Quick signals
Complexity
High
Workforce IAM is operationally heavy because rollout and policy ownership span the whole organization, even if the tooling is managed
Common upgrade trigger
Need stronger conditional access and advanced policy controls
When it gets expensive
The operational cost is policy ownership and rollout discipline, not just licensing
What this product actually is
OneLogin is workforce IAM for SSO and MFA across SaaS apps, commonly evaluated against Okta and Entra. Pick it when governance and workforce access control are the problem.
Pricing behavior (not a price list)
These points describe when users typically pay more, what actions trigger upgrades, and the mechanics of how costs escalate.
Actions that trigger upgrades
- Need stronger conditional access and advanced policy controls
- Need governance workflows like access reviews and lifecycle automation
- Need enterprise support and higher assurance security posture
- Need to standardize identity across multiple business units and apps
- Need tighter ecosystem alignment with a primary vendor (Microsoft, etc.)
When costs usually spike
- The operational cost is policy ownership and rollout discipline, not just licensing
- App-by-app onboarding often requires testing and attribute mapping
- Migrations require staged cutovers to avoid widespread login failures
- Identity incidents are outages; monitoring and runbooks are mandatory
- Workforce IAM tooling doesn’t replace CIAM product needs
Plans and variants (structural only)
Grouped by type to show structure, not to rank or recommend specific SKUs.
Plans
- Base - Per-user licensing - Workforce SSO and baseline controls (see pricing page)
- Security - Add-ons - MFA and advanced security controls (see pricing page)
- Governance - Add-ons - Reviews/lifecycle workflows where applicable (see pricing page)
Costs and limitations
Common limits
- Not designed for product-embedded customer CIAM use cases
- Governance maturity varies by org needs (access reviews/lifecycle depth)
- Integration depth depends on your SaaS estate and attribute mapping needs
- Policy complexity can become operational debt without ownership
- Switching costs increase once many apps depend on the IdP
- Advanced enterprise requirements may push evaluation toward Okta/Entra
What breaks first
- Rollout friction as more apps and teams adopt centralized SSO
- Policy drift when multiple admins change settings without governance
- B2B partner/contractor access complexity without clear models
- Switching cost once identity is embedded across the org’s SaaS estate
- Mismatch when teams try to use workforce IAM for customer auth
Decision checklist
Use these checks to validate fit for OneLogin before you commit to an architecture or contract.
- Workforce IAM vs Customer IAM (CIAM): Are you authenticating employees to many SaaS apps, or customers to your product?
- Build primitives vs buy a platform: How much engineering time can you spend on auth UX and edge cases?
- Upgrade trigger: Need stronger conditional access and advanced policy controls
- What breaks first: Rollout friction as more apps and teams adopt centralized SSO
Implementation & evaluation notes
These are the practical "gotchas" and questions that usually decide whether OneLogin fits your team and workflow.
Implementation gotchas
- Migrations require staged cutovers to avoid widespread login failures
- SSO/MFA baseline → Advanced governance depth may require upgrades or alternatives
- Broad integrations → Still needs per-app testing and attribute mapping
- Integration depth depends on your SaaS estate and attribute mapping needs
- Migration/cutover still requires careful planning to avoid SSO outages
Questions to ask before you buy
- Which actions or usage metrics trigger an upgrade (e.g., Need stronger conditional access and advanced policy controls)?
- Under what usage shape do costs or limits show up first (e.g., The operational cost is policy ownership and rollout discipline, not just licensing)?
- What breaks first in production (e.g., Rollout friction as more apps and teams adopt centralized SSO) — and what is the workaround?
- Validate: Workforce IAM vs Customer IAM (CIAM): Are you authenticating employees to many SaaS apps, or customers to your product?
- Validate: Build primitives vs buy a platform: How much engineering time can you spend on auth UX and edge cases?
Fit assessment
Good fit if…
- Organizations needing workforce SSO + MFA across many SaaS apps
- IT/security teams owning access policy and app onboarding
- Companies consolidating workforce identity providers
- Mixed SaaS environments that need federation and directory alignment
- Teams prioritizing managed workforce identity over custom build
Poor fit if…
- You need customer login (CIAM) inside your product
- You need product-level multi-tenant identity primitives
- You want usage-based MAU pricing for customer identity
- You need deep Microsoft-first alignment (often favors Entra)
- You need the broadest possible ecosystem and governance depth (often favors Okta)
Trade-offs
Every design choice has a cost. Here are the explicit trade-offs:
- Managed workforce identity → Not appropriate for CIAM inside your product
- Centralized control → Requires org-wide rollout and change management
- SSO/MFA baseline → Advanced governance depth may require upgrades or alternatives
- Broad integrations → Still needs per-app testing and attribute mapping
- Reduced engineering burden → Ongoing vendor dependency becomes part of TCO
Common alternatives people evaluate next
These are common “next shortlists” — same tier, step-down, step-sideways, or step-up — with a quick reason why.
-
Okta — Same tier / workforce IAMCompared when evaluating workforce SSO/MFA solutions with deep enterprise integrations and governance.
-
Microsoft Entra ID — Same tier / workforce IAMConsidered for Microsoft-first organizations choosing a workforce identity baseline.
-
Auth0 — Step-sideways / CIAMShortlisted when the real need is customer identity rather than workforce IAM governance.
Sources & verification
Pricing and behavioral information comes from public documentation and structured research. When information is incomplete or volatile, we prefer to say so rather than guess.