The real cost of enterprise SSO: per-connection vs per-MAU pricing - Part 2

Part 2 of the series on enterprise SSO pricing delves into the hidden costs associated with enterprise single sign-on (SSO), highlighting the "SSO tax," SCIM fees, and the significant engineering costs of building SSO in-house. While vendors often market SSO as a luxury upgrade, the actual expenses of supporting SAML are primarily due to initial integration work and ongoing maintenance, not per-user infrastructure costs. The "SSO tax" is prevalent in two markets: SaaS applications charging customers extra for SSO and auth-infrastructure providers charging developers for delivering SSO and SCIM. Hidden costs, such as directory-sync fees, MAU overages, and add-ons for support and audit logs, often exceed the base SSO price. Building SSO in-house demands a multi-quarter engineering effort and ongoing maintenance, with costs potentially reaching high six figures to over a million dollars over three years. Buying managed SSO solutions is generally more cost-effective for B2B SaaS companies, as it alleviates the ongoing security and maintenance burden.

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