Used For

• +**Your team wastes 2 hours/week on "forgot password" tickets** → IT support drops from 50 weekly resets to under 5, freeing up actual productive time
• +**New hires wait days for app access while IT manually creates 15 accounts** → One Okta account unlocks everything instantly, onboarding goes from half-day to 10 minutes
• +**You're using the same password everywhere because who has time for unique ones** → Single sign-on means one secure login opens all your work apps automatically
• +Connects to 7,000+ apps without custom coding - if it exists, Okta probably has a plug-and-play connector
• +Smart security that checks if you're logging in from Moscow when you live in Minneapolis

Best For

• >Your IT team fields 50+ password reset tickets every week
• >Employees are sharing passwords via Slack and you're one breach away from panic
• >You've got 30+ apps and onboarding new people takes half a day of account creation

Not For

• -Teams under 50 people — you're paying $2,000+/year for features a basic password manager handles fine
• -Companies wanting something that works immediately — expect 1-2 weeks of setup and occasional outages that lock everyone out
• -Anyone hoping this stays cheap — the real cost is 2x the sticker price once you add integrations and premium features

Pairs With

• *Salesforce (where reps complain about having to click through Okta just to update one lead)
• *Slack (where IT announces "Okta maintenance tonight, save your work" and everyone panics)
• *Microsoft 365 (because even Microsoft shops need something better than basic Azure AD)
• *AWS (for the backend services that also need identity management but with API keys)
• *Google Workspace (the irony of using Google SSO through Okta because Google's version isn't enterprise enough)
• *Jira (where developers reluctantly accept another login step for the sake of security)
• *Zoom (because even video calls need enterprise-grade access control now)

The Catch

• !When Okta goes down, your entire company can't work — happened for hours in 2023 and people rage-tweeted from parking lots
• !The advertised price doubles once you need custom integrations, API overages, and the features that actually matter
• !You'll become the unofficial Okta admin whether you wanted to or not — someone has to manage user groups and app permissions

Bottom Line

The enterprise-grade login system that costs enterprise money even if you're not enterprise yet.