Building a Business Case for Passkeys: Projecting Adoption and ROI

Implementing passkeys is a strategic initiative requiring a robust business case before significant resources are committed. While the technical benefits of passkeys are clear, organizational buy-in hinges on demonstrating tangible value aligned with business objectives. Understanding the core motivations and how passkey adoption directly impacts them is the essential first step.

Generally, the drivers for passkey adoption fall into three main categories:

1. Enhanced Security: Passwords are a primary vector for cyberattacks. Passkeys, utilizing FIDO standards and public-key cryptography, offer resistance to phishing and credential stuffing. This directly mitigates the substantial financial and reputational risks associated with account takeover (ATO) fraud, which is projected to cause $17 billion in global losses by 2025 and incurs significant costs per incident. Reducing reliance on passwords strengthens overall security posture.
2. Operational Cost Savings: Traditional authentication methods carry significant operational burdens. Password resets alone cost organizations an estimated $30–$70 per incident when factoring in helpdesk time and lost productivity, potentially amounting to millions annually for larger enterprises (see how passkeys reduce costs). Furthermore, legacy Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) methods like SMS involve per-message costs that vary significantly by region (learn about SMS cost reduction) or per-user licensing fees for authenticator apps or specific platforms, which can range from $3 to $10+ per user per month. Passkeys can substantially reduce or eliminate these ongoing operational expenses.
3. Increased Revenue & Improved User Experience (UX): Friction during login and checkout processes is a major deterrent for users, leading to abandoned carts and reduced engagement. Studies show over 50% of consumers might switch merchants due to friction, and many will pay more for simpler experiences. Passkeys offer a significantly faster and smoother login experience – often 4x–6x faster (based on Corbado's internal data) than passwords or traditional MFA – which can improve conversion rates, reduce abandonment, and enhance overall customer satisfaction (explore UX improvements).

Critically, these benefits are only realized when passkeys are actively created and used by the target audience. Simply making the technology available is insufficient. Therefore, accurately modeling and projecting passkey adoption is fundamental to constructing a credible and achievable business case (understand why adoption matters).

Passkey adoption is not a singular metric but the outcome of a two-stage user journey that evolves over time:

1. Passkey Creation (Enrollment) / User Passkey Activation: This is the initial act where a user registers a passkey credential for their account, typically linked to a specific device or synced across devices via a platform provider (e.g., Google Password Manager, iCloud Keychain). Enrollment can be prompted during account registration, after a successful login using older methods (a common "post-sign-in nudge" strategy - see best practices for passkey creation), or initiated by the user through their account security settings.
2. Passkey Usage (Login with existing Passkeys): This measures the percentage of logins by enrolled users that actually utilize their passkey when available, instead of reverting to passwords, OTPs, or other available fallback methods. This usage rate can be significantly increased through optimized login flows featuring in-context nudges such as conditional UI prompts, a dedicated 'Passkey Login' button, auto-launched passkey flows, or one-tap login actions. Furthermore, broadening support to secondary devices and enabling smooth cross-device authentication flows encourages higher usage. High usage indicates that the passkey login flow is convenient and preferred by users (learn about login best practices).

True Adoption = Successful Creation + Consistent Usage.

The ultimate measure of success, directly tied to business value, is the Passkey Login Rate: the percentage of total login events that are completed using a passkey..

It's essential to recognize that achieving target adoption rates takes time. Users generally only encounter opportunities to create or use passkeys during specific interactions, most commonly the login process itself. The frequency of these interactions – how often an average user logs in per year – dictates the speed at which the user base is exposed to passkey prompts and consequently, how quickly adoption can ramp up. A user who logs in daily will have far more opportunities to adopt passkeys than one who logs in quarterly.

The potential Passkey Login Rate can be mathematically estimated using key performance indicators (KPIs):

Passkey Login Rate ≈ Device Passkey Support (%) × Cumulative Enrollment Rate (%) × Passkey Usage Rate (%)

This simplified model underscores that the achievable login rate is fundamentally limited by:

• Technical Reach: The proportion of users whose devices and browsers actually support passkey technology (check device readiness).
• Enrollment Success: The effectiveness of strategies in convincing capable users to create a passkey.
• Login Preference: The success of the login flow design in encouraging enrolled users to consistently use their passkeys.

In essence, achieving a high Passkey Login Rate requires successfully guiding users through both the creation and usage stages, within the bounds of technical feasibility. Projecting how these rates evolve over time, driven by user login frequency, is fundamental to quantifying the eventual business impact.

To move from theoretical benefits to a concrete business plan, organizations need realistic projections. The Corbado Passkey Adoption Calculator is designed to facilitate this by modeling adoption based on specific inputs and proven methodologies (explore the concept in the Buy vs. Build Guide).

