WorkOS at a glance
Question | Answer | As of |
|---|---|---|
Who owns WorkOS? | Its founder, staff and investors led by Meritech, Sapphire, Greenoaks, Lachy Groom and Lightspeed; it is private | Nov 2026 |
ARR | $100 million, up from $30 million a year earlier | Nov 13, 2026 |
Valuation | $2 billion, at its Series C | Mar 2, 2026 |
Funding | About $200 million in four rounds | Mar 2026 |
Customers | Thousands, including OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Cursor, Perplexity and Vercel | 2026 |
Employees | About 100 | May 2026 |
CEO | Michael Grinich, founder | Nov 2026 |
Founded | 2019; launched in March 2020 | 2019 |
Headquarters | San Francisco, with staff in New York and remote | 2026 |
WorkOS sells the features a software company needs before large businesses will buy from it: single sign-on, directory sync, audit logs, role-based access and an admin portal, plus AuthKit, a complete login system that is free for up to a million users. Since 2025 it has added authentication for AI agents and MCP servers, and its customers now include most of the leading AI labs.
WorkOS passes $100 million ARR (November 13, 2026)
“WorkOS just hit $100M ARR,” Michael Grinich posted on November 13, 2026 (LinkedIn). “We started WorkOS to make software enterprise ready. Now we’re building infrastructure for a world where people and agents work together.” The company had $30 million in ARR a year earlier, so it more than tripled in about 13 months. It runs a launch week of five product announcements from November 16 to 20 (WorkOS).
Who owns WorkOS?
WorkOS is private. Grinich, the sole founder, and staff hold shares alongside its investors: Lightspeed backed the seed, Lachy Groom led the Series A, Greenoaks the Series B and Meritech and Sapphire the Series C, with Craft, Audacious, Abstract and others. Guillermo Rauch, Howie Liu and other founders invested as angels in 2022.
What is WorkOS’s revenue?
$100 million in annual recurring revenue as of November 13, 2026. Grinich has posted each milestone himself, and it got to $50 million with three sales reps and no chief revenue officer, as a May 2026 podcast with Grinich noted (Knuckle Up), largely by selling to AI companies that grow into enterprise customers quickly. It doesn’t publish profit figures.
| Date | Figure | Type | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 13, 2026 | $100M | ARR | linkedin.com |
| May 7, 2026 | $50M | ARR | knuckleuphq.substack.com |
| Oct 31, 2025 | $30M | ARR | linkedin.com |
| May 2025 | $20M | ARR | x.com |
WorkOS ARR (annual recurring revenue)
Date | ARR | Said by |
|---|---|---|
Nov 13, 2026 | $100M (X) | Michael Grinich |
May 2026 | $50M, “accelerating” | Knuckle Up podcast |
Oct 31, 2025 | $30M (LinkedIn) | Michael Grinich |
May 2025 | $20M, with 1,000+ customers (X) | Michael Grinich |
WorkOS MRR (monthly recurring revenue)
WorkOS doesn’t publish MRR. $100 million ARR works out to about $8.3 million a month (our calculation).
How much has WorkOS raised? Funding and valuation
About $200 million. WorkOS raised nothing for nearly four years after its Series B, then took $100 million at a $2 billion valuation in March 2026, led by Meritech and Sapphire (WorkOS).
Round | Date | Amount | Lead | Valuation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Series C | Mar 2, 2026 | $100M | Meritech and Sapphire | $2B |
Series B | Jun 1, 2022 | $80M (WorkOS) | Greenoaks | Not disclosed |
Series A | Mar 10, 2021 | $15M (WorkOS) | Lachy Groom | Not disclosed |
Seed | Mar 2020 | Not disclosed (TechCrunch) | Lightspeed | Not disclosed |
The company is WorkOS, Inc. Its terms give 548 Market Street, PMB 86125, San Francisco, a private mailbox used for legal notices (WorkOS).
What does WorkOS do? Products
Grinich built WorkOS after his previous startup, the email app Nylas Mail, lost enterprise deals it couldn’t serve. It launched in March 2020 with single sign-on and directory sync, bought Modulz, maker of the Radix UI components, in 2022 (TechCrunch), and launched AuthKit, free for up to a million users, in November 2023 (WorkOS).
Date | Launch |
|---|---|
Nov 16–20, 2026 | Fall launch week |
Oct 7, 2026 | init() conference: previews of Airlock, Atlas and Passport (WorkOS) |
Sep 2, 2026 | Agent Auth: identities for AI agents |
2025 | Authentication for MCP servers; Pipes |
Nov 19, 2024 | Radar, against bots and fraud |
Apr 23, 2024 | Acquires Warrant (fine-grained authorization) |
Nov 28, 2023 | AuthKit and User Management |
Jun 1, 2022 | Acquires Modulz (Radix) |
Mar 17, 2020 | Launch: single sign-on, directory sync, audit trails |
WorkOS pricing
Product | Price |
|---|---|
AuthKit / User Management | Free up to 1 million users; $2,500 a month per extra million |
Single sign-on and Directory Sync | $125 per connection a month, falling to $65 at volume |
Audit Logs | $125 a month per log stream; $99 a month per million events stored |
Radar | First 1,000 checks free, then $100 a month per 50,000 |
Customers pay as they go or buy annual credits (WorkOS).
Security
In September 2026 a researcher reported four ways to bypass WorkOS’s SAML single sign-on checks. WorkOS fixed them within days and found “no evidence of exploitation beyond security testing by the researcher” (WorkOS).
WorkOS vs Auth0, Clerk and Stytch
Auth0 is the incumbent: Okta bought it for about $6.5 billion in 2021 (SEC). Clerk raised a $50 million Series C in 2025 (Clerk), and Stytch joined Twilio in October 2025 (Stytch). Descope and FusionAuth also compete. Grinich argues WorkOS sells more than login: everything a company needs to be ready for enterprise buyers.
Who is the CEO of WorkOS?
Michael Grinich, who founded WorkOS alone in 2019. He studied computer science at MIT, worked at Dropbox and Nest, and co-founded the email startup Nylas, which he ran from 2013 to 2017. WorkOS publishes no executive team; it is deliberately flat, and every engineer’s skip-level manager is the CEO (WorkOS).
Michael Grinich’s bio and contact routes: WorkOS CEO Michael Grinich: email, LinkedIn and bio.
Where is WorkOS based?
San Francisco, where it has an office; it also hires in New York and remotely. WorkOS had more than 40 people in 2022 and about 100 in May 2026.
Key events
Date | Event |
|---|---|
Nov 13, 2026 | Passes $100M ARR |
Oct 7, 2026 | init() conference |
Sep 2026 | Fixes four SAML bypasses |
May 2026 | $50M ARR |
Mar 2, 2026 | $100M Series C at $2B |
Oct 31, 2025 | $30M ARR |
May 2025 | $20M ARR, 1,000+ customers |
Apr 23, 2024 | Acquires Warrant |
Nov 28, 2023 | AuthKit |
Jun 1, 2022 | $80M Series B; acquires Modulz |
Mar 10, 2021 | $15M Series A |
Mar 17, 2020 | Launches with a Lightspeed-led seed |
2019 | Founded by Michael Grinich |
More on WorkOS and similar companies
WorkOS CEO Michael Grinich: from Nylas to $100M ARR
SaaS unicorns: every SaaS company worth $1B or more
Fastest-growing SaaS companies: WorkOS and others by ARR growth
Vercel dossier: a WorkOS customer whose CEO invested in WorkOS in 2022
Sierra dossier: another AI company on WorkOS
Cursor dossier: a WorkOS customer, now owned by SpaceX
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