What would stop you from trying Hanko (https://www.hanko.io/) this month? Be specific about how you handle this today. Also say the maximum you would pay per month in USD (0 if nothing).

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Hanko | Modern Authentication. On Your Terms.

https://www.hanko.io/ (opens in a new tab)
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10 fictional AI personas. Exploratory perspectives, not a survey of real customers. Methodology & limitations

Simulated interest

42/100

AI synthesis, not measured demand

Suggested price range

$0–500

Median $50 · simulated willingness to pay

Response sentiment

Positive 0%Neutral 100%Negative 0%
The takeaway

What this panel suggests

Interest is qualified rather than blocked by product fit: respondents like Hanko’s open-source, passkey-centric positioning, but the deciding factor is implementation cost. Several are already using Auth0, Firebase Auth, or custom-built authentication, so trying Hanko this month would mean diverting engineering time into a migration or re-learning the stack rather than shipping product work. One respondent said, "My current priority is migrating our existing Auth0 authentication to a passkey-native system, and that's a significant undertaking." Another said, "Trying something new means learning a new system, and that takes time I'd rather spend coding for clients." Pricing clarity is the other friction point; people want concrete monthly costs tied to company size or usage, not just a general pricing page. Compliance and security review also appears as a gating step before adoption. The synthetic WTP data suggests a wide spread: some would pay $0, while the median maximum stated was $50/month and the top end reached $500/month. Net: if Hanko reduces migration effort and explains tiers clearly, these prospects could become trial users soon.

A hypothesis to test

Pricing & positioning

Lead with a free trial and make migration paths extremely explicit; the strongest blockers are switching cost and budget uncertainty, not lack of conceptual interest.

Prospects want concrete monthly pricing tied to scale, especially for small teams and migrating systems. The stated maximum willingness to pay ranges from $0 to $500, with a median of $50/month among those who answered.

Recurring themes

Integration and migration effort
“My current priority is migrating our existing Auth0 authentication to a passkey-native system, and that's a significant undertaking.”Read Misty Nikolaus’s response →
Resource constraints and timing
“Trying something new means learning a new system, and that takes time I'd rather spend coding for clients.”Read Clyde Wiegand’s response →
Pricing transparency concerns
“Without knowing the specific costs associated with scaling our 22-person company, it's hard to commit.”Read Andrew Klimczak’s response →
Compliance and security review requirements

Objections to investigate

  • High integration/migration effort required
  • Lack of clear pricing tiers on the website
  • Current internal projects taking priority
  • Compliance and security review requirements

Use these findings to plan customer interviews or experiments. How to interpret AI research

What the panel said

Click a name to open that persona’s full profile.

Bobby Johnsonneutral

Right now, the main thing that would stop me from trying Hanko is the fact that I'm knee-deep in building out the user portal's sign-up, password reset, and invite flow for my first paying customer. It's a critical feature, and I can't really divert resources from that right now. Currently, I'm handling user access via a spreadsheet and a custom-built auth system within my Next.js app. It's not ideal, but it works for the current beta users. I'd be willing to pay around $50 per month, but that's based on scaling up my MRR first.

Simulated interest: 40/100

Misty Nikolausneutral

Trying Hanko this month would be difficult. My current priority is migrating our existing Auth0 authentication to a passkey-native system, and that's a significant undertaking. I'd need to see a clear migration path from Auth0 and understand how Hanko handles the complexities of our current session management, which we just refactored. While the open-source aspect is appealing, I'd need to run a proof of concept to ensure it meets our compliance standards and doesn't introduce unforeseen risks. My current budget for new tools is quite constrained. I could potentially allocate up to $150 per month for a solution like this if it demonstrably improves developer velocity and security, but I'd need to justify it thoroughly.

Simulated interest: 40/100

Andrew Klimczakneutral

My current setup with AWS Cognito and custom role tables is becoming unmanageable. The complexity and maintenance overhead are significant, and we have limited engineering bandwidth to refactor. What would stop me from trying Hanko this month is understanding the total cost of ownership. Your pricing page mentions "Hanko Cloud," but it's unclear what the actual pricing tiers are beyond "Try Hanko for free." Without knowing the specific costs associated with scaling our 22-person company, it's hard to commit. I'm currently spending around EUR 500 per month on AWS services for authentication, so I'd look for something competitive.

