1Password vs Bitwarden for small teams: plans, prices and a rollout checklist

Most small businesses already have a password manager. It is usually a shared spreadsheet, a chat thread with the Wi-Fi password pinned to it, or one founder's browser that "knows everything". That works until someone leaves, a laptop is stolen, or the one person who can log in to the domain registrar is on a plane during an outage.

A team password manager fixes three problems at once: it stores credentials encrypted, it lets you share them without pasting secrets into chat, and it lets you remove access in one place when a person leaves. This article compares two widely used options for small teams, 1Password and Bitwarden, using their own published pricing and feature pages as of 7 October 2026, and ends with a rollout checklist you can use with either.

We did not run hands-on tests for this piece. Everything below is what the vendors state on their pricing and plan pages; check those pages again before you buy, because prices and plan names change.

What a small team actually needs

Before comparing products, write down what you need. For a team of 3 to 50 people, the list is usually short:

• Shared vaults or collections with permissions, so finance logins are not visible to everyone.
• Offboarding in one step: remove a person and their access to shared items goes with them.
• Apps for every device your team uses, plus browser extensions, so people actually use it.
• Strong account protection: two-step login on the manager itself, and support for passkeys.
• Recovery: an administrator can help a locked-out member without the vendor being able to read data.
• Single sign-on (SSO) and automatic user provisioning, but only if you already run an identity provider such as Microsoft Entra ID, Google Workspace or Okta.

The last point drives price more than anything else. Both vendors put identity-provider features into higher tiers, so decide early whether you need them.

Pricing compared (USD, billed annually)

Plan	Published price	Who it is aimed at
1Password Teams Starter Pack	$24.95 per month for up to 10 members ($299.40 per year); up to 10 more seats can be added at per-member pricing, to a maximum of 20	Small teams that want a flat price
1Password Business	$8.99 per user per month ($107.88 per user per year), 1 user minimum	Established businesses, identity-provider integration
Bitwarden Teams	$4 per user per month	"Teams and growing companies that need to move quickly"
Bitwarden Enterprise	$6 per user per month	"Businesses needing advanced protection and control"

Both vendors offer a 14-day free trial of their business plans. Bitwarden also offers a free personal account that includes sharing with one other user, which some two-person businesses start with; it is not a substitute for a business plan once you need central ownership and event logs. Bitwarden states that its prices exclude taxes. If you buy from India or elsewhere, confirm with your accountant how tax applies to an overseas software subscription and make sure the invoice carries your business details.

For a 10-person team, the published figures work out to roughly $299 a year for 1Password Teams Starter Pack, $480 for Bitwarden Teams, $720 for Bitwarden Enterprise and about $1,079 for 1Password Business. For 25 people, the Teams Starter Pack no longer fits (it caps at 20), so the realistic 1Password option becomes Business.

What each plan includes

1Password

According to 1Password's business pricing page, the Teams Starter Pack covers sharing passwords and sensitive data, security alerts, role-based permissions, developer tools (SSH key signing, Git commit signing, a CLI and SDKs) and support with onboarding resources. Business adds integrations with identity providers such as Okta, Entra ID, OneLogin and Duo, Watchtower alerts, role-based vault sharing, custom groups, reporting, provisioning from directories (Azure AD, Google Workspace, Okta, OneLogin, Rippling, JumpCloud), event streaming to SIEM tools, and a free Families plan for every user's personal use.

On security, 1Password describes end-to-end AES 256-bit encryption, "Two-Key Derivation using your password and Secret Key", the Secure Remote Password (SRP) protocol for data in transit, sign-in with two-factor authentication, biometrics or passkeys, and SOC 2 Type II certification. The Secret Key is a design choice worth understanding: it is a second secret stored on your devices, so a weak account password alone is not enough to decrypt a vault taken from the server.

