Team password manager

Should you build your own 1Password?

Buy it. You should not build a password manager, and the Teams Starter Pack is $24.95 a month for 10 people.

BUY

Short answer

A 5-person team pays about $900 over 3 years on the Teams Starter Pack, which covers 10 people for a flat $24.95 a month on yearly billing. Bitwarden Teams at $4 a user saves about $5 a month at 5 people and costs more past 6. Building a team vault would cost about $7,700 over 3 years and puts your company’s passwords in code you wrote yourself.

Buy for 3 years
$898
Teams Starter Pack (10 people included), $24.95/mo
Build and run for 3 years
$7,705
100 h to build, 4 h/mo upkeep
Verdict
BUY
Money and risk combined

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Cheaper options

Open sourceBitwardenFree plan; Teams $4/user/mo billed yearlyCheaper than the Starter Pack up to 6 people, with code you can audit; the apps are plainer than 1Password’s.Open sourceKeePassXCFreeFree and offline, but it has no built-in sync or team sharing, so you pass a database file around yourself.

1Password pricing in 2026

PlanBilled yearlyBilled monthly
Teams Starter Pack (10 people included) Typical$24.95/mo$29.90/mo

Paying too much? A solo user can take 1Password Individual from $2.99 a month on yearly billing, which is the new-customer price.

Flat price for the first 10 people, billed yearly, in USD from 1Password’s business pricing page. You can add up to 10 more people at $4.99 each. Monthly billing is $2.99 a user with a 10-user minimum. Business is $8.99 a user per month on yearly billing and adds sign-in with Okta, Entra ID and similar. Checked October 26, 2026.

Run your own numbers

Defaults are a typical small team at $30/hour. Change anything.

If you buy 1Password
If you build it
Buy
$898
Build
$7,705

Buying is about $6,807 cheaper over 3 years.

3-year totals. Building includes your time, upkeep, running costs and one month of an AI app builder ($25). Change any number to match your situation.

What you’d build

  • An encrypted vault for each person, with keys that never leave the browser
  • Shared vaults with role-based access
  • A browser extension for autofill
  • A password generator and breach alerts
  • An invite flow and admin recovery

A small server and backups for an encrypted vault database. Most of the cost is your time.

What you’d give up

  • Years of security audits and bug fixes
  • Autofill that works on every site and app
  • Mobile apps with biometric unlock
  • Single sign-on, recovery and activity logs for admins

Risks the price doesn’t show

Encryption designHigh

A mistake in key handling can expose every password you store.

Account recoveryHigh

Lose the master key and the data is gone, while weak recovery lets attackers in.

Autofill coverageMedium

Filling logins on every site and app takes years of fixes.

When the verdict flips

There is no realistic flip to BUILD. Bitwarden Teams is cheaper only up to 6 people, so switch to it if you want open-source code you can audit or you have a very small team.

Sources

1Password business pricing

Build hours are our estimates for one person using an AI app builder. How we score. Spotted a wrong price? Tell us on X @BuildictHQ.

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Switch to Mangools, and use Ahrefs Free for audits. You’d pay $26 a month instead of $108.

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Build it for one stable workflow. Five editors on Team cost about $3,600 over 3 years.

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