Simulated interest: 60/100

Chaturaanan Reddyneutral

My biggest hesitation would be the integration effort and ensuring it fits seamlessly with our current tech stack. Today, I'm handling user management by setting up Firebase Auth and custom account tables for each project, which is a repetitive but understood process. I'd need to evaluate if Hanko's 'Elements' or 'Flow API' would truly save me significant time given the variety of client needs. Also, pricing isn't immediately clear for different tiers or feature sets beyond the 'free' trial. I wouldn't pay more than $20 per month for a service like this, considering the agency's project-based budget structure.

Simulated interest: 30/100

Inez Morissetteneutral

What would stop me from trying Hanko this month is the fact that I need to properly evaluate any new system, especially one that handles user accounts and access. My current process involves a lot of manual spreadsheet work for staff accounts, contractor access, and customer onboarding, which I then have to cross-reference and approve via email. While Hanko's open-source nature and focus on security are appealing, I'd need to conduct a thorough pilot program to ensure it integrates smoothly and doesn't introduce new risks, given our healthcare startup's sensitive data. I'm willing to pay up to $50 per month for a trial period to assess its full potential.

Simulated interest: 60/100

Virginie Meyerneutral

Hanko's focus on passkeys and its open-source nature are compelling. However, my current setup uses Supabase Auth, and while I've been wrestling with its custom policies, the overhead of migrating our entire authentication flow—sign-up, email verification, and role-based access—to a new system like Hanko within this month seems substantial. I'd need to thoroughly evaluate the integration effort, potential data migration challenges, and ensure Hanko's custom policies can handle our specific use cases as robustly as I need them to. The self-hosted option is attractive for control, but the migration timeline is the primary blocker. I would be willing to pay $0 per month for a full solution given the current constraints.

Simulated interest: 40/100

Ethan Dijkstraneutral

The primary reason I wouldn't try Hanko this month is that we're in the middle of consolidating our own auth and profile data models. We've been using Clerk, but we're moving towards a more unified, in-house solution for greater control, which is a significant undertaking. We need to ensure our current migration is stable before exploring new external providers. Currently, we handle auth by managing the data model ourselves after migrating away from earlier prototypes. Regarding pricing, I need to see a clear breakdown for a team our size. Without that, I can't estimate a monthly cost. However, given our startup stage, I wouldn't pay more than $50 per month.

Simulated interest: 20/100

Clyde Wiegandneutral

This month? Well, honestly, I'm pretty set up with my current boilerplate for auth. I usually cobble together solutions using open-source libraries and free tiers, which keeps my costs down to zero for that aspect of development. Trying something new means learning a new system, and that takes time I'd rather spend coding for clients. I'd only consider something like Hanko if my existing methods became a major bottleneck, which they haven't yet. If I were to put a price on it, the maximum I'd ever consider paying per month would be $5 USD, because that's about the most I'd allocate to a recurring cost for something I don't strictly *need* right now.

Simulated interest: 20/100

Sean Beckerneutral

From a technical perspective, the primary objection to adopting Hanko this month is the complexity of integrating a new authentication system into our existing, highly regulated financial application. We currently manage a custom-built public-facing authentication layer, which requires meticulous attention to detail and a significant investment in ensuring auditability and compliance. While Hanko's open-source nature and focus on passkeys are appealing, the transition and potential security implications of introducing a third-party solution, even if self-hostable, would necessitate a thorough architectural review and extensive testing. Our current system, while custom, is deeply understood and controlled. I'm hesitant to introduce a new dependency without a clear and compelling need that outweighs the current operational overhead. Regarding pricing, the product page doesn't present clear tiers for usage-based pricing that I can easily map to our user volume or transaction rates. Without that clarity, it's difficult to estimate an acceptable monthly cost. However, if it were to scale reasonably with our needs, I might consider up to $500 per month, but this is highly speculative.

Simulated interest: 40/100

Amrita Tandonneutral

Currently, our student portal uses AWS Cognito, and our support team handles account unlocks and password resets manually through tickets. This is precisely the kind of inefficiency I aim to eliminate. What would stop me from trying Hanko this month? Frankly, it's the integration effort and ensuring it seamlessly fits with our existing architecture without disrupting student access or support workflows. I'd need to understand the implementation complexity for a team of seven developers. Given our startup's lean budget, I'd be looking at a maximum of $150 per month for a solution like this, assuming it significantly reduces manual support overhead.

Simulated interest: 70/100

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