Bitwarden

Bitwarden's pricing page lists Teams as "centralized ownership and management, plus" secure credential sharing, event-log auditing, directory synchronisation and SCIM provisioning. Enterprise adds granular access control, passwordless SSO integration, enterprise policies, the option to self-host, an "Access Intelligence" risk view and a free Families plan for all users.

Every Bitwarden account includes what the vendor calls its core features: open-source code, zero-knowledge encryption, two-step login, phishing protection, passkey management, a password and username generator, email alias integration, encrypted export, unlimited devices and Bitwarden Send for sharing files and text. Open source matters to some buyers because the code can be reviewed publicly; self-hosting matters to those who must keep data in their own infrastructure, but it moves patching and backups onto you.

Side-by-side for small-team decisions

Question	1Password	Bitwarden
Cheapest business entry point	Teams Starter Pack, flat price for up to 10 members	Teams, per user
SSO with your identity provider	Business plan	Enterprise plan
Directory provisioning (SCIM or sync)	Business plan	Teams plan and above
Event logs and reporting	Business: custom reports, SIEM streaming	Teams: event logs
Self-hosting	Not listed on the business pricing page	Enterprise plan
Source code	Not listed as open source; independent third-party audits and SOC 2 Type II stated	Open source
Developer tooling	SSH key and Git commit signing, CLI, SDKs on all business plans	Separate Secrets Manager product for developer secrets
Personal plan for staff	Free Families plan with Business	Free Families plan with Enterprise

A rough rule of thumb from the published plans: a team under 10 people with no identity provider gets the lowest bill from 1Password Teams Starter Pack; a team that wants directory provisioning at a low per-user price lands on Bitwarden Teams; a team that already runs SSO for everything compares Bitwarden Enterprise with 1Password Business, and the decision then turns on self-hosting, open source and how much the developer tooling matters to you.

Rollout checklist for either product

Buying the tool is the easy part. The value comes from moving every shared credential into it and closing the old channels. Use this sequence:

1. Name two administrators. One person is a single point of failure. Store each administrator's account recovery details, as the vendor's setup process provides them, offline and somewhere both can reach. Test the recovery path once, before you need it.
2. Turn on two-step login for the password manager accounts first, starting with administrators. Prefer passkeys or hardware security keys where supported; an authenticator app is the minimum.
3. Design vaults or collections around roles, not people: Finance, Marketing, Engineering, Infrastructure, Shared office. Give each the smallest audience that works.
4. Inventory shared accounts: domain registrar, DNS, email admin, cloud hosting, payment gateway, bank, GST portal login, social media, accounting software. Move each into the right vault.
5. Rotate passwords as you import them. Anything that lived in a spreadsheet or chat should be treated as exposed. Use the generator for long, unique passwords.
6. Delete the old copies: the spreadsheet, the pinned chat message, the sticky note. Tell the team the manager is now the only source.
7. Write an offboarding step: when someone leaves, remove them from the manager, then rotate any shared credential they could see.
8. Review quarterly: check the security or health report for weak and reused passwords, and remove members who no longer need access.

Common mistakes

• Buying SSO you do not use. If your team signs in with ordinary Google or Microsoft accounts and you do not manage an identity provider, the cheaper tiers usually cover you.
• Leaving personal and business items mixed. Both vendors offer a Families plan with some business tiers precisely so staff can keep personal passwords separate; use it and keep business vaults for business.
• Sharing the master password of a "shared" account. Give each person their own account in the manager and share items, not logins to the manager itself.
• No exit plan. Test encrypted export once so you know you can move if prices or needs change.

Summary

Both 1Password and Bitwarden cover what a small team needs: encrypted shared vaults, permissions, device apps and central offboarding. On published prices, 1Password Teams Starter Pack is the lowest-cost route for up to 10 members, Bitwarden Teams is the lowest per-user price that includes directory provisioning and event logs, and the identity-provider features sit in 1Password Business and Bitwarden Enterprise. Pick the tier that matches the identity setup you have today, run the trial with your three most important shared accounts, and follow the rollout checklist so the spreadsheet actually goes away.