DescopeFreemium
Customer identity that has grown an agentic side — auth, consent, and token management for AI agents and MCP servers.
AI Governance comparison
Descope vs Protect AI
Pricing, pros, cons, and ideal use cases — side by side.
Protect AIEnterprise
An enterprise platform for AI and ML security — scanning models for threats, securing the ML supply chain, and giving security teams visibility into AI risk.
At a glance
| Descope | Protect AI | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | FreemiumFree Forever $0 with 7,500 MAUs. Pro from $249/month with 10,000 MAUs. Growth from $799/month with 25,000 MAUs. Enterprise is custom. Agentic usage is metered separately as Monthly Active Consents and Monthly Active Tokens, included at 2,000 each on Free, 5,000 each on Pro, and 10,000 each on Growth. | EnterpriseEnterprise pricing, quoted per organization. |
| Category | AI Governance | AI Governance |
| Ideal for | Product teams exposing an MCP server to third-party agentsSaaS companies adding agentic features that act on user dataStartups that need CIAM and agent identity from one vendorSecurity engineers who need consent and token use to be auditable | Enterprise security and ML platform teamsOrganizations using open-weight or third-party modelsTeams needing AI supply-chain security |
Pros & cons
Descope
Pros
- Full price ladder published, including the agentic meters
- Consent and token management for MCP and outbound agent connections
- No-code flow builder alongside SDKs and APIs
- Generous free tier at 7,500 MAUs
- One vendor for customer identity and agent identity
Cons
- The $249 step from free is steep for a small product
- Two metering dimensions (MAU plus consents/tokens) make forecasting harder
- Migrating an existing identity provider is a serious project
- Solves identity, not tool-level authorisation — often you need both
- Agentic identity standards are still moving; expect the surface to change
Protect AI
Pros
- Scans models for threats and vulnerabilities
- Secures the ML supply chain
- Org-wide visibility into AI security risk
- Now part of the Palo Alto Networks portfolio
Cons
- Enterprise-only — built for security teams
- Pricing requires a sales conversation
- Complements, not replaces, application-layer guardrails
Which should you choose?
Descope is the lighter-weight option (Freemium), while Protect AI sits higher on the pricing ladder (Enterprise). Descope is built around product teams exposing an mcp server to third-party agents; Protect AI leans more toward enterprise security and ml platform teams. Shortlist the one whose strengths line up with your biggest constraint.
Still deciding between Descope and Protect AI?
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