Setting realistic expectations for adoption KPIs is crucial. A primary reason passkey projects underperform or fail is overly optimistic initial forecasts and not setting adoption at the center of the complete planning (why projects fail). Achieving high adoption requires a strategy and effort to overcome user resistance and optimize the experience. Low adoption significantly diminishes the potential ROI and delays the realization of security and cost-saving benefits.

The freely available calculator with CSV works by taking several key inputs to project the Passkey Login Rate over time.

The calculator requires the following inputs to model the adoption curve:

• Annual Logins per User: This input determines the speed at which passkey adoption ramps up within your user base. A reasonable starting point for many services is an average of 2–5 logins per user per year. More frequent logins mean users encounter enrollment prompts and usage opportunities more often (if shown multiple times), accelerating the adoption curve. Crucially, this value primarily influences how quickly the target adoption rates are reached, not the ultimate achievable adoption percentage itself (which is determined by Device Support, Enrollment Rate, and Usage Rate.). To increase the model's precision, try to determine the actual average login frequency specific to your user base.

• Device Passkey Support (%): This reflects the percentage of your actual user base (excluding bots, focusing on human users) whose devices and browsers are technically capable of creating and using passkeys. While global support is high (around 93-95%), this can vary based on user demographics and device preferences (see readiness insights). For instance, if your user base is heavily skewed towards desktop users, particularly on Windows 10 or 11, the effective support rate might be lower due to operating system limitations or specific browser configurations. This defines the maximum potential user base for passkeys.

• Passkey Enrollment Rate (%): This critical input represents the percentage of passkey-capable users who successfully create a passkey when prompted or offered the option. This rate is heavily influenced by the chosen enrollment strategy – passive options in settings yield low rates, while optimized post-login nudges, clear messaging, and potentially mandatory or automatic flows can drive significantly higher enrollment. Furthermore, encouraging users to add passkeys to secondary devices, enabling smooth cross-device authentication, and promoting setup across all their devices (including syncing via password managers like Google Password Manager or iCloud Keychain) helps ensure the passkey is readily available when needed, contributing to overall adoption success (adoption best practices).

• Passkey Usage Rate (%): For users who have successfully enrolled a passkey, this metric indicates the percentage of their subsequent logins that utilize the passkey instead of a fallback method. This rate reflects the effectiveness and user-friendliness of the passkey login flow itself. Factors like Conditional UI, dedicated passkey buttons, intelligent auto-triggering via Identifier-First, or One-Tap login mechanisms like the Corbado One-Tap Button heavily influence this rate (login flow best practices).

While the conceptual benefits of passkeys are compelling, significant technology investments require more than intuition. Gut feelings about improved security or user experience are insufficient to secure budget and organizational alignment. The Passkey Adoption Calculator provides the necessary quantitative evidence to move from belief to a data-driven decision.

Based on the provided inputs, the calculator generates key outputs:

• Projected Passkey Login Rate (Configured Scenario): The primary output is a time-based projection of the Passkey Login Rate you can expect to achieve with the specific Enrollment and Usage rates you've configured, reflecting your planned implementation strategy and optimization efforts.
• Projected Passkey Login Rate (Corbado Enterprise Scenario): For comparison, the calculator also outputs a projected Passkey Login Rate based on the highly optimized strategies and typical results achieved with the Corbado Enterprise approach (as detailed in Scenario B below). This provides a benchmark for what is achievable with best-practice implementation.

These outputs, along with derived metrics like projected cost savings, are designed to resonate with the specific concerns and priorities of different stakeholders across the organization. This allows the project sponsor to tailor the narrative effectively:

• For the CFO and Finance Department: The focus naturally falls on the financial metrics. Highlighting the projected ROI, the scale of annual and cumulative cost savings (particularly from reduced helpdesk load and fraud), and the calculated payback period provides the justification needed for financial approval.
• For the CISO and Security Team: The emphasis shifts to risk reduction. Demonstrating the projected decrease in successful phishing and ATO incidents, underpinned by the inherent phishing resistance of passkey technology, quantifies the improvement in the organization's security posture and mitigation of costly breach scenarios.
• For the COO and Operations Teams: The operational efficiencies are key. Showcasing the projected reduction in password-related helpdesk tickets translates directly to reduced operational burden and potentially allows IT support staff to focus on higher-value tasks. Lower costs associated with replacing legacy MFA also contribute to operational savings.
• For the CMO, Product, and Customer Success Teams: The connection to user experience is paramount. While direct revenue impact might be modeled separately, pointing to potential improvements in login success rates or speed, derived from passkeys' simpler flow, supports arguments for increased customer satisfaction, potentially higher conversion rates, and reduced user friction.

