Clarification of MFA on the free plan

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1

Hello, we’re assessing whether a free plan of auth0 is viable for us. From what I can tell, with the free plan we can allow our end users to turn on MFA, but we cannot require them to. Have I understood right?

3

Hi @kit.johnson,

Welcome to the Auth0 Community!

Please allow me to clarify a few things of how the enablement of MFA works in Auth0.

Firstly, MFA enrollment is never optional, so you are not able to allow users to skip MFA if Require Multi-factor Auth is set to Always, or otherwise enforced for that particular user via actions. Of course, you can Customize Your MFA Using Actions if you have specific requirements.

According to our Pricing page, all the MFA Factors are only fully available under a Paid Plan. Even though Auth0 allows you to enable these factors for testing purposes in the Free Plan as well, afterwards you might receive a message such as: “Please upgrade your subscription to continue using this feature.” when the trial period ends.

I hope this answers you questions and if you have any other ones please do not hesitate to ask.
Best regards,
Remus

4

Hi Remus, thanks for your prompt response! I’m still not completely clear on this, but I’m sure that can be solved.

Could you explain what MFA factors are available on the free plan? (I ask this because you say that they are only fully available on a paid plan, which suggests that they are partially available on a free plan.)

Thank you

5

Hi @kit.johnson,

You are assessing whether Auth0's free plan supports Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and whether you can allow users to opt-in to MFA while not requiring it.

Your understanding is incorrect. MFA is not available on the Free plan at all — not even as an optional feature that users can enable. MFA requires a paid plan (Professional tier or higher). On paid plans, you can both allow MFA as optional and require it for all users.

[Root Cause]

Auth0's pricing model restricts MFA to paid plans:

  1. Free plan — MFA is not available
  2. Professional tier and above — MFA is available and can be configured as optional or required

This is a hard limitation of the Free plan, not a configuration option.

MFA Availability by Plan:

Plan MFA Available Can Require MFA Can Allow Optional MFA
Free ❌ No ❌ No ❌ No
Professional ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ✅ Yes
Enterprise ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ✅ Yes
B2C Essentials ❌ No ❌ No ❌ No
B2C Professional ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ✅ Yes

What You Can Do on Paid Plans:

On Professional tier and above, you have full control over MFA enforcement:

Option 1: Allow Optional MFA (Users Can Choose)

  1. Navigate to Auth0 Dashboard → Security → Multi-factor Auth
  2. Enable the MFA factors you want (OTP, SMS, Email, etc.)
  3. Set "Require Multi-factor Auth" to Never
  4. Result: Users see MFA as an optional setting in their profile but are not required to use it

Option 2: Require MFA for All Users

  1. Navigate to Auth0 Dashboard → Security → Multi-factor Auth
  2. Enable the MFA factors you want
  3. Set "Require Multi-factor Auth" to Always
  4. Result: All users must complete MFA during login

Option 3: Require MFA for Specific Applications or Users (Using Actions)

You can use Post-Login Actions to enforce MFA selectively:

exports.onExecutePostLogin = async (event, api) => {
  // Require MFA only for specific applications
  if (event.client.name === "admin-app") {
    api.multifactor.enable('any', { allowRememberBrowser: true });
  }
};

MFA Factors Available on Paid Plans:

  • OTP (One-Time Password) — Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, etc.
  • SMS — Text message codes
  • Email — Email-based verification codes
  • Guardian Push — Auth0's mobile app push notifications (Enterprise only)

Pricing Implications:

  • Free plan: $0/month, no MFA
  • Professional tier: Starts at a higher price point, includes MFA
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing, includes all MFA features

To see current pricing and compare plans, visit the Auth0 Pricing page.

Recommendation:

If MFA is a requirement for your use case, you will need to upgrade to at least the Professional tier. The Free plan is suitable for development and testing but does not include MFA capabilities.

The Free plan is not viable if MFA is a requirement for your application.

Kind regards, Remus
6

I have a tenant that’s past the trial, on a free plan, and set to “production“. Even so, users can be enrolled in MFA. Are you saying that in a few months MFA will be turned off for this tenant? And what happens then, will users who had MFA enabled still be able to sign in?

7

Hi @ejain,

Welcome to the Auth0 Community!

It is mentioned in this article - Entitlements for Enterprise MFA Feature that before users are impacted by the lack of a proper subscription plan, you will receive the following message:

You’ve been utilizing Enterprise MFA, but unfortunately, your current plan does not allow for the use of this feature. Please upgrade your subscription to continue using this feature.

So if users are regularly using this features for over three months and you are still under a free plan, tenant admins will be asked to upgrade the subscription to avoid service disruption.

Thank you and if you have other questions on the matter please let me know!
Best regards,
Remus

8

Can you clarify what you mean by “service disruption“? Will users still be able to sign in, but without being prompted for MFA? Will they be prevented from signing in? Will the entire tenant be suspended?

Are there other feature that will get disabled after three months?

Not complaining about pricing, just trying to avoid unpleasant surprises :grimacing:

9

Hi @ejain,

I totally understand your concern.

What I was mentioning previously was that you will NOT be able to use the MFA features in your tenant if more than 3 months get passed after regularly using them. However, this will not impact users being able to sign in.

In order to avoid any potential issues, the recommendation is to try this features in a testing environment and once you move on to a production stage, subscribe to one of the Auth0 Plans that best suit you. However, if you are currently using MFA factors in production while being under a plan that does not cover the use of these respective features, you will receive multiple alerts to upgrade your subscription, otherwise you can just turn the feature off.

Thank you and if you have other questions please let me know.
Best regards,
Remus