1Password is one of the best password managers on the market, mainly because it provides outstanding security and is extremely easy to use. However, the pricing is a bit expensive, making it more suitable for small businesses and families instead of individual users.
It uses AES 256-bit encryption to make sure all your data is secured. Moreover, 1Password also has a zero-knowledge policy, which means that they don’t track, record, or sell any of your data. Here’s what we also found out about the password manager while researching for our 1Password review:
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1Password Background.
Created in 2005, 1Password is a 16-year-old company with more than 400 employees serving millions of customers in 20+ countries and more than 80,000 businesses. The company is headquartered in Toronto, Canada and has locations in the U.S. and Europe.
1Password Pricing.
1Password keeps it simple with its pricing plans. The company offers one individual plan, one family plan and two business plans.
1Password allows you to choose between monthly and annual billing for your plan, but it does not make it easy to find the monthly price. So we’ve done the digging for you and have listed below how much you’ll pay at signup for 1Password’s monthly and annual plans.
1Password Personal and Business Plans:
| Individual | Families | Business | Enterprise | |
| Annual | $36 | $60 | $96 per user | Custom quote |
| Monthly | NA | $6.99 | $7.99 per user | Custom quote |
Individual Plan ($36/year):
- Unlimited devices
- Unlimited passwords
- 1Password Watchtower
- Travel mode
- Password generator
- Two-factor authentication
- 1GB document storage
1Password is a bit more expensive than many competitors. As a result, the company relies heavily on its 14-day free trial since a free plan option doesn’t exist. It’s banking on the hope that you’ll love the product enough to remain a customer after that two-week trial.
1Password is a bit light on features for its price at the individual user level. Without many plan options to choose from, the individual plan is essentially its “premium” plan. If that’s the case, it’s missing quite a few features that competitor premium plans include, such as the ability to share passwords with others or view a security score for your passwords.
We like that the plan includes 1Password Watchtower, which is the company’s version of dark web monitoring. Watchtower also alerts you whenever a password or associated website has been compromised.
The unique feature is Travel Mode. If you’re travelling somewhere with higher restrictions and you’re worried you might be searched or inspected, 1Password lets you hide any vaults containing passwords you haven’t deemed safe for travel. That way, no one can use your device to coerce an unwanted login since Travel Mode has made those passwords “vanish” until you turn it off. It’s an interesting feature for frequent travellers that we haven’t seen with other password managers.
Families Plan ($6.99/month or $60/year):
- Five 1Password accounts to share
- Limited sharing for a maximum of five other users
- Family dashboard and management
- Shared vaults
- Emergency access
We really like that 1Password offers a monthly rate for its plans. The downside is that you’ll only have five total accounts, while competitors offer six for less money.
The management of family accounts and shared vaults is easy, and you’ll be able to help recover master passwords for anyone on your account.
While 1Password’s Families interface is simple and intuitive, overall, you’re not getting quite as good of a deal as you might with rivals.
Business Plans ($7.99/month or $96/year):
Like many other password managers, 1Password has devoted resources to serve and support businesses. For a bit of a price hike, your business can have an unlimited account for each employee, as well as Duo integration for multi-factor authentication with the Business plan.
The Enterprise plan offers some of the best business support we’ve seen. Each employee will receive a Families account plus 5 GB of document storage instead of 1 GB. Custom reports, roles, groups, activity logs, security and access controls, and provisions with OneLogin, Okta and Active Directory, are all supported. Of course, we can’t measure how the quote you’ll receive will stack up to other password manager business plans at a custom price per business.
Which 1Password Pricing Plan is Right for You?
If you want to share items or passwords with anyone else, you’ll need a Families plan. However, if you only need a password manager for yourself, you’ll be better off going with the individual plan.
How 1Password Performed in Our Tests.
We tested 1Password by first signing up for a free trial, then upgrading to a Families plan on the web vault in Safari. We also tested 1Password on iOS, Chrome, the Mac app and Firefox through Windows.
Signup:
Signup was nearly instant. We created an account with a name, email address and master password. The signup screen asked for credit card information, but we could skip that step (look for the small print). 1Password then offered a PDF download of an “Emergency Kit” that holds your Secret Key and allows you to log back into your account if you forget your master password.
The free trial was a breeze to start with, and upgrading to a Families plan took just two clicks and required no credit card information.
Adding Passwords:
For the web vault in Safari, the interface is slightly cluttered. However, it’s still easy to find what you need. It’s fast to set up a vault and add a password, and integration with the Mac app worked well. Since the Mac app has automatic integration with the Safari browser, the only extra step we had to take to enable autofill was to turn on the 1Password extension in Safari preferences. After that, everything worked like a charm.
The same was true for the iOS app. Using the QR code from the Emergency Kit, we could log in to the mobile app in a way that felt much more secure than typical for password managers. Once integrated, FaceID worked great, and we could launch a browser right from the mobile app for faster access.
Apps vs Browsers:
Other apps and browsers worked just as well, albeit they didn’t have the same intuitive flow between Mac, Safari and iOS. For example, connecting to the Windows app and the Edge extension was painless, and autofill worked just as well in Firefox as it did in Safari.
Is It Worth It?
As some Apple fans know, 1Password has been a go-to password manager for Mac and iPhone. In recent years, 1Password’s support of other platforms and browsers has really improved. Unfortunately, its pricing is slightly higher than other password manager services, and the apps aren’t the fanciest. Still, you’ll experience friendly customer service, solid security, a simple setup and pain-free integration, especially for Apple products.
1Password Security Features.
- AES-256 encryption
- PBKDF2 brute-force protection
- Master Password and 128-bit Secret Key locally stored.
- Secure Remote Password for data transmittal
In its 15 years of operation, 1Password has never been breached or hacked. That’s an impressive streak; one 1Password is focused on keeping.
AES-256 is the same security standard the U.S. government and military use to encrypt their own files. This, combined with Password-Based Key Derivation Function 2 (PBKDF2), ensures that your data is protected from hackers trying to manually guess your passwords through brute force and hundreds of inputs.
1Password goes the extra mile with Secure Remote Password (SRP), which encrypts your information with a different key for each log-in session. The benefit of this, as 1Password explains, is that “an attacker who records one authentication session won’t be able to play that back in an attempt to authenticate.”
Password Generator:
Storing current passwords is not enough; you would have to identify weak, old passwords and change them. You’ll have to do that manually.
However, the 1Password generator is here to help. It ensures that all your passwords are unique and hard to guess. It even generates different types of passwords for different devices. For instance, the default length of the Android app and desktop is 24 characters, but for your web needs, the default length is 20 characters.
Multiple Vaults:
Managing your data is easy – you get a separate 1Password vault for all your needs. For example, you can keep your travel details, family documents, and work logins separately to avoid confusion or sorting through a large pile of information.
The ‘Families’ package comes with shared and private password vaults, so you can choose what to share and keep to yourself. In addition, the permission controls of the shared vault make it easy to specify who can view, edit, and manage data.
If you want to share a vault with others, 1Password will generate an access key. That way, you can be sure that you are sharing your login details and passwords with the right people.
Watchtower:
1Password Watchtower will alert you if any of your passwords are weak, compromised, vulnerable to hackers, or used before. In addition, it offers a list of passwords that must be changed, making it easy to modify.
Users seem to like a lot, as seen in 1Password reviews, that Watchtower monitors the expiration dates of the credit cards. That way, you can make sure all your cards are updated, and there is no hassle when you make an online purchase.
Be sure to switch on Watchtower’s options as many of them are turned off by default in the desktop version.
Travel Mode:
This is another outstanding feature, especially for users who travel abroad and want to protect their sensitive information. In addition, border control officers can ask to check your phone and even open some of the apps for proof of identity.
Only the vaults you have marked ‘safe for travel’ will be visible on all the devices with the travel mode. The rest of the vaults with sensitive information will be hidden. 1Password reviews highlight that the best part about this feature is that it doesn’t show it’s in ‘travel mode’, which means there is no way the hidden vaults can be discovered.
Clipboard Options:
1Password clears the clipboard after a certain amount of time, which is crucial when you copy sensitive data. Malicious websites and hackers can easily access the contents on your clipboard and steal the data.
You must regularly clear the contents of your clipboard. 1Password gives you the option to extend the clearing time to around 90 seconds. This provides flexibility to the users as some might want to keep the copied data for longer when working on reports and research papers
1Password X:
This is 1Password’s web browser extension. It is compatible with Edge, Firefox, Chrome, and Brave. Say “Hello” to auto-saving and auto-filling.
Remember that 1PasswordX doesn’t include the bookmark feature, available in some of the other password managers’ browser extensions. 1Password has also removed the auto-login feature for security reasons, like data being stolen by phishing sites or malicious scripts disguised as legitimate websites. However, you can still use the drop-down menu options and keyboard shortcuts.
Importing Passwords:
An easy way to switch to a new password manager is to import the passwords from the existing password manager. For example, 1Password import allows you to transfer passwords from RoboForm, Encryptr, Dashlane, LastPass, and other 1Password accounts.
However, if you are moving from some other password manager, you would have to export all the data to a CSV format and follow the instructions provided by 1Password.
What else we like: We appreciate the lengths 1Password goes to be transparent and inform users about how exactly their passwords are being protected. In addition, 1Password’s constant communication with its customer base is a company hallmark that we definitely appreciate.
1Password Accessibility.
1Password offers native password apps for macOS, iOS, Windows, Android, Linux and Chrome OS. You can also launch and run scripts straight from the command line of your computer.
In addition, 1Password supports browser extensions for:
- Brave
- Chrome
- Edge
- Firefox
- Safari
1Password Customer Service.
1Password provides customer support through email, Twitter and community forums. Though you won’t see a phone number or live chat, the 1Password team is committed to actively responding and helpfully communicating with its customers.
The community boards are full of helpful answers from the customer support team. Overall, you get the feeling that 1Password wants to help and will guide users through any issues they have in a supportive way.
1Password Reputation.
That penchant for customer service is apparent in 1Password’s customer reviews. Trustpilot features more than 4,300 reviews with an average of 4.6 out of 5 stars. In addition, 1Password is one of the few password managers deemed “Excellent” by most of its reviewers. More than 84% of users gave it 5 stars.
1Password has a loyal fan base. We think that’s because of 1Password’s upfront and honest communication and its willingness to help its customer no matter what. That means something to customers, even at the cost of losing a few extra features or having to pay a slightly higher price.
