The best password manager for a small team: 1Password vs NordPass vs Bitwarden

Most small companies start with shared logins in a spreadsheet, a pinned chat message or someone's memory. It works until a contractor leaves with the social media password, or the only person who knows the bank login is on a plane. A password manager fixes both problems for a few dollars a person.

CISA, the US cybersecurity agency, recommends a different password of at least 16 characters for every account, and a password manager so that the only one you remember is the manager's own.^⁠[5] For a team, the manager also decides who sees which logins, and lets you remove someone's access in one place.

This comparison looks at 1Password, NordPass and Bitwarden for a team of five to fifteen. Bitwarden isn't a StartupStead partner, and we've compared it on the same terms as the others.

1Password, NordPass and Bitwarden at a glance

Prices are per month, from each company's pricing page on the day we checked.^{⁠[1],[2],[3]}

What a team pays

The three price small teams in different ways. 1Password sells a flat pack, NordPass a 10-user pack on its cheapest plan, and Bitwarden a price per seat.

1Password's Teams Starter Pack costs $24.95 a month billed yearly, or $299.40 a year, and covers up to ten members. You can add up to ten more seats at $4.99 each a month, so the plan tops out at twenty. Its Business plan costs $8.99 per user a month billed yearly, with no minimum.^⁠[1]

NordPass Teams is sold only as a 10-user pack. On a two-year plan it costs $1.79 per user a month, and on monthly billing $2.49. NordPass Business needs at least five users and costs $3.59 per user a month on a two-year plan or $5.99 monthly.^⁠[2] The two-year price is the headline, so check the term before you compare.

Bitwarden Teams costs $4 per user a month billed yearly, with no minimum or maximum. Enterprise costs $6.^⁠[3]

Prices are per month for the whole team. At fifteen people, 1Password's pack with five extra seats is still the cheapest of the three, and the next step up is its Business plan at $134.85.^{⁠[1],[2],[3]}

Sharing and admin controls

All three cover what a small team needs most, which is shared vaults or folders, a record of who has access to what, and a way to remove someone.

1Password organizes shared logins into vaults. The Teams Starter Pack includes role-based permissions, security alerts and five guest accounts for people outside the company. Business adds Watchtower alerts, role-based vault sharing, identity provider integrations and 20 guest accounts.^⁠[1] 1Password also has developer tools for SSH keys, Git commit signing and a command line, which technical teams use to keep secrets out of code.

NordPass Teams includes password sharing, offline access, user activity monitoring, company-wide security settings, multi-factor authentication and sign-in with Google Workspace. Business adds sharing by group and by folder, password health and data breach monitoring for one domain.^⁠[2]

Bitwarden organizes shared items into collections, with no limit on how many. Teams includes event logs, user groups, directory sync, SCIM provisioning from your identity provider and an API. Enterprise adds single sign-on, organization-wide policies, the option to host Bitwarden on your own servers, and a free Families plan for every user.^⁠[3]

Single sign-on and provisioning

Single sign-on lets people unlock the password manager with the account they already use for work. Provisioning means new hires get access, and leavers lose it, from the same directory.

For a company on Google Workspace, NordPass is the only one of the three that offers Google sign-in on its cheapest team plan.^⁠[2] 1Password connects to Okta, Entra ID, OneLogin and Duo on its Business plan.^⁠[1] Bitwarden includes SCIM provisioning on Teams and keeps single sign-on for Enterprise.^⁠[3]

Bitwarden Teams can also enforce two-step login across the whole organization through Duo, and sync users and groups from an existing directory with its Directory Connector.^⁠[3] For Okta or Entra ID on NordPass, you need its Enterprise plan, at $5.39 per user a month on a two-year plan, which also handles adding and removing users automatically.^⁠[2]

A team of five rarely needs either. They start to matter at around fifteen to twenty people, or as soon as someone joins and leaves every month.

More than passwords

A team password manager ends up holding far more than logins, and the three differ a little in what they handle well.

All three generate strong passwords and fill them in browsers and apps. 1Password also stores addresses and payment details, and can share a single item with someone who doesn't use 1Password, with an expiry date and a share history, which suits sending a login to a freelancer for a week.^⁠[1] Bitwarden includes Bitwarden Send for sharing text and files with anyone, end-to-end encrypted, and connects to email alias services so each new account can get its own forwarding address. It also stores passkeys, cards, identities and notes.^⁠[3],[4] NordPass includes email masking and its own authenticator for two-factor codes.^⁠[2]

Storing two-factor codes in the same place as the passwords is a trade-off. It makes shared accounts much easier to run, because anyone with access can sign in. It also means the password manager becomes the one account that must never be lost, so protect it with a hardware key or an authenticator app that lives somewhere else.

Security and audits

Bitwarden's code is open source, which lets anyone inspect how the encryption works, and it uses zero-knowledge encryption.^⁠[3] NordPass encrypts vaults with xChaCha20 and lists ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2 certification, a Cure53 audit and HIPAA compliance.^⁠[2]

If a customer sends you a security questionnaire, and larger customers will, it will ask which password manager you use and whether it has a SOC 2 report. Ask your chosen vendor how to get its report before the first questionnaire arrives, and keep a copy with your other security documents.

Free plans and trials

None of the three has a free team plan, and all of them let you try before you pay.

Bitwarden's free personal plan covers unlimited passwords on unlimited devices, and lets you share items with one other person.^⁠[3],[4] For two co-founders that can be enough at first. 1Password offers a 14-day trial of both business plans without a credit card.^⁠[1] NordPass offers a 14-day Business trial, also without a card.^⁠[2]

Setting it up so it stays useful

Whichever you pick, a few decisions at the start matter more than the product.

Make two people owners or administrators, so that losing one account doesn't lock the company out. Store the recovery details for the password manager itself somewhere offline, such as a printed recovery kit in a safe.

Create shared vaults by function, such as finance, marketing and engineering, rather than one vault everyone can see. A contractor who runs your ads needs the ad accounts, not the bank.

Use company email addresses for every company account. Turn on two-factor authentication for email, banking, the domain registrar and anything with customer data, and store the codes or passkeys in the manager where it supports them.

When someone leaves, remove their access the same day, then change the passwords for any shared logins they could see. A password manager makes the first step take seconds. The second still takes discipline.

Our guide to business email on your own domain covers setting up company addresses, which every shared login should use.

Leaving later

Switching password managers is easier than most tool changes, because the data is just a list of logins, notes and cards. Bitwarden lists encrypted export as a core feature of every account.^⁠[3] Before you commit to any of the three, try exporting from it during the trial, so you know the way out works.

The harder part is people. Each member has to install the new app and browser extension, and old copies of passwords need deleting from the previous vault. Pick carefully the first time and you'll avoid it.

Which one to pick

Choose 1Password's Teams Starter Pack if you have up to ten people and want one flat price, apps for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android, and room to grow to twenty.^⁠[1] Move to Business when you need sign-in through Okta or Entra ID.

Choose NordPass Teams if your company runs on Google Workspace, you have close to ten people, and you're comfortable committing to a two-year plan for the lowest price.

Choose Bitwarden Teams if you want open-source software, SCIM provisioning without paying for an enterprise plan, or a low price per seat that keeps working past twenty people. Start on its free plan if you're two founders.

A password manager is one part of a small company's security. The startup tech stack shows where it fits among the rest of the tools a new business runs on.