The gap between selling to teams and selling to companies is not a pricing change. It is a different set of people, a different set of questions, and a set of features nobody on your roadmap asked for.
This piece walks through how we think about it at Paycux, what we have changed our minds about, and where the sharp edges are.
Why teams outgrow Cognito
Why teams outgrow Cognito deserves its own treatment. The cost is not the first integration; it is the long tail. Providers disagree in small ways, certificates expire, tenants move, and each one becomes something you own indefinitely.
Price the work honestly. A quarter spent building identity plumbing is a quarter not spent on the product the customer actually chose you for, and that trade should be made deliberately rather than by default.
No native multi-tenancy
That brings us to no native multi-tenancy. The requirements look arbitrary until you map each one to a failure the buyer has already lived through. Single sign-on exists because someone left and kept access. Provisioning exists because a contractor's account outlived their contract.
Price the work honestly. A quarter spent building identity plumbing is a quarter not spent on the product the customer actually chose you for, and that trade should be made deliberately rather than by default.
- Map each requirement to the failure it prevents
- Count the long tail, not the first integration
- Decide who owns the plumbing for the next three years
- Make the buy-versus-build trade explicitly
Limited enterprise SSO support
Limited enterprise SSO support is where this gets concrete. Price the work honestly. A quarter spent building identity plumbing is a quarter not spent on the product the customer actually chose you for, and that trade should be made deliberately rather than by default.
The cost is not the first integration; it is the long tail. Providers disagree in small ways, certificates expire, tenants move, and each one becomes something you own indefinitely.
Rigid and difficult to customize hosted UI
Consider rigid and difficult to customize hosted ui. Price the work honestly. A quarter spent building identity plumbing is a quarter not spent on the product the customer actually chose you for, and that trade should be made deliberately rather than by default.
The cost is not the first integration; it is the long tail. Providers disagree in small ways, certificates expire, tenants move, and each one becomes something you own indefinitely.
Price the work honestly.
Confusing pricing at scale
That brings us to confusing pricing at scale. The cost is not the first integration; it is the long tail. Providers disagree in small ways, certificates expire, tenants move, and each one becomes something you own indefinitely.
Price the work honestly. A quarter spent building identity plumbing is a quarter not spent on the product the customer actually chose you for, and that trade should be made deliberately rather than by default.
AWS lock-in and migration difficulty
AWS lock-in and migration difficulty deserves its own treatment. The requirements look arbitrary until you map each one to a failure the buyer has already lived through. Single sign-on exists because someone left and kept access. Provisioning exists because a contractor's account outlived their contract.
The requirements look arbitrary until you map each one to a failure the buyer has already lived through. Single sign-on exists because someone left and kept access. Provisioning exists because a contractor's account outlived their contract.
Poor developer experience
Poor developer experience is where this gets concrete. Price the work honestly. A quarter spent building identity plumbing is a quarter not spent on the product the customer actually chose you for, and that trade should be made deliberately rather than by default.
The cost is not the first integration; it is the long tail. Providers disagree in small ways, certificates expire, tenants move, and each one becomes something you own indefinitely.
Where this leaves us
The pattern repeats across every system we have looked at: the hard part is not the mechanism, it is keeping the mechanism honest as the surrounding assumptions change.
If you are working through the same problem and want to compare notes, the docs cover the mechanics and the console shows the behaviour on your own data.
Everything here, already built
Sign-in, enterprise SSO, directory provisioning, roles and an audit trail behind one API. Start with the quickstart and have a working sign-in this afternoon.