The Enterprise B2B stack
For B2B SaaS with $30K+ ACV deals where SOC 2, SAML SSO, audit logs, and procurement are line items in every contract.
Your buyers are CIOs, not founders. The stack must satisfy a security questionnaire before it satisfies a designer. SAML SSO + SCIM are non-negotiable. Pricing predictability matters more than per-tool optimisation — you're renewing on annual contracts and burying the cost in OpEx. This stack is built for surviving procurement, not for indie-hacker tweetstorms.
Identity + auth
WorkOS or Auth0 — both check the SOC 2 + ISO 27001 boxes. WorkOS is the cleaner pick if your buyers are also growth-stage SaaS; Auth0 wins on legacy enterprise compatibility.
Hosting + observability
Vercel for the frontend / Edge layer; AWS or fly.io for backend services with stricter latency budgets. Datadog because the security team has heard of it.
CRM + revops
Salesforce because you'll integrate with your customers' Salesforce; HubSpot for marketing automation that the SDRs can self-serve.
Comms + collaboration
Slack for internal, Zoom for external (every Fortune 500 has a Zoom license). Notion for internal docs.
Finance + HR
Rippling or Deel depending on geography. QuickBooks if US-only; Xero if you have international entities. Nothing exciting here — boring is the point.
Pay for the Enterprise B2B stack with the right card
At ~$4750/mo USD spend (the midpoint of this stack's burn range), the right card recovers 1.5–4% in forex savings + rewards. Default retail cards lose 3.5% of every USD subscription to forex.
EXPRESS
Amex Business Platinum
No-fx US card — pay USD with USD, zero markup; Business card — engineering subscriptions count as business spend
RBL World Safari
0% forex markup vs 3.5% on retail Indian cards; 2% rewards on engineering spend
Tradeoffs & pitfalls
The honest stuff. No vendor blog will tell you this.
- 01WorkOS pricing is per-connection and adds up fast at 50+ enterprise tenants. Once you're at $15K+ MRR in WorkOS bills, the build-vs-buy math tips.
- 02Datadog's pricing model surprises people quarterly. Set custom-metric quotas and budget alerts on day one, or you will get a 3x bill in Q3.
- 03Salesforce will absorb 6 months of an admin's time. Budget for an external SI partner or the implementation will eat your roadmap.