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Why are Yubikeys so expensive? I have one and use them but the price always gets in the way of having more.
by jgrahamc 10y ago
Why are Yubikeys so expensive? I have one and use them but the price always gets in the way of having more.
- AdamSC1 10y agoIn a lot of cases their clients are businesses who bulk buy the keys, brand them and provide them to their customers either for free or at a discounted price. Those companies are usually financial services, online games with monthly subscriptions, and corporate IT/Security services. So they have a high customer LTV and the investment is worth it for them. Yubico was smart to go after that market. It is costly to design, mould, manufacture, sell and support a hardware product, even something as small as this. Since you don't want your 2FA company to go out of business there is good value in knowing they have a stable business model that can actually support a company rather than just burning capital.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- fuzzybeard 10y agoFor something that authenticates you for 2 factor, I'd pay a lot more. After all, this is your key you use daily for the services you live off of. The value is a no brainer.
- Ajedi32 10y agoProbably because they're capable of way more than you're using them for. The ones that just do U2F are only $18: https://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey-hardware/ https://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey-hardware/
- nickik 10y agoThey do lots of stuff. A YubiKey 4 has GPG Smartcard, U2F, PIV (SSH,CA, Windows Remote Login), Static Password, Yubikey OTP, Challenge Response Mode (HMAC) and HOTP. It does a lot of stuff, I am amazed how cheap they are. Pure U2F sticks can be done much cheaper. The Yubikey one only costs 18$, but the U2F standards was designed for cheap devices. You can get U2F sticks for less then 10$ on amazon.
- rconti 10y agoYup. they're a bargain compared to most solutions