Passkeys in India: the OTP replacement nobody's using (yet)

Every passkey login costs you ₹0 in messaging fees. Every OTP login costs ₹0.12-0.40. At 100k monthly logins that's the difference between ₹0 and ₹12-40k/month — forever.

Why adoption has been slow

Three reasons: SDK complexity (WebAuthn ceremonies are genuinely fiddly), ecosystem confusion (sync vs device-bound credentials), and the fallback problem — you still need OTP when the passkey isn't there.

Why it flips now

• Android + iOS both ship platform passkey managers that sync
• Chrome/WhatsApp-scale familiarity means users see the fingerprint prompt and just use it
• The SDK problem is solved if your auth provider ships the ceremony + credential storage

The pragmatic rollout

Offer passkey as an *additional* method — the "faster sign-in" option next to OTP. Power users adopt first; the savings compound quietly. In NexAuth: passkeys + OTP are one config flag apart, same session model.