Configure Organizations
Global Organization settings control how Organizations work across your entire application. These settings determine who can create Organizations, how members join them, what Roles they receive, and which Features are available. You'll configure most of these when you first enable Organizations, though you can adjust them later as your needs evolve.
Enable Organizations
Organizations are disabled by default. When you enable Organizations, Clerk offers two workspace models:
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Personal accounts disabled (default): Every user is required to belong to an Organization. All new and existing users will be prompted to create or join an Organization through the session tasks flow before they can access your application.
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Personal Accounts enabled: Users can operate in their own individual workspace or join Organizations. They start in their Personal Account and can switch to Organizations using the <OrganizationSwitcher /> component.
Most B2B and multi-tenant applications leave Personal Accounts disabled. This ensures proper data isolation and team structure from the start. You should only enable Personal Accounts if your app serves both individual users and teams (like a tool that works for solo users but also has team features).
To enable Organizations:
- In the Clerk Dashboard, navigate to the Organizations Settings page.
- Select Enable Organizations.
- In the modal, toggle Allow Personal Accounts based on your decision above.
- Select Enable.
Clerk measures Organizations by Monthly Active Organizations (MAOs). Refer to the overview page for pricing details and limits.
Organization settings
Once Organizations are enabled, you can configure core features and behaviors, such as membership limits, Verified Domains, Organization slugs, and whether to allow Personal Accounts alongside Organizations.
Membership limits
There is no limit to the number of Organizations a user can be a member of.
Each Organization allows a maximum of 5 members by default. You can increase this limit as your customer base grows, or set different limits for individual Organizations if you have different pricing tiers.
To change the membership limit for all Organizations in your application:
- In the Clerk Dashboard, navigate to the Organizations Settings page.
- In the Default membership limit section, update the membership limit.
- Free plan: Allows a maximum of 5 members in an Organization
- Pro plan: Allows unlimited members in an Organization
To change the membership limit for a specific Organization:
- In the Clerk Dashboard, select Organizations.
- Select the Organization you want to update.
- In the Membership limit section, update the limit for that specific Organization.
Allow Personal Accounts
When enabling the Organizations feature, you were prompted to choose whether to allow Personal Accounts. This setting is disabled by default. Refer to the section on enabling Organizations above for a detailed explanation of how Personal Accounts work.
You can change this setting after initial setup, which is useful if your product strategy evolves. For example, if you initially served only teams but now want to support individual users as well.
To change this setting:
- In the Clerk Dashboard, navigate to the Organizations Settings page.
- Toggle Allow personal accounts.
Verified Domains
Verified Domains allow automatic or suggested Organization membership for users with specific email domains (like @acme.com). This is useful for company-wide rollouts where you want to streamline enrollment for employees with company email addresses. Members with the org:sys_domains:manage System Permission can manage Verified Domains and enrollment modes.
Learn more about Verified Domains.
Organization slugs
Organization slugs are human-readable URL identifiers (like acme-corp) that help users reference which Organization they're working in. Enable this feature if you need Organization-specific URLs or if users frequently switch between multiple Organizations.
You can also use Organization slugs in your application's URLs.
Allow user-created Organizations
By default, users can create Organizations in your application. You can restrict this if you prefer to manually provision Organizations.
You can also override this Permission for specific users in their profile page under User permissions.
Learn more about creating Organizations.
Organization creation limit
When user-created Organizations are enabled, each user can create up to 100 Organizations by default. You can configure this to set a lower limit or allow unlimited Organizations.
To change the default limit:
- In the Clerk Dashboard, navigate to the Organizations Settings page.
- In the Organization limit section, choose between:
- Users can create unlimited organizations
- Users can create a limited number of organizations (specify the limit)
If you need users to create more than 100 Organizations, contact support to have the limit raised.
To override this limit for a specific user:
- In the Clerk Dashboard, select Users.
- Select the user you want to update.
- In the User permissions section, configure their Organization creation limit.
Default roles
When users create or join Organizations, they need to be assigned a role. These settings determine which roles are automatically assigned in different scenarios, whether someone is creating a new Organization or joining an existing one.
Default role for members
The default role for members is assigned to users when they join an Organization through invitations or Verified Domain enrollment. By default, this is set to Member.
This role is used:
- When sending invitations from the <OrganizationProfile /> component (pre-filled as default)
- When users auto-join via Verified Domains
- As the suggested role for new Organization members
To change the default role:
- In the Clerk Dashboard, navigate to the Roles & Permissions page.
- Select the three dots next to the role you want to set as default.
- Choose Set as Default role.
Learn more about Roles and Permissions.
Creator's initial role
When a user creates a new Organization, Clerk automatically adds them as its first member and assigns them the Organization's designated Creator Role. By default, that Role is Admin, giving them full control over the Organization they created.
The Creator role must have at least these System Permissions:
- Manage members (
org:sys_memberships:manage) - Read members (
org:sys_memberships:read) - Delete Organization (
org:sys_profile:delete)
Learn more about the Creator Role and how to reassign it.
Allow new members to delete Organizations
This setting controls whether Organization members can delete Organizations.
By default, any member with the org:sys_profile:delete System Permission can delete an Organization. You can disable this if you want to prevent accidental data loss or require your own approval process before Organizations are removed.
To change this setting:
- In the Clerk Dashboard, navigate to the Organizations Settings page.
- Toggle Allow new members to delete organizations.
Next steps
Now that you've configured global settings, you can:
- Create your first Organization and start adding members
- Add members to your Organization with invitations, Verified Domains, or SSO
- Configure access control with Custom Roles and Permissions
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