Best password managers
Read from each vendor's own page on the dates shown. Watch the qualifier column: this category leans hard on first-year promotional rates that renew higher, and the comparisons linked from each row spell out which price survives year one. Every figure below was read from the vendor's own pricing page on the date beside it. The ordering is cheapest entry price first — a basis you can check rather than a ranking you have to trust.
What “best” means on this page
“Best” is not a mood — it is whichever axis you actually care about, measured. Our record can say which tool is cheapest to start, whose free plan is real, who bills local currency and whose prices just moved; it cannot say which tool fits your work, which is what the full comparisons are for. Cheapest never means best — it means cheapest. Each verdict below names its axis, and every tool links to its own site so you can check us against the source. No vendor paid for any position.
Entry at $1.39/mo — the lowest published paid plan in this set. Cheap is a fact, not a verdict; the profile below says what you get for it.
site ↗pricing ↗A real free tier, and the paid step up is the cheapest standing price in the set — billed annually.
site ↗pricing ↗Showed us different money in different countries on the same day — measured, not assumed. The profiles carry the figures.
A change only counts once a second clean read agrees. The change log →
Tool by tool
NordPasssite ↗pricing ↗
A password manager from the NordVPN company, with personal, family and business plans. Paid plans start at $1.39/mo (Premium); a free plan exists. The ladder we hold runs 2 paid tiers, topping out at $2.49/mo (Family). It bills by country — entry £1.09/mo to a UK reader and €1.39/mo in the eurozone, from our same-day reads.
Bitwardensite ↗pricing ↗
An open-source password manager for individuals and teams, which can also be self-hosted. Paid plans start at $1.65/mo (Premium); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 3 paid tiers, topping out at $4/mo (Teams). We read the same $1.65/mo in every market we check, so this vendor does not price by country. The headline monthly figures collect once a year — billed annually — and the free tier is a real plan.
LastPasssite ↗pricing ↗
A password manager for individuals and businesses, with browser-first autofill and shared folders. Paid plans start at $3/mo (Premium); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 2 paid tiers, topping out at $4/mo (Families). It bills by country — entry £2.6/mo to a UK reader and €2.9/mo in the eurozone, from our same-day reads. Its published prices moved on 2026-08-28 — the change log holds the rows.
1Passwordsite ↗pricing ↗
A password manager for individuals, families and teams, with shared vaults and secrets management for developers. Paid plans start at $4.99/mo (Individual); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 2 paid tiers, topping out at $7.99/mo (Families). It bills by country — entry $2.99/mo in the eurozone, from our same-day reads. No free tier — a trial only — so the entry price is the price from day one.
Proton Passsite ↗pricing ↗
A password manager from Proton, sold on its own and bundled with the wider Proton subscription. Paid plans start at $4.99/mo (Pass Plus); a free plan exists. The ladder we hold runs 3 paid tiers, topping out at $12.99/mo (Proton Unlimited). It bills by country — entry £3.99/mo to a UK reader and €4.99/mo in the eurozone, from our same-day reads.
Side by side
| Tool | Paid from | Free plan | Currency | Read | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NordPass | $1.39/mo | Yes | USD | 2026-10-01 | page |
| Bitwarden | $1.65/mo | — | USD | 2026-09-20 | page |
| LastPass | $3/mo | — | USD | 2026-10-02 | page |
| 1Password | $4.99/mo | — | USD | 2026-10-06 | page |
| Proton Pass | $4.99/mo | Yes | USD | 2026-10-13 | page |
How to choose in this category
- Per-user pricing multiplies by your whole household or team — the family plan is often the honest comparison.
- Most headline figures here are annual-billed; the money leaves once a year.
- Free tiers in this category are real but capped in different places — read what each one withholds.
Questions the record can answer
How much do password managers cost?
Between $1.39/mo and $4.99/mo. The lowest entry price we hold for any of the 5 password managers we track is NordPass, at $1.39/mo; the highest is Proton Pass, at $4.99/mo. Both are the vendor's own published list price, read on 2026-10-13. Cheapest is not best; it is cheapest, and it is the one axis a price record can settle on its own.
Which password managers publish a plan priced at zero?
2 of the 5 we track: NordPass (Free) and Proton Pass (Proton Free) — the entry each zero price sits on is named beside it. A free trial is not counted here: a trial is a deadline, not a price.
Do password managers charge in my own currency?
Some do. We read every pricing page from the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany on the same day, and 3 of the 5 password managers we track showed us a different currency in at least two of those three markets: NordPass, LastPass and Proton Pass. The rest billed the same money to all three.
Have any password managers changed their prices recently?
One confirmed change in this category: LastPass, on 2026-08-28. A change is confirmed only when the vendor's own page showed us one set of figures and then another; the old reading stays in the record rather than being overwritten.
How many password managers does Wicketry track?
8 in this category, last read on 2026-10-13. 5 of them publish a plan ladder we can put in the table; we also track Dashlane, Keeper and RoboForm, but hold no named ladder for them in US dollars yet, so they are absent rather than converted or guessed.