How can my family share passwords at the lowest yearly cost?
3 apps · 6 factors
Scored for the goal: Share passwords with my family at the lowest yearly cost
Quick answer