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Passkey authentication is quickly evolving from an emerging technology to a best practice for organizations seeking to enhance security and optimize their login flows. Yet, persuading stakeholders to invest in passkeys requires a thorough business case that quantifies both adoption projections and return on investment (ROI). This guide gives you the key steps to evaluate passkey adoption, model potential outcomes and understand the financial impact of transitioning to passwordless authentication.
Why Switch to Passkeys? Core Business Drivers
Companies considering passwordless authentication with passkeys are primarily motivated by three factors:
- Improved Security: Passkeys are rooted in FIDO standards and public-key cryptography, making them highly resistant to phishing and account takeover attacks. As credential attacks remain costly (global ATO fraud is expected to reach $17 billion by 2025) reducing risk here directly impacts the bottom line.
- Operational Cost Reduction: Password resets can cost $30–$70 per incident and legacy MFA methods like SMS involve ongoing fees. Passkeys help organizations cut these expenses by eliminating the password reset cycle and reducing support load.
- Better User Experience: Friction in login and checkout processes causes churn and abandoned transactions. Passkeys offer a login flow that is four to six times faster than traditional methods, improving both user satisfaction and conversion rates.
Understanding Passkey Adoption Rates
Passkey adoption is not purely about enabling users to enroll. It requires a dual focus on both creation (enrollment) and actual usage:
- Enrollment: Users create a passkey during onboarding, after login or within account settings.
- Usage: The critical metric is the passkey login rate, the percentage of all sign-ins completed with a passkey instead of passwords.
Maximizing passkey login rates depends on the percentage of devices that support passkeys, the effectiveness of UI nudges and how seamless the login flow is across devices.
Modeling Passkey ROI: The Corbado Passkey Adoption Calculator
A robust business case relies on credible projections. The Corbado Passkey Adoption Calculator factors in:
- Annual logins per user: More frequent logins create more opportunities for passkey adoption.
- Device compatibility: Percentage of users with passkey-ready devices and browsers.
- Enrollment rates: Influenced by how visible and user-friendly the option is.
- Usage rates: The proportion of users actually signing in with passkeys rather than reverting to passwords.
Based on these inputs, teams can generate adoption forecasts, estimate operational savings and demonstrate security ROI to stakeholders from finance, security or product management.
DIY vs. Optimized Passkey Implementation: What’s the Difference?
The business impact of passkeys varies widely based on the rollout approach:
- Basic (DIY): Passive enrollment, generic prompts and manual setup yield low adoption — around 5.4% passkey login rate after 24 months, with limited cost savings.
- Optimized: Active, post-login prompts, streamlined one-tap enrollment, strong cross-device support and continuous UI improvements can increase passkey login rates up to 68.4% over the same period, therefore generating much higher operational savings and security benefits.
The key insight: Simply supporting passkeys isn’t enough. Unlocking the full business value requires an optimized strategy built on best practices, user-centric design and ongoing refinement.
Building a Customized Business Case
Every organization has its own device mix, user habits and security needs. Corbado works with businesses to analyze their user base’s device readiness, model realistic adoption curves and quantify both cost savings and improved user experience across sectors, from e-commerce to B2B SaaS.
Conclusion: Data-Driven Planning for Passkey Adoption
Adopting passkeys is a strategic move with potential for strong security, efficiency, and customer experience improvements. However, actual ROI is tied directly to user adoption and proper implementation. Using modeling tools, organizations can set measurable KPIs, forecast outcomes and communicate clear, quantifiable benefits to all stakeholders involved in authentication workflows.
More detailed scenarios, financial models and strategic recommendations are available. Find out more on https://www.corbado.com/blog/passkey-adoption-business-case