Open-source self-hosted auth at $0/MAU vs a polished managed service at $25+/month. Which is right for your product?
June 2026 published pricing. Better Auth: $0 software + hosting. Clerk: per-MAU above free tier.
| MAU Scale | Better Auth | Clerk Free | Clerk Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–10K MAU | ~$5/mo (hosting only) | $0 | $0 |
| 10K MAU | ~$5–10/mo | $0 | $25/mo |
| 50K MAU | ~$10–20/mo | N/A (limit exceeded) | $825/mo ($25 + 40K×$0.02) |
| 200K MAU | ~$20–50/mo | N/A | $3,825/mo ($25 + 190K×$0.02) |
| 1M MAU | ~$100–200/mo | N/A | Custom / enterprise |
Better Auth hosting estimate: self-hosted on Hetzner CX22 (~€4/mo) or serverless edge functions. Cost does not scale with MAU — only with infrastructure needed for throughput.
Core auth capabilities, developer experience, and production features.
| Feature | Better Auth | Clerk |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Free (MIT open source) | Free tier (10K MAU), then per-MAU |
| Email/password auth | ✅ | ✅ |
| OAuth (Google, GitHub, etc.) | ✅ 30+ providers | ✅ 20+ providers |
| Magic links | ✅ | ✅ |
| Two-factor auth (TOTP) | ✅ | ✅ (Pro) |
| Passkeys / WebAuthn | ✅ | ✅ |
| Organizations / multi-tenancy | ✅ (built-in plugin) | ✅ (Pro) |
| Prebuilt UI components | ❌ (bring your own UI) | ✅ React/Next.js components |
| User management dashboard | ❌ (build your own) | ✅ hosted dashboard |
| Self-hostable | ✅ required | ❌ cloud-only |
| Data residency control | ✅ full control | ❌ Clerk cloud only |
| TypeScript-first | ✅ fully typed | ✅ |
| Edge runtime compatible | ✅ (Cloudflare Workers, etc.) | ✅ |
| SAML SSO | ⚠️ community plugin | ✅ (Enterprise plan) |
| Audit logs | ⚠️ implement yourself | ✅ (Pro) |
The cost difference between Better Auth and Clerk is small at under 10K MAU (Clerk is free, Better Auth costs ~$5/month hosting). But it diverges sharply above that:
This matters most for B2C products with large free user bases — a consumer app with 500K registered users but low revenue doesn't want to pay $10K+/month in auth fees. Better Auth's flat infrastructure cost model doesn't penalize you for user growth.
For early-stage products under 10K MAU: start with Clerk — the free tier is excellent, the DX is unmatched, and you'll ship faster.
As you grow past 10K MAU, run the numbers. Better Auth's migration path from NextAuth/Auth.js is well-documented, and the engineering effort to self-host pays for itself within weeks once Clerk billing kicks in at scale.
If you care about data ownership from day one, start with Better Auth — it costs almost nothing and you'll never face a pricing cliff.
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