By inputting values that reflect your target audience and planned implementation strategy (ranging from basic to highly optimized), the calculator provides a data-driven projection of your likely Passkey Login Rate trajectory, forming a realistic basis for financial and operational planning.

The level of passkey adoption achieved is directly correlated with the strategic effort and investment dedicated to optimizing both enrollment and usage flows. Let's contrast two approaches where we are usually consulted (compare DIY vs. Corbado):

• Strategy: Passkey creation is offered passively (e.g., via account settings) and supplemented by a basic, non-A/B tested post-sign-in nudge shown periodically (e.g., every 30 days). The login page might feature a standard "Sign in with Passkey" button alongside traditional password fields, possibly with Conditional UI support. There's minimal active optimization of the nudge messaging or login flows based on user behavior.
• Plausible Inputs:
  • Device Support: 90%
  • Enrollment Rate: 20% (Simple, untailored nudges improve on purely passive options but lack the effectiveness of optimized prompts)
  • Usage Rate: 30% (Without strong prompts or highly optimized flows, users often default to familiar password habits or ignore the passkey option)
• Projected Login Rate: Modest improvement over purely passive, but still low (e.g., 90% Support × 20% Enrollment × 30% Usage = ~5.4%)

• Strategy: Implements best practices learned from large-scale deployments. This includes active post-login enrollment nudges with A/B tested messaging, highly optimized login flows using techniques like Passkey Intelligence (to smartly trigger passkey prompts only when likely available) or One-Tap Passkey Buttons (making passkey login the easiest path after first use), proactive encouragement for multi-device passkey coverage, robust Cross-Device Authentication (CDA) support, seamless password manager syncing, and potentially phased enforcement for certain user segments later on. The focus is explicitly on maximizing adoption metrics.
• Plausible Inputs (Reflecting real-world results):
  • Device Support: 90%
  • Enrollment Rate: 80% (Well-timed, clear, tested nudges, especially on mobile, drive high activation rates, as seen in cases like VicRoads.)
  • Usage Rate: 95% (Achieved through highly optimized flows like the Corbado One-Tap Button, making passkey login the default and easiest path, combined with strong multi-device coverage, seamless password manager syncing, robust Cross-Device Authentication (CDA) support, and clear user messaging encouraging passkey use.)
• Projected Login Rate: Significantly higher, often reaching 65%+ within months (e.g., 90% Support × 80% Enrollment × 95% Usage = ~68.4%)

Explore the impact of different adoption strategies using the interactive calculator below, pre-filled with the scenarios.

Here's a table summarizing the key inputs and resulting projections for the two scenarios (you can also access the calculator with the optimized settings directly here).

The difference highlights that simply offering passkeys is insufficient.

Achieving high adoption rates, and thus realizing the significant business benefits, requires a dedicated strategy focused on optimizing both the enrollment prompts and the login user experience.

High adoption rates are not accidental, even with basic nudging included. They result from a deliberate focus on:

• Effective Nudging: Proactively prompting users at opportune moments (like immediately after a password login) with optimized, clear value propositions (convenience or security) is crucial for driving enrollment beyond basic levels (nudging strategies). Simple, untargeted nudges yield lower results compared to tested and refined approaches.
• Frictionless Login Flows: Making the passkey login experience demonstrably faster and easier than entering passwords or dealing with OTPs is key to driving usage. Techniques that minimize clicks and automate the process where possible, like the One-Tap Button, have a major impact (optimizing login flows). Basic implementations often fail to achieve this level of seamlessness.
• Comprehensive Coverage & Strategy: Addressing edge cases, ensuring smooth cross-device authentication experiences (CDA), supporting password manager syncing, and having a plan to encourage adoption across a user's multiple devices are necessary to capture the full potential. Reaching the highest adoption tiers (often the last 10-20% of usage) requires targeted strategies or even phased mandatory adoption for specific contexts, far beyond a simple periodic nudge.

The projected Passkey Login Rate, as estimated by tools like the free Corbado Passkey Adoption Calculator, directly scales the potential business benefits. The calculator can export these projected adoption rates over time as a CSV file, based on your chosen strategy. Below is an example of such an export, comparing the "Basic DIY" and "Optimized Corbado Enterprise" scenarios over 24 months:

Note: This table shows an example export from the Corbado Passkey Adoption Calculator, available here. As the projections are based on simulations, the exact numbers may vary slightly between runs.

This projected data allows for more concrete financial modeling. You can use these monthly rates to estimate cumulative savings over the period. For example, let's consider a hypothetical business with:

• Daily Logins: 100,000
• Current Login Cost (e.g., SMS OTP): $0.05 per login
• MFA Recovery Rate: 0.1% of logins require costly MFA resets.
• MFA Reset Cost: $50 per incident (support time, etc.)
• Passkey Impact: Based on Corbado internal data, passkeys reduce MFA resets by 75% for logins that use them.

