WorkOS — Your app, Enterprise Ready.

What it is

WorkOS is a developer platform that provides tools and APIs to help software applications become Enterprise Ready. It is designed for development teams at B2B SaaS companies who want to sell to enterprise customers without building complex, time-consuming infrastructure in-house. The platform enables the implementation of essential enterprise features like single sign-on (SSO) and user management in minutes instead of months.

Main Features

Authentication & User Management

• Enterprise SSO: Unified integration supporting any SAML or OIDC identity provider (e.g., Okta, Azure AD, Google).
• AuthKit: Customizable authentication UI components for various login types.
• Social Authentication: Allows users to sign in with providers like Microsoft and Google.
• Magic Auth: Passwordless authentication via six-digit codes sent by email.
• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Adds an extra layer of security to user logins.
• Complete User Management: A platform to manage users, organizations, and authentication policies.

Directory & Lifecycle Management

• Directory Sync: Synchronizes user data and manages the user lifecycle by integrating with corporate directories (e.g., SCIM, HRIS systems like BambooHR, Rippling).
• Admin Portal: A hosted, self-serve interface for corporate IT admins to configure SSO and directory connections themselves.
• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Provides powerful and flexible permission systems for users.

Security & Compliance

• Audit Logs: Offers advanced event logging, exporting, and streaming capabilities for security and compliance.
• Radar: Provides real-time protection against bots, fraud, and abuse.
• Vault: An Enterprise Key Management (EKM) solution for encrypting and optionally storing objects.

How it works

Implementing Enterprise SSO

Developers integrate the WorkOS API using modern SDKs (Node.js, Ruby, Python, Go, PHP, Java, .NET). The API abstracts the complexity of connecting to various identity providers. A typical flow involves a user authenticating via their corporate identity provider; WorkOS then returns a standardized profile and access token to the application.

Onboarding Enterprise Customers

IT administrators from a customer's company use the Admin Portal, a branded, self-serve tool. They follow step-by-step guides to connect their identity provider (e.g., Okta) or directory service to the application without requiring direct support from the developer's team.

Synchronizing User Data

With Directory Sync enabled, WorkOS uses protocols like SCIM to automatically provision and de-provision user accounts in the application based on changes made in the enterprise's central directory (e.g., Active Directory), ensuring user access is always current.

Key Points

• WorkOS significantly reduces the development time required to add enterprise features, allowing teams to focus on their core product.
• The platform provides a unified, abstracted layer that supports over 20 enterprise services and identity providers through a single integration point.
• The Admin Portal feature reduces the support burden on engineering and sales teams by enabling customer IT admins to self-serve their configuration.
• It is a developer-first product, featuring clean RESTful APIs, JSON responses, comprehensive documentation, and SDKs for popular programming languages.

Additional Details

• Pricing: WorkOS uses a connections-based pricing model, which is aligned with customer growth. Specific pricing details are available on their website.
• Support: Various support plans are offered, including direct Slack support for technical questions. An Enterprise SLA is available.
• Security: The company provides detailed information on its security practices and compliance certifications on its security page.
• Availability: The APIs and services are available through multiple environments to map to standard application development processes (e.g., development, production).