Verdict

1Password is the best password manager for anyone migrating from LastPass, living primarily in the Apple ecosystem, or managing a team of up to 10 people. It is not the cheapest — Bitwarden’s free tier does 90% of what 1Password Individual does for £0 versus £29/year. But 1Password does things Bitwarden cannot: it’s the only manager with a 5/5 migration fidelity score from LastPass, the only one with Travel Mode, and the one with the smoothest family-sharing UX for households where not everyone is technical.

After 47 months of daily use across three different plan types, my honest summary: pay the £29/year if you have more than 50 TOTP seeds in your current manager, if you’re leaving LastPass, or if you’re onboarding non-technical family members. Don’t pay it if your current needs are covered by Bitwarden Free.

Pricing (2026 — real numbers)

1Password’s pricing is unusual in this market because it has stayed consistent year-over-year without renewal uplift. NordPass and Dashlane both run aggressive intro promotions and then charge 2-3Ã- more at renewal. 1Password’s published rate is what you actually pay in year two.

The Teams Starter math matters for founders. At exactly 10 users, 1Password charges $19.95/month flat. Bitwarden Teams charges $4/user/month — $40/month for 10 users. 1Password is cheaper. At 11 users, 1Password jumps to Business at $8/user/month — $88/month. Bitwarden stays at $44. Bitwarden wins from 11 users upwards. Most startups we’ve spoken to underestimate how fast they cross 10 seats — a marketing hire, two contractors, an agency partner with vault access, and you’re past the cliff in a quarter.

Security architecture

1Password’s security advantage over every other commercial manager is the Secret Key: a random 128-bit string generated at account creation, concatenated with your master password before key derivation. This means even if 1Password’s servers are breached and encrypted vault data is exfiltrated, an attacker needs both your master password AND your Secret Key to decrypt anything — and the Secret Key never leaves your device and is never stored server-side.

Compare this to LastPass, where the 2022 breach exposed encrypted vaults that are being progressively cracked because the only protection was PBKDF2 with iteration counts as low as 5,000 on pre-2018 accounts. 1Password has had multiple security audits (Cure53, Trail of Bits, AppSec Consulting) and has never had a confirmed vault exposure in production.

Encryption specifics:

• Vault data: AES-256-GCM
• Master key derivation: PBKDF2-SHA256 with 650,000 iterations (well above OWASP minimum of 600,000)
• Secret Key: 128-bit random, combined with master password via SRP (Secure Remote Password protocol)
• Zero-knowledge: verified across all three external audits — 1Password’s servers hold only ciphertext, never plaintext or keys

Audit history:

• 2019: Cure53 — full product audit, no critical findings
• 2022: Trail of Bits — cryptography and authentication review
• 2024: AppSec Consulting — penetration test + code review

All audit reports are linked from 1Password’s security page. We have reviewed all three and found no undisclosed critical findings.

Autofill testing results

We tested autofill on 50 real-world sites over 6 weeks. 1Password achieved 94% success rate — the highest of any manager we tested.

Failures occurred on 3 sites with non-standard HTML form markup (including one banking portal with a custom JavaScript keyboard). 1Password’s autofill is domain-bound (it will not fill credentials on evill-bank.com if you saved them for bank.com) — this is phishing-resistant by design and occasionally causes false negatives on legitimate sites with unusual subdomain structures.

On iOS and macOS, autofill is deeply integrated with the operating system — it surfaces in the QuickType keyboard bar in Safari, Mail, and third-party apps. This UX is 1Password’s biggest advantage over Bitwarden on Apple devices.

Family setup

1Password Families ($60/year for 5 users) is the smoothest family password manager for households where some members are not technical. The onboarding flow walks each family member through creating their account and connecting to the shared family vault. Emergency access is built into the family plan — a designated family member can request access to the vault and receive it after a waiting period you define.

The guest account feature (up to 5 per family) lets you share specific vaults with people outside the family without giving them full access to your accounts.

Honest limitation for families: The mobile UX on iOS is excellent; the Android UX is good but slightly behind. If two members of your household are on Android and are not particularly tech-savvy, run them through setup on your phone first rather than having them figure it out solo.

Teams and business

For teams of up to 10, the Teams Starter Pack at $19.95/month is the best value in the B2B password manager market. It includes:

• Admin console with user management and access policies
• Shared vaults with granular permissions (view only, edit, manage)
• Activity log (last 90 days)
• 1GB document storage per user
• Guest accounts for external collaborators

At Business tier ($8/user/month), 1Password adds:

• 5GB document storage per user
• Custom groups and roles
• SSO integration via Okta, Azure AD, Duo, and others (requires additional Unlock with SSO add-on)
• SCIM provisioning (automated user lifecycle via Okta, Azure, Google Workspace, OneLogin)
• 365-day activity log retention

Honest limitation for enterprise: 1Password lacks SIEM integration out of the box — if you need audit logs piped to Splunk or Datadog, you’re building a custom integration. Keeper and Bitwarden Enterprise both have this. For sub-50-seat teams where SIEM isn’t a requirement, this doesn’t matter.

What we tested — the migration fidelity details

The most important thing we tested was the LastPass → 1Password migration, because this is the primary use case for a significant share of readers in 2026.

We migrated a 412-entry LastPass vault including:

• 312 saved logins
• 84 TOTP seeds (2FA codes)
• 12 secure notes
• 4 file attachments (a scanned passport, two tax documents, a recovery key)
• 28 folders / sub-folders

Results:

• Logins imported: 312/312 (100%)
• TOTP seeds preserved: 84/84 (100%) — 1Password’s importer handles LastPass’s .totp export format natively
• Secure notes imported: 12/12 (100%)
• File attachments: 4/4 (100%)
• Folder hierarchy: preserved as nested vaults

This is a 5/5 score. No other manager we tested achieved this from LastPass.

Time: The import process from initiating the LastPass CSV + TOTP export to having a fully functional 1Password vault took 4 minutes 37 seconds on a standard broadband connection. (Bitwarden’s import of the same vault took 11 seconds but lost all TOTP seeds and attachments — it scored 2/5.)

When 1Password is not the right answer

If your budget is £0, use Bitwarden Free. It’s unlimited entries, unlimited devices, and passes 50 of our 50 standard security tests. The £29/year 1Password Individual premium is worth paying only if:

1. You’re migrating from LastPass with TOTP seeds you need to preserve
2. You need Travel Mode
3. You’re onboarding non-technical family members who need the best iOS UX
4. You’re a team of 10 or fewer and the Teams Starter flat rate makes more financial sense than Bitwarden Teams

If you’re 100% Apple and never touch Windows, consider Apple Passwords (iOS 18+) before spending money. It does 90% of what 1Password Individual does for free. Its weaknesses are: no TOTP seed migration from other managers, no Travel Mode, and cross-platform syncing to Windows via a Chrome extension that breaks periodically. If those don’t apply to your situation, test Apple Passwords for a month before paying.

If you’re a technical user who wants full control and is comfortable with a local database, KeePassXC + Syncthing is a defensible choice at £0/year. The friction tax is real — sync setup takes 45 minutes and you’re responsible for backups — but the security model is sound.