Using these assumptions and the monthly adoption rates from the table, we can calculate the cumulative savings over the 24-month period for both scenarios, focusing on login costs and MFA reset reductions (assuming ~30.44 days per month):

Cumulative Savings Estimation (Over 24 Months):

(Based on 100k daily logins, $0.05/login cost, 0.1% MFA reset rate, $50/reset cost, 75% passkey MFA reduction, ~30.44 days/month, and the 24-month adoption rates from the example table)

• Scenario A: Basic "DIY"

  • Total Savings from avoided Login Costs: ~$157,500
  • Total Savings from avoided MFA Resets: ~$118,100
  • Total Estimated Cumulative Savings (DIY): ~$275,000

• Scenario B: Optimized "Corbado Enterprise"

  • Total Savings from avoided Login Costs: ~$2,001,000
  • Total Savings from avoided MFA Resets: ~$1,501,000
  • Total Estimated Cumulative Savings (Optimized): ~$3,502,000

(Note: These are simplified estimations. Actual savings depend on precise cost structures, user behavior variations, and the specific implementation details.)

Important Consideration: Costs Not Included. It's crucial to remember that this analysis focuses solely on the potential benefits. A complete business case must also account for the significant costs associated with implementation and maintenance. These costs, not detailed in this article, include:

• Initial project costs during the implementation phase.
• The potentially much higher development effort (personnel and time) required to build, test, and deploy a sophisticated, optimized solution like Scenario B compared to a basic one.
• Ongoing costs for maintenance, monitoring, and continuous optimization after launch to sustain high adoption rates and performance.

This cumulative analysis highlights the dramatic difference in long-term financial impact based on the adoption strategy:

• Operational Savings: The optimized approach (Scenario B) yields over 13x the cumulative operational savings compared to the basic DIY approach (Scenario A) over two years in this model. This stems directly from the much faster and higher adoption rate, leading to significantly greater reductions in SMS OTP costs and expensive MFA recovery incidents month after month.
• Security Improvement: The vastly higher cumulative number of passkey logins in Scenario B translates to a sustained and significantly larger reduction in the attack surface vulnerable to credential theft and ATO fraud over the 24-month period.
• Revenue/UX Gains: The cumulative positive impact on user experience, conversion rates, and satisfaction is substantially greater in Scenario B, as a much larger portion of the user base benefits from frictionless logins over the entire period.

While the adoption calculator provides a valuable starting point, building a truly robust business case often requires deeper analysis tailored to your specific circumstances. At Corbado, we regularly consult with organizations to develop comprehensive passkey business cases, leveraging our expertise and data from numerous large-scale deployments. We can help you understand precisely why an optimized approach like Corbado Connect for Enterprises consistently yields superior adoption rates and ROI compared to basic implementations.

Our team can assist you by:

• Conducting a Custom Device Landscape Analysis: We analyze your specific user base's device and browser distribution to determine your actual passkey readiness, providing a more accurate foundation than global averages.
• Developing Tailor-Made Projections: We utilize our sophisticated internal projection tools of which the public calculator is a simplified version—incorporating nuanced factors and learnings from real-world projects to create a highly accurate adoption forecast for your business.
• Quantifying Broader Business Impacts: We provide insights beyond basic cost savings, helping you model improvements in user experience (UX), payment completion rates, and overall conversion rates based on observed outcomes.
• Analyzing Specific Use Cases: We can model the impact of passkeys in various environments, including single-factor authentication scenarios common in e-commerce, demonstrating how reducing friction like password resets directly impacts cart abandonment rates.

If you're serious about building a compelling business case for passkeys and understanding the full potential impact on your organization, contact us to discuss a personalized analysis.

Passkeys represent a significant advancement in authentication, offering a path towards a more secure, efficient, and user-friendly digital ecosystem. However, unlocking their full potential requires achieving substantial user adoption – encompassing both initial creation and consistent ongoing usage.

Before embarking on implementation, leverage tools like our Corbado Passkey Adoption Calculator and consider expert consultation to ground your strategy in realistic, data-driven projections (build your business case). By modeling adoption based on your specific context and intended level of optimization effort, you can:

• Construct a credible and quantifiable business case that resonates with financial, security, and operational stakeholders.
• Set achievable KPI based targets and manage expectations effectively.
• Justify the necessary investment in strategies and technologies proven to maximize adoption rates.
• Establish meaningful KPIs against which to measure progress and demonstrate success (tracking success metrics).

The future of authentication is increasingly passwordless. Don't base your transition strategy on guesswork. Utilize adoption modeling tools and expert insights to establish a clear baseline and build a robust business plan that paves the way for a successful passkey deployment.