Headspace Delivers Security and Mindfulness at Scale with Auth0 by Okta CIAM on AWS

Headspace is a mobile and desktop application with a mission to improve mindfulness and happiness through guided meditation and mindfulness content. The app’s popularity began to boom, so the company sought out a scalable and secure identity solution that would enable it to grow and support its millions of monthly active users. In addition, many large enterprises such as Adobe, Hyatt, and Starbucks were including the Headspace service in their employee benefits package, thus prompting Headspace to explore an expansion of their B2B business.

Headspace’s challenge was incorporating a Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) solution that would provide an easy, frictionless way for customers to log in. At the same time, it needed to increase conversion, keep user data safe, and maintain rigorous security compliance—all while allowing business to continue growing and innovating.

Headspace turned to Auth0 by Okta on Amazon Web Services (AWS). It needed a secure identity solution that could scale to meet the needs of over 70 million members in 190 countries, secure diverse environments (iOS, Android, Web, Alexa, Apple Watch, Google Voice, Amazon, and Spotify), and mitigate threats such as credential stuffing and account scraping. And it needed it quickly. Auth0 by Okta CIAM offered universal authentication and authorization for web, mobile, internet of things (IoT), and legacy applications that seamlessly integrated with Headspace’s design. The pre-built enterprise connections allowed for integration to any standards-based identity provider which utilizes identity industry security standards and streamlined the ingestion of personally identifiable information (PII). Additionally, Headspace was able to migrate its 70+ million members user base with the help of Auth0 by Okta Professional Services. 

Auth0 by Okta has been a long-time partner with AWS. Its platform was built and runs on AWS, so it comes as no surprise that 90 percent of Auth0 by Okta customers are also AWS customers. Auth0 by Okta enables users to build, customize, and extend identity needs on AWS quickly and easily, by offering pre-built and supported integrations with a wide variety of AWS services.

Auth0 by Okta's ease of integration with AWS delivers even more scalability, better reliability, faster speed to market, and the power to drive innovation. Built by developers for developers, Auth0 by Okta is easy to use, deploys quickly, and scales seamlessly. These features allow developers and businesses to focus on improving and innovating their applications, rather than worrying about building and running identity.

User history view on the Auth0 by Okta dashboard from a test user.

The results speak for themselves. After the migration, Headspace saw a faster time to market for integrations that require identity services. For instance, they were able to launch social logins with Google Sign-In in just two weeks. The solution also saved Headspace money by reducing maintenance costs. They enabled corporate users to log in using their corporate credentials. Headspace also increased their security posture for audits and certification, eliminating the need for time-consuming account scraping.

Login and search flow for Headspace’s B2B Dashboard.

By eliminating Headspace’s need to build and maintain identity solutions, Auth0 by Okta helped its team focus efforts on creating revenue-generating features. In addition to all these positive results, Headspace saw so much growth and rapid success that they were able to offer their service for free to those who lost their job due to COVID-19, medical workers in the United States, France, and India as well as the full National Health Service system of 1.2 million healthcare employees and providers in the United Kingdom. Plus, the company expanded partnerships to include large healthcare systems with millions of patients and customers.

• Rapidly scale for 70+ million monthly active users
• Improve B2B federation by enabling seamless login using corporate credentials for corporate users
• Reduce costs of engineering, building, and maintaining CIAM
• Focus on innovation and growth