at that $100 floor.

Clerk: $25/month for Pro, or $20/month billed annually. Business is $300/month.

Should I choose SuperTokens or Clerk?

Pick SuperTokens if Teams that want to run auth themselves and keep the user table in their own database, with a managed option priced per user rather than per plan.

Pick Clerk if Getting a complete, styled sign-in flow running quickly, with 50,000 users free before any bill starts.

Provider pages

SuperTokensOpen-source auth billed per monthly active user, with MFA and account linking metered separately and a self-hosted option.ClerkHosted user management with prebuilt UI components, priced on monthly retained users with enterprise connections billed separately.

Related comparisons

Auth0 vs SuperTokensBetter Auth vs SuperTokensClerk vs Auth0Clerk vs Better AuthClerk vs WorkOSKinde vs ClerkKinde vs SuperTokensNhost vs Clerk

Comments

Every page here is sourced and dated.