Original research
SSO tax: what single sign-on costs on 37 SaaS pricing pages
We read 37 SaaS pricing pages for SSO on 31 October 2026. 18 put it on a quote-only plan, and listed upgrades ran from 2x to 24x the lowest paid plan.
The SSO tax is the extra amount a buyer pays because single sign-on is only sold on a higher plan. We read 37 SaaS pricing pages that clearly placed SSO on 31 October 2026: 18 put it on a quote-only plan, 12 listed a price and 5 sold it as an add-on or separate subscription.
Among the 7 seat-priced plans with a listed price, the median SSO plan cost 2.6 times the lowest paid plan. The increase pays for every other feature on that plan as well, so it is not the price of SSO alone. The name comes from the SSO Wall of Shame, an independent list that calculates its increases differently.
Where SSO sits on 37 pricing pages
| Placement | Pages | Products |
|---|---|---|
| Quote-only plan | 18 | Asana, ClickUp, Linear, Smartsheet, Teamwork, Gorgias, Webflow, Framer, Netlify, Retool, ActiveCampaign, Hootsuite, Semrush, Contentsquare (Hotjar), Docusign, PandaDoc, Typeform, Jotform |
| Higher plan with a listed price | 12 | See the table below |
| Add-on or separate subscription | 5 | Vercel (USD 300 a month on Pro), Trello and Jira (through Atlassian Guard), Calendly, PlanetScale |
| A team plan, with no list upgrade calculated | 2 | Mixpanel (Growth), Claude (Team) |
So 18 of these 37 pages give no way to calculate the cost of SSO without talking to sales. The list leans towards well-known products, since it comes from our catalog of pricing sources.
The 12 plans with a listed price
| Product | Lowest paid plan | First SSO plan | Unit shown | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sketch | Standard 12 | Professional 24 | USD per editor | 2.0x |
| Notion | Plus 9.50 | Business 19.50 | EUR per member | 2.1x |
| Slack | Pro 8.25 | Business+ 18 | EUR per user | 2.2x |
| Front | Starter 25 | Professional 65 | USD per seat | 2.6x |
| Help Scout | Standard 25 | Pro 75 | USD per user | 3.0x |
| Figma | Professional 16 | Organization 55 | USD per full seat | 3.4x |
| GitHub | Team 4 | Enterprise 21 | USD per user | 5.3x |
| Sentry | Team 26 | Business 80 | USD per organization | 3.1x |
| Zapier | Professional 19.99 | Team 69 | USD starting rate | 3.5x |
| Ahrefs | Lite 119 | Enterprise 1,394 | EUR per account | 11.7x |
| Render | Pro 25 | Scale 499 | USD per workspace | 20.0x |
| Supabase | Pro 25 | Team 599 | USD per organization | 24.0x |
The first 7 rows are priced per seat, with a median of 2.6x. The last 5 are priced per account, organization or starting tier, with a median of 11.7x. Those larger multiples are not directly comparable, because one flat fee is shared across a team and the higher plans include more usage.
Currency is what the page showed to our fetcher in Finland, so compare multiples, not amounts, across products.
Work out your own SSO cost
For seat pricing: extra annual cost = (SSO plan price - current plan price) × seats × 12.
| Product | Difference per seat, per month | 10 seats, per year | 50 seats, per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notion, Plus to Business | EUR 10 | EUR 1,200 | EUR 6,000 |
| GitHub, Team to Enterprise | USD 17 | USD 2,040 | USD 10,200 |
| Help Scout, Standard to Pro | USD 50 | USD 6,000 | USD 30,000 |
Check for seat minimums and limits before you trust the result. Add the figure to your total cost worksheet, and use the seat guide to count who is billable.
Check which SSO you are getting
"SSO" on a pricing page can mean signing in with a Google account, which is not the same as connecting your identity provider through SAML. On ClickUp's page, Google SSO appears on Business while SAML appears on Enterprise. Linear's table shows Google on every plan and adds SAML on Enterprise.
Provisioning can be separate too. SCIM, which adds and removes users automatically, is not always bundled with SSO, and Vercel's table lists a price for SAML on Pro while leaving directory sync out of that plan. Confirm both in writing if your security review needs them.
What to ask before you buy
- Which plan first includes SAML SSO, and is it included or an add-on?
- Can we enforce SSO for every member, and is SCIM included at that plan?
- Is there a seat minimum or annual commitment on that plan?
- Which other features are we paying for, and which would we actually use?
- How will the price change at renewal? Use the renewal notice guide when it arrives, and keep the quote and invoice terms together.
When a page gives no price, record it as unknown in your comparison instead of estimating. Comparing on the same basis covers how to keep those gaps visible.
How we measured this
- Sample. We fetched the pricing pages of the 100 products in our source catalog on 31 October 2026. 92 returned a page and 61 of those mentioned SSO, SAML or single sign-on in the text we could read.
- Classification. We counted 37 pages where the text clearly tied SSO to a plan or add-on. We left out the other 24: pages where our text extract could not settle the plan, and identity or password products, where SSO is part of what is being sold.
- Vendor help pages. Notion, Slack, Figma and Render confirm the plan through their own documentation. Slack also says Free and Pro workspaces can use SAML with a connected Salesforce org.
- Prices. Plan amounts appeared on each page when we read it and use the billing basis the page displayed. Taxes are excluded from our arithmetic, and we did not check negotiated prices.
- Status. This is an automated read of public pages, not a human-reviewed record. A page with no SSO mention does not show that a product lacks it.
SSO pricing questions
What is the SSO tax?
It is the extra cost of moving to a higher plan because that plan is the first one to include single sign-on. The term is informal, and the increase usually covers other features too.
How much does SSO cost on SaaS plans?
In our sample, seat-priced SSO plans listed at 2.0 to 5.3 times the lowest paid plan, with a median of 2.6x. Another 18 pages sold SSO only on a quote-only plan.
Is Google sign-in the same as SAML SSO?
No. Google sign-in uses a Google account. SAML connects the product to your company's identity provider, so check which one the plan includes.