Stitchflow vs. Aquera and Cerby: Do You Need Another Platform, or Just SCIM?

TL;DR

The market sells platforms. You don't need a platform. You need the result.

Aquera and Cerby solve real problems - complex identity stacks, password vaulting, protocol translation. They're platforms you buy, configure, and operate. Requires a team. Multiple cost layers.

Stitchflow is different:

• Managed SCIM delivery - we build it, run it, maintain it
• <$5K per app - flat, all-in
• Pay on delivery - not before

If your problem is "When Okta disables a user, this app must disable them too" - you don't need a platform. You need Stitchflow.

The platform trap

When you buy a platform to solve a SCIM problem, you're not just buying software. You're buying a project.

You pay for the platform license. You pay for connectors. You pay for professional services to configure everything. You assign someone to maintain it. When something breaks, you open a support ticket and wait.

That's five line items. Five budget conversations. And an ongoing operational burden your team now owns.

For massive, complex identity environments - hundreds of old, legacy apps, huge IGA platforms - this overhead might be necessary. But for most IT teams, it's like buying a commercial airliner to get across town.

This is just trading one tax for another. Instead of vendors holding SCIM hostage behind enterprise pricing, you're paying a platform tax - buying infrastructure you don't need to solve a problem that doesn't require it. We call the original problem the SCIM Tax - and replacing it with platform overhead doesn't solve anything.

The builder's kit: Aquera

Aquera is an infrastructure powerhouse. They offer a massive catalog of connectors and a gateway that translates SCIM into almost anything - SQL, SOAP, REST, LDAP.

The good: If you need to connect Okta to an on-prem Oracle database or a legacy mainframe, Aquera is excellent. They give you the toolkit to build almost anything.

The trade-off: You're buying the toolkit, not the outcome. You configure the connectors. You maintain them. If the integration breaks, it's a support ticket or an engineering sprint for your team. Or add on pricing for professional services.

The access hub: Cerby

Cerby focuses on "unmanageable" apps by managing the access itself. They handle password sharing, MFA injection, and social media governance by sitting between the user and the app.

The good: It solves the "shared password" problem (e.g., the marketing team's Twitter account, the agency credentials) better than anyone.

The trade-off: It changes your architecture. Instead of Okta → App, the flow becomes Okta → Cerby → App. Okta provisions users into Cerby, which then governs downstream access. For teams who spent 18 months making Okta the Single Source of Truth, this adds a layer of complexity.

The managed outcome: Stitchflow

We looked at this landscape and realized nobody was selling the result. Everyone was selling tools to help you do the work.

Stitchflow is not a platform. We're a Managed SCIM Bridge. We exist to defeat the SCIM Tax without forcing you to build an engineering team.

We build it. You don't configure connectors. We map the integration to your specs.

We maintain it. This is our moat. Our 24/7 Human-in-the-Loop engineers monitor every integration. If an app changes its UI, adds a CAPTCHA, or throws a new error, we fix it—often before you know it happened. You don't get alerts; you get uptime.

We guarantee it. We use deterministic, scripted automation. No AI guessing. If the path isn't 100% clear, we halt and escalate to a human. Your audit trail stays clean.

To your IdP, the app looks like it has native SCIM. You never see the browser. You never debug a connector.

The economics

We hate enterprise sales games.

Platforms: Platform license + connector fees + professional services + your team's time.

Stitchflow: Less than $5,000 per app/year. Flat. All-in. Pay on delivery—not before. If we can't automate it, you don't pay.

Our data from 27 organizations shows manual provisioning costs roughly $12,000 per app per year in labor, license waste, and compliance cleanup for every 500 employees. We analyzed 721 SaaS apps: 42% lock SCIM behind enterprise pricing, 57% have no SCIM at any price. The platform route often costs more than that once you add everything up.

Stitchflow costs less than $5K. That's how you defeat the SCIM Tax without paying a platform tax.

The decision framework

If your sentence starts with "When Okta disables a user, this app must disable them too…"—you don't need a platform. You need Stitchflow.

What Stitchflow delivers

Stitchflow is managed SCIM for apps that never built it—or hold it hostage behind enterprise pricing.

How it works: You tell us which apps need SCIM. We build the integration using Resilient Browser Automation. We validate it in your environment. Your IdP treats the app like it has native SCIM. We maintain it 24/7—when apps change, we fix it.

What you get

• Native SCIM behavior in your IdP for any app
• Deterministic, auditable automation
• 24/7 Human-in-the-Loop reliability with 99.5% uptime SLA
• Full audit trail for compliance
• Zero maintenance burden

What you pay: Less than $5,000 per app/year, flat. Pay on delivery. All maintenance included, forever.

No platform fees. No connector licensing. No professional services. No team required.

Enterprise-grade automation without the enterprise plan.

Ready to skip the platform?

Stitchflow closes the Last Mile between your IdP and the apps that can't—or won't—cooperate.

We build it. We run it. We maintain it. We guarantee it works.