1Password review (2026): the easiest password manager to share

What 1Password is in 2026

1Password is a password manager made by AgileBits, a Toronto company founded in 2005. It is sold by subscription and runs on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android and Apple Watch, and has browser extensions for Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox and Brave.

It keeps logins, passkeys, payment cards, addresses, secure notes, 2FA codes and files in encrypted vaults, then fills them in when you sign in or check out. You remember one account password. 1Password handles the rest.

The company has grown well beyond the password manager. Its site now leads with Unified Access, a set of business products for managing staff sign-ins, AI agents, SaaS apps and device health, and it says it serves more than 200,000 businesses. For a person or a family, the product is the password manager, and that is what this review covers, with a section on the business plans at the end.

If you are still on 1Password 7, plan your move now. 1Password's support site says version 7 will be retired starting in early 2027, after which it stops reflecting changes made in your account.

Setting up 1Password

You sign up on 1Password.com and pick Individual, Families, Teams Starter Pack or Business. Each plan has a 14-day free trial, and you do not need to enter a card to start it.

During sign-up 1Password creates two things you need to keep safe: your account password, which you choose, and a Secret Key, which 1Password generates. It then asks you to save an Emergency Kit, a PDF with your sign-in address, email, Secret Key and a blank line to write your password on. Print it and keep it somewhere safe. If you lose both your password and your Secret Key, nobody, including 1Password, can open your vault.

Next you install the apps and the browser extension on each device. On a new device you sign in with your email, account password and Secret Key, or scan the Setup Code from the Emergency Kit with your phone.

To move from another password manager, use the importer. 1Password imports from Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave, Safari, Bitwarden, Dashlane, KeePass, KeePassXC, Keeper, LastPass and RoboForm, and it accepts CSV files from anything else. On iOS 26 and Android 14 or later you can move data straight from apps that support the Credential Exchange standard, such as Apple Passwords or Dashlane, without an export file sitting on your disk.

The current 1Password 8 apps need macOS 12 or later, iOS 18 or later, or 64-bit Windows 10 or later, and the Android app needs the Google Play Store. Older Macs and iPhones may be stuck on 1Password 7, so check your devices before you buy.

Saving and filling passwords, passkeys and cards

Day to day, you will spend most of your time with the browser extension. When you create an account on a site, 1Password suggests a strong password, then offers to save the login. Next time you visit, it fills the username and password for you. It does the same for credit cards, bank details and addresses at checkout.

1Password can also store two-factor codes and fill them for you, so you do not have to open a separate authenticator app for each sign-in.

Passkeys work the same way. When a site offers passkey sign-in, 1Password offers to save the passkey, and Watchtower can show you which of your existing logins now support one. Because a passkey is a normal 1Password item, you can edit it, move it to another vault or share it with someone.

A few security habits are built in. 1Password fills only when you ask it to, it checks that your browser is signed by a known developer before it fills anything, and it clears copied passwords from your clipboard after a short time. You can open the apps with biometrics, such as Touch ID on a Mac, or approve with an Apple Watch, instead of typing your account password each time.

Watchtower

Watchtower is 1Password's security checkup. It lists items that appear in known data breaches, weak passwords, passwords you have reused, duplicate items, and accounts where the site supports two-factor sign-in but you have not turned it on. 1Password may also warn you in the browser when you sign in to a site with a reported breach.

Affected items also show an alert banner wherever they appear in 1Password, so they are hard to ignore. For most people the reused-password list is the useful one: change those, and one leaked password no longer opens five accounts.

On the Business plan, admins get Business Watchtower reports across every shared vault, plus a report of developer secrets found in plain text on company devices.

Sharing with family, a team or anyone

Sharing is the strongest reason to pick 1Password for a household.

On Families and the business plans, you share through vaults. Each person keeps a private vault, and you create shared vaults for the things you all need, such as streaming services, the home Wi-Fi or the utilities account. Families includes unlimited shared vaults and 5 guest accounts, so a babysitter or a relative can get one vault without joining your plan.

For one-off sharing, you can send a copy of any item as a link to someone who does not use 1Password. You choose when the link expires and whether anyone with it can open it or only the email addresses you name. If you change the password later, the person needs a new link, because the shared copy does not update.

On Teams Starter Pack and Business, admins set role-based permissions on vaults, so marketing sees the social media logins and finance sees the bank portal.

Travel Mode

Travel Mode is for anyone who crosses borders with a laptop or phone. Before a trip, you mark the vaults you want to take as safe for travel, then switch Travel Mode on from your account on 1Password.com. Every other vault disappears from your apps and browser extension, so if someone inspects your laptop or phone at a border, they see only what you chose to bring. When you get home, you switch it off and the vaults come back.

There is one gap to know about. The browser extension can still sign you in to 1Password.com, and from there anyone who can open it could switch Travel Mode off. 1Password suggests removing the extension before you travel. Business admins can turn Travel Mode on and off for staff.

Travel Mode comes with every plan, including Individual.

How 1Password protects your vault

Everything in your vault is encrypted on your device with AES 256-bit encryption before it reaches 1Password's servers, including item titles and URLs. The key comes from two parts: your account password and the 128-bit Secret Key. 1Password never stores either one.

The Secret Key is the clever part. If an attacker stole 1Password's servers and guessed your account password, they would still need a random key that lives only on your devices and in your Emergency Kit. A weak account password is far less dangerous as a result, although you should still pick a strong one.

Sign-in uses the Secure Remote Password protocol, so your account password is never sent over the internet. You can add two-factor authentication with an authenticator app, a security key such as a YubiKey, or a passkey.

1Password says it is SOC 2 Type 2 certified, publishes the results of independent security audits on its site and runs a bug bounty program. We have not reviewed those audits ourselves.

Getting back in if you forget your password

Because 1Password never knows your account password, it cannot reset it for you. That is the trade-off for this kind of encryption, so set up a way back in before you need it.

You have three ways back in. If you filled in your Emergency Kit, your password is written there. On Individual and Families you can generate a recovery code: if you get locked out, you verify your email, enter the code, receive a new Secret Key and set a new password, and all your data is still there. On Families and the business plans, an organizer or admin can recover your account for you.

Generate a recovery code on the day you sign up. Do not use it in the first hour after you create it: 1Password blocks a recovery attempt made soon after a sign-in and makes the code unusable for 24 hours.

Developer tools

If you write code, 1Password covers more than browser logins. You can generate and store SSH keys and use them in any Git or SSH client through the built-in SSH agent, approving each use with your fingerprint. It can sign Git commits, and the 1Password CLI and SDKs let scripts read secrets from your vault so API tokens stay out of your code and config files.

These tools come with every plan, including Individual, which makes 1Password a sensible pick for a freelance developer who wants one app for passwords and keys.

1Password for businesses

Teams Starter Pack is built for small offices. It costs $24.95 a month billed yearly for up to 10 people, and you can add up to 10 more seats at $4.99 each a month, for 20 in total. It includes shared vaults with role-based permissions, security alerts, 5 guest accounts and the developer tools.

Business costs $8.99 a user a month billed yearly, with no minimum. It adds the features an IT team asks for: staff can open 1Password with their Okta, Entra ID, OneLogin or Duo sign-in, admins can add and remove users automatically from Google Workspace, Okta, Rippling or JumpCloud, and activity can stream to Splunk, Elastic, Sumo Logic or Panther. It also adds custom policies, usage reports, 20 guest accounts, phone support on weekdays and a free Families plan for every employee's personal use.

Larger companies can talk to sales about Enterprise Password Manager and the wider Unified Access products, which are priced by quote.

Pricing and value

1Password has no free plan. Here is what you pay as of November 4, 2026, in US dollars:

• Individual: $3.99 a month billed yearly, or $4.99 billed monthly. New customers paying yearly on 1Password.com pay $2.99 a month for the first year.
• Families (5 people): $5.99 a month billed yearly, or $7.99 billed monthly, with a first-year rate of $4.49 a month.
• Teams Starter Pack (up to 10): $24.95 a month billed yearly.
• Business: $8.99 a user a month billed yearly, or $10.99 billed monthly.

The first-year discount does not apply if you subscribe through the App Store or Google Play, so sign up on the website if you want it. 1Password's terms say payments are non-refundable, though it may grant some refunds case by case, so make your decision during the 14-day trial.

Families is the best value. For $2 a month more than Individual you cover five people, each with a private vault and 1 GB of storage, and you can recover anyone who gets locked out. Individual is fair for what you get, but it is more than double Bitwarden's Premium price, and Bitwarden's free plan covers what many single users need.

Support

1Password lists 24/7 support by email, on its community forum and on social media, plus a chatbot that answers common questions at any hour. The support site is large and well organized, with step-by-step instructions for each app and operating system. Phone support is reserved for the Business plan, Monday to Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM Eastern, and organizations with more than 100 users get onboarding training and a customer success manager.

1Password does not list live chat with a person on its personal plans, so if the chatbot cannot help, you will be waiting on an email reply.

1Password vs Bitwarden

Bitwarden is the main reason to think twice about paying for 1Password. Its free plan has unlimited passwords and devices, and Premium costs $19.80 a year, while 1Password Individual is $3.99 a month billed yearly at the regular rate. Bitwarden Families is $3.99 a month for six people, cheaper than 1Password Families for five. Bitwarden is open source and offers self-hosting, which 1Password does not.

1Password wins on the things that make daily use easier: Travel Mode, expiring share links for people outside your account, guest accounts on Families, and, in our view, apps that less technical family members find easier to live with. If you are buying for yourself and you are comfortable with a slightly plainer app, Bitwarden is the better deal. If you are setting up a household where someone will call you every time autofill misbehaves, pay for 1Password.

1Password vs LastPass

LastPass has a free plan, but it is limited to one type of device, either desktop or mobile, and lets you share one password with one person at a time. Its paid trials run 30 days, against 1Password's 14.

LastPass is the cheaper way to start if you only use a computer or only a phone. Once you need both, you are paying either way, and 1Password gives you more for it: sharing with people outside your account, Travel Mode on every plan, and the Secret Key, which by design leaves a copy of 1Password's servers useless to an attacker who does not also have your key. If you are leaving LastPass, 1Password imports your vault directly.

Pricing and value

No free plan; every plan has a 14-day trial without a credit card. As of November 4, 2026: Individual $3.99 a month billed yearly ($4.99 monthly, $2.99 a month in the first year for new customers paying yearly on 1Password.com), Families $5.99 a month billed yearly for 5 people ($7.99 monthly, $4.49 first year), Teams Starter Pack $24.95 a month billed yearly for up to 10 people, and Business $8.99 a user a month billed yearly ($10.99 monthly). Enterprise is priced by quote.

Who should buy it

• Families who want one password manager everyone can use, with shared vaults and a way to recover a locked-out member
• People who travel abroad with work or personal devices and want Travel Mode
• Developers who want SSH keys, commit signing and secrets in the same app as their passwords
• Small offices of up to 20 people, on Teams Starter Pack
• Companies with an identity provider such as Okta or Entra ID that want single sign-on and automatic provisioning, on Business

Who should skip it

• Anyone who wants a free password manager; try Bitwarden first
• People who want to host their vault on their own server
• Buyers who need a refund guarantee before they pay
• Anyone storing large files, since storage is 1 GB per person on personal plans