Identity Provider Cost Calculator
Estimate IdP costs from user count, feature tier (SSO, MFA, governance), app integrations, and implementation effort.
About this calculator
Identity provider costs split into two very different pricing models depending on who's authenticating. Internal users (employees) are billed per-seat per-month at a rate set by feature tier — $3 for basic SSO, $6 for SSO plus MFA, $12 for enterprise with governance and lifecycle management — and that per-seat rate gets a volume discount once you cross 500 users (10% off), 2,000 (20%), or 5,000 (30%), reflecting how IdP vendors actually negotiate at scale. External users (customers or partners) are priced completely differently: per-authentication rather than per-seat, at an assumed 3 logins per user per month, because CIAM workloads have wildly uneven login frequency and per-seat pricing would badly overcharge low-engagement accounts. App integrations follow a tiered-inclusion model — each tier bundles a number of SAML/OIDC apps for free (3, 5, or 10 depending on tier), and every integration beyond that is billed per-app, with higher tiers actually charging less per additional app since the platform assumes more integration volume.
A flat monthly platform fee applies above the basic tier. Implementation cost is estimated separately as a one-time project: base weeks by tier complexity plus additional time for integration count, billed at a $150/hour consultant rate, and folded into total cost of ownership by amortizing it over three years. The most common mixup is comparing raw per-seat prices across vendors without accounting for the external-user auth-based cost, which can dominate total spend for consumer-facing deployments even when the internal headcount is small.
Inputs
Results
Monthly cost ($)
$1,250.00
Annual TCO ($)
$25,000.00
How to Use This Calculator
- Enter internal users (employees) and external users (customers/partners).
- Select feature tier (basic SSO, SSO + MFA, or enterprise with governance) and enter app integrations.
- Review monthly and annual cost, cost per user, and volume discount percentage.
- Compare to the cost of a breach to justify investment in identity security.
How the result changes with Internal users (employees)
| Internal users (employees) | Monthly cost ($) | Annual TCO ($) |
|---|---|---|
| 50 | $950.00 | $21,400.00 |
| 75 | $1,100.00 | $23,200.00 |
| 150 | $1,550.00 | $28,600.00 |
| 250 | $2,150.00 | $35,800.00 |
What each input means
- Internal users (employees)
- Number of employees/contractors needing SSO access to internal applications.
- External users (customers)
- Number of customer/partner identities (CIAM). Priced per authentication, not per seat.
- Feature tier (0-2)
- 0 = Basic SSO ($3/user/mo), 1 = SSO + MFA ($6/user/mo), 2 = Enterprise with governance ($12/user/mo).
- App integrations
- Number of SAML/OIDC applications to integrate. Some are included in the tier, extras cost per-app.
What each result means
- Monthly cost ($)
- Total monthly IdP cost including users, integrations, and platform fees.
- Annual cost ($)
- Total annual IdP subscription cost.
- Blended cost per user ($)
- Average monthly cost per user across internal and external identities.
- Volume discount (%)
- Discount applied based on user count (10% at 500+, 20% at 2000+, 30% at 5000+).
- Implementation cost ($)
- Estimated one-time implementation cost based on tier complexity and integration count.
- Implementation (weeks)
- Estimated implementation timeline in weeks.
- Annual TCO ($)
- Total cost of ownership: annual subscription + implementation amortized over 3 years.
How this is calculated
Worked example, using the default values
- Identify Input Parameters4 parametersInternal users (employees) = 100, External users (customers) = 0, Feature tier (0-2) = 1, App integrations = 10 = 4 input(s) provided
- Calculate Monthly costMonthly cost = internalMonthlyCost + externalMonthlyCost + integrationMonthlyCost + platformFee1250 = $1,250
- Calculate Annual TCOAnnual TCO = totalAnnualCost + (implementationCost / 3)25000 = $25,000
- Calculate Annual costAnnual cost = totalMonthlyCost * 1215000 = $15,000
- Calculate Blended cost per user12.5 = $12.5
Engine last updated . Checked against 2 independently-derived tests — how we verify calculators. Built by Paul Gunder, a software engineer, not a licensed financial, medical, or legal professional.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are external users priced so differently from internal users?
Internal users are billed per-seat per-month because employees log in relatively predictably, but external/customer identities (CIAM) are billed per-authentication instead, assuming an average of 3 logins per user per month. This calculator models it this way because a customer base often has a huge number of infrequent or dormant accounts, and per-seat pricing would badly overcharge for those compared to actual usage.
How much does the volume discount actually save at scale?
The calculator applies a straight percentage cut to the internal per-seat cost once you cross a threshold: 10% off above 500 users, 20% above 2,000, and 30% above 5,000. So at exactly 5,001 internal users on the SSO+MFA tier ($6/user/month), the discounted rate drops to $4.20/user/month -- the discount applies to the whole internal user base once you cross the threshold, not just the users above it.
Why does the enterprise tier charge less per additional app integration than the basic tier?
Each tier includes a bundled number of free SAML/OIDC integrations (3, 5, or 10 depending on tier), and integrations beyond that are billed per-app at rates that actually drop as the tier goes up ($50, $30, then $15 per additional app). The model assumes enterprise customers integrate more applications overall, so the platform prices marginal integrations lower to reflect that higher-volume relationship.
What's included in the implementation cost, and why is it amortized over 3 years?
Implementation cost is a one-time project estimate combining a base timeline that scales with tier complexity (2, 4, or 8 weeks) plus extra time for higher integration counts, billed at a $150/hour consultant rate for a 40-hour work week. Because it's a sunk cost rather than a recurring one, the annual TCO figure divides it by 3 and adds that fraction to the annual subscription cost, giving a more realistic year-over-year comparison than lumping the full implementation cost into year one alone.
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