Passkeys & Conversion: How Passkeys increase Login Success

Passkeys are emerging as a powerful lever for conversion rate optimization. In this article, you'll learn how passkeys reduce login drop-off, increase sign-in success rates, and drive measurable revenue growth backed by real case studies and benchmarks.

There are many important factors in authentication that boost conversion rates. With passkeys, a new super tool has emerged that not only improves security but can be one of the greatest growth levers for any website or app.

Just ask yourself: how often has this happened to you? You wanted to access your favorite e-commerce retailer but couldn't remember your password. Resetting the password and managing the new one also didn't seem like a viable option, so you just did not log in. This shows how crucial easy authentication is for user retention for e-commerce providers.

One of the goals of customer identity and access management (CIAM) is to streamline this user experience. However, it's not just about signing up users initially but also to keep users returning and engaged to fully realize their potential lifetime value (LTV). As customer acquisition costs (CAC) are continuously rising, it's even more important to retain your existing customer base and provide them the best authentication experience. Passkeys are the perfect tool to achieve this, not only for new but also for existing users.

KAYAK, the online travel company and one of the first big B2C brands that rolled out passkeys, serves as a brilliant example. According to Google's case study, two-thirds of new sign-ups now choose passkeys, and sign-up/sign-in time has been reduced by 50%.

As soon as iOS 16 was released, passkeys were introduced as their default option when creating a new account on Apple devices. Existing users were also able to add passkeys to their accounts. Within just three weeks, thousands of users created passkeys. Notably, almost 20% of those early passkey creators were existing users who manually opted in - a strong signal of user demand for passwordless login. The overall feedback was absolutely positive (which is not often the case when new security features are rolled out). Consumers who could not create a passkey were provided with email magic links as passwordless fallback. It's expected that the share of non-passkey logins will decline over time until passkeys are the dominant login method.

The KAYAK results aren't an outlier. Multiple sources confirm that passkeys dramatically improve login success rate and conversion throughput:

• Dashlane (Google case study): 92% sign-in completion with passkeys vs 54% for passwords - a 70% increase in sign-in conversion.
• FIDO Passkey Index (Oct 2025): 93% passkey sign-in success vs 63% for other methods, with 73% faster sign-in (avg 8.5s vs 31.2s) and 81% reduction in login-related help desk incidents.

These benchmarks make passkeys one of the most impactful authentication changes you can test.

Let's analyze the growth benefits enabled by passkeys conversion optimization.

User experience, effort and security are crucial aspects in authentication that have a major impact on sign-up and conversion rates. Taking care of all simultaneously is an important task for every digital-first company.

Passkeys have the biggest impact on:

• Returning login: Users who forgot passwords now authenticate instantly
• Checkout login gate: Reduce cart abandonment at the authentication step
• Account creation step: Faster sign-up with biometrics vs password creation

• Passkey-first login button: Make passkeys the primary/default option
• Conditional UI / autofill entry points: Let the browser suggest passkeys automatically
• Post-login "create a passkey" nudge: Convert password users to passkey users (see our passkey adoption strategies)

• Login success rate (passkey vs password)
• Time-to-login
• Login drop-off rate
• Recovery/fallback rate

Passwordless authentication in general has proven to be a huge lever for conversion optimization. Users can access the system without creating another password, increasing security while improving the user experience and reducing login effort. Making use of biometric data for authentication, passkeys are the most user-friendly and most secure passwordless authentication solution today.

According to the FIDO Passkey Index, passkeys achieve 93% sign-in success compared to 63% for traditional methods - a ~30% improvement in conversion throughput. More customers will create accounts instead of shopping as guests, enabling better personalization, retargeting and repeat purchase optimization.

Most of the time, users don't actually want to reset their password. They just want to get back in. A passwordless option perfectly ensures they never encounter a forgotten password again.

You can increase user retention by reducing both customer attrition and cart abandonment. According to the FIDO Alliance's consumer research, 42% of consumers have abandoned a purchase due to forgotten passwords. For younger demographics (Gen Z and Millennials), this figure is even higher, making password friction a significant revenue leak for e-commerce and SaaS businesses.

The practical flow:

1. If passkey exists → trigger passkey authentication
2. If no passkey exists → show passkey prompt after successful login
3. Over time, reduce password reset volume as passkey adoption grows

By offering passkeys as login option, you eliminate the password reset friction entirely, keeping users in the purchase flow instead of losing them to authentication frustration.

Resetting a password may seem like an insignificant task, but the compound effect of thousands of resets can make a company's IT costs skyrocket. According to Forrester research, larger businesses allocate nearly 50% of IT help desk costs to password reset and range from 2-30 minutes to fix. On average, it costs an enterprise $70 for a single password reset.

The FIDO Passkey Index reports an 81% reduction in login-related help desk incidents after passkey adoption. Since users no longer need to remember a password for each application, simply enabling passkeys will cut down on password reset requests significantly.

For detailed ROI modeling and adoption projections, see our Business Case for Passkeys.

Implementing passkeys is one thing. Measuring their impact on conversion is another. Corbado provides authentication analytics and observability purpose-built for passkey rollouts:

Track the metrics that matter for growth:

• Login success rate: Compare passkey vs. password cohorts in real-time
• Time-to-auth: Measure sign-in speed improvements (passkeys average 8.5s vs 31.2s for passwords)
• Drop-off funnel: See exactly where users abandon the authentication flow
• Fallback rate: Understand when and why users revert to passwords

Corbado tracks granular data for every authentication event, enabling precise A/B testing and funnel optimization:

• OS and browser segmentation (identify which combinations have highest drop-off)
• Device capability detection (passkey support, biometric availability)
• Credential manager distribution (iCloud Keychain vs. Google Password Manager)

• Automated alerts when success rates drop (catch browser updates breaking flows)
• Step-by-step event logs for forensic analysis
• User-level debugging to diagnose specific authentication issues

This observability helps growth teams prove ROI and iterate on passkey flows based on data, not guesswork. Get started with Corbado to measure your passkey conversion impact.

Passkeys are a powerful tool that can enable significant growth for any website or app. The best UX by offering biometric logins, synchronization within a cloud account, and cross-platform support speak for themselves. It also saves your customers from the hassle of managing passwords. Together with high-end security that is resistant to phishing attacks, they are not without reason the new standard for logins.

Enabling passwordless authentication via passkeys will increase conversion rate and user retention as well as reduce IT costs.

Yes. Real-world data shows passkeys significantly improve conversion. The FIDO Passkey Index reports 93% sign-in success for passkeys vs 63% for passwords. Dashlane's case study showed a 70% increase in sign-in conversion after implementing passkeys.

Passkeys eliminate the friction points that cause drop-off: no password to remember, no password reset flow, and according to the FIDO Passkey Index, authentication completes in ~8.5 seconds on average vs 31.2 seconds for traditional methods.

Key metrics to track: login success rate, time-to-login, login drop-off rate, password reset volume, help desk ticket reduction and conversion throughput at checkout or sign-up gates.

Based on the FIDO Passkey Index: ~30% improvement in login success rate, 50-73% reduction in sign-in time and 81% fewer login-related support tickets. Actual results depend on your current baseline and implementation quality.

Start with passkey-first for new sign-ups, then add post-login nudges for existing users. At KAYAK, 20% of early passkey creators were existing users who manually opted in within three weeks. Make passkeys the default, but provide fallback options.