Best way to get from Krakow to Auschwitz?

The $19 tour seems too good to be true.

Auschwitz conducts its own tours onsite, so the other companies are generally selling you a package that includes transit from a pickup point (sometimes your hotel) and transit to Auschwitz where you're dropped off for a tour with the onsite guides, transit from Auschwitz to Birkenau, and then transit from Birkenau back to your droppoff point in Krakow.

If you prefer someone to handle the logistics, those group "tours" handle all the transit details. If you prefer DIY, others here can tell you options for taking public transit.

"Best" is a subjective term, so it would help if you said a little more about what you
think that means.

Public transport is just fine, here is the link:
Krakow to Auschwitz

If you also want to visit Birkenau, there is a shuttle between the two.

The thing about guided tours is that you don't always get the amount of time you might want to
have, but you get someone who is knowledgeable. A self-guided tour is as long as you want it
to be, but if you mess up the logistics, it's on you. A self-guided tour is obviously usually cheaper.

I think a visit to a place like Auschwitz will impact people in different ways, so one size will not
fit all.

"Best" is a subjective term, so it would help if you said a little more about what you
think that means.

Valid question.

Best means:

• Best service for least money. I don't want to spend $100 for the
  same service I can get from another company from $20

• Reliable. I've seen reports of reserved transportation showing up
  late for pickup in Krakow or canceling the day before. Would like to
  avoid that. **If I buy tour tickets form the Auschwitz museum, i
  want to do that very soon so I don't miss out, and I have to select
  an time. The entry time dictates when I leave Krakow, so I want to
  coordinate this now and be able to count on it.

• A good narrative tour guide in English. Is this the tour provided by
  the Auschwitz museum or do third party tours do this better? If the
  latter, which ones? There seem to be many options.

• Clear logistics. If I take the public bus, is it pretty reliable and
  does it drop off and pick up at convenient locations? Convenient
  defined as somewhere near the center of Krakow that I can walk or
  uber to from my hotel on the Eastern edge of the old town, and does
  it drop off within, say, a half mile walk of the entrance to
  Auschwitz.

Also, would prefer self-guided if that's an option.

OP, that is a helpful update. But if you check out the link for the public bus embedded in
the link I included, you will see there are multiple pickup/dropoff points in Krakow, so there's
a pretty good chance one will be within reasonable distance to you.

Perhaps paradoxically, I would trust public transport to be more or less on time, especially
since there are departures every hour or so, plus, as long as you have the return schedule,
you can spend as long as you want visiting the site(s).

The bus ticket is ~$6 one way, so if you want cheap transport, I think that's your answer.

As far as tours go, I think I just used the RS book and that was very informative. Obviously
self-guided.

I did one of those inexpensive day tours to Auschwitz about ten years ago and thought it was great. Keep in mind, everything in Poland is inexpensive, at least it seemed so to me back then.

People have posted here recently about commercial tour companies not coming through with the Auschwitz tickets that were paid for. Since the tickets sell out every single day, you need to buy your own tickets in advance, like, NOW. There are NO private guides or drivers or minders allowed inside the Camps. You must take the proprietary tour (followed by free time) provided with your Auschwitz ticket.

We used an Imperialist car service, so I won't recommend that to you.

The starting point for the buses to Auschwitz, per the schedule posted by shoeflyer above, is "Krakow MDA". That's the bus station, which is located behind the train station. If you walk from the center of town, it's not super-obvious where the bus station is located (at least that was the case in 2018), so firing up a map on your phone would be smart. It could take a bit of extra time to navigate around the train station, so don't cut it too close.

As Tim said, online tickets for Auschwitz sell out, sometimes rather far ahead of time. They were sold out for 8 days into the future at the time of my summer 2018 trip. I know November is probably a lot less busy than summer, but there seem to be considerably more people traveling to major destinations these days.

Krakow is a lovely city. I hope you'll have time to see some additional sights there, not just Auschwitz.