Our take
Pick Descope if saaS teams who will stay on Free Forever at $0 (7,500 MAUs, 10 tenants, 3 SSO, no watermark) while they ship a first Sign Up or In Flow, then buy Pro at $249/month billed annually when they need a custom domain and 10,000 MAUs. Pick Ory if platform teams who will run Kratos/Hydra/Keto at $0 on their own cluster, or buy Ory Network Production at $770/year ($21 included monthly credit) when they want a
Best for
Descope Sign-in journeys you draw at $0
Ory Login + OAuth + permissions you start on OSS or a printed Network $
Free plan
Descope $0 · 7,500 MAUs. 10 monthly active tenants. 3 SSO connections. 1 federated OIDC app. 5 test users. 10,000 M2M exchanges. 2,000 MACs / 2,000 MATKs. All auth methods, RBAC, MFA, sessions, widgets, connectors, no watermark, community support, 99% SLA. No overages — upgrade required to exceed limits
Ory $0 · software. You run Kratos / Hydra / Keto / Oathkeeper. Hosting is your bill
Lowest paid
Descope Pro $249/mo yearly
Ory Ory Network Growth $9/yr
Next step up
Descope Growth $799/mo yearly
Ory Ory Network Production $770/yr
Runs where
Descope Hosted
Ory
Watch out
Descope Pro $249 is billed annually
Ory $770 is yearly Network, not a $0 Cloud
Last checked
Descope 2026-10-23 · descope.com/pricing
Ory 2026-10-23 · ory.sh/pricing
saaS teams who will stay on Free Forever at $0 (7,500 MAUs, 10 tenants, 3 SSO, no watermark) while they ship a first Sign Up or In Flow, then buy Pro at $249/month billed annually when they need a custom domain and 10,000 MAUs.
Read the Descope pageplatform teams who will run Kratos/Hydra/Keto at $0 on their own cluster, or buy Ory Network Production at $770/year ($21 included monthly credit) when they want a hosted identity cloud instead of Clerk-shaped components.
Read the Ory page