If you've tried to protect a Vercel deployment with company email gating, you've seen the pricing page. It's not subtle.
Vercel's SSO pricing breakdown
| Feature | Plan | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
| Basic hosting | Vercel Hobby | $0 |
| Password protection | Vercel Pro | $20/user/month |
| SSO / SAML / company email gating | Vercel Advanced Security | +$150/month add-on |
| Enterprise (includes SSO) | Vercel Enterprise | $400–800+/month |
If you have a 5-person team and want to gate one Vercel deployment behind @yourcompany.com email:
- Vercel Pro: $100/month (5 users × $20)
- Advanced Security add-on: $150/month
- Total: $250–320/month
Per project. If you have 3 internal tools, you're looking at $750–960/month just for the authentication layer.
Why Vercel is priced this way
Vercel is built for public web apps. Company SSO is an enterprise feature that exists for large engineering organizations protecting production applications. The pricing reflects that — it's not a bug, it's the target customer.
The problem is that AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot) have created a new category of user: the individual contributor who builds an internal tool in an afternoon and needs it deployed to their 8-person team. Vercel's pricing was never designed for this person.
The Workshop alternative
Workshop is designed specifically for this use case. Company-domain gating is the product, not an enterprise add-on.
| Vercel (with SSO) | Workshop | |
|---|---|---|
| Company email gating | ✓ $250–320/month | ✓ $19/month |
| Number of apps included | 1 per that price | 5 apps on Solo |
| Supported runtimes | Next.js, some others | Next.js, Python, Node, static |
| Scheduled jobs | Enterprise/Pro add-on | Included |
| CLI deploy | vercel | workshop deploy |
The one-line summary
Use Vercel for your public-facing product. Use Workshop for the internal tools your team uses day-to-day. The pricing makes sense when you match the tool to the use case.
npm install -g @getworkshop/cli
workshop deploy # company-gated in 30 seconds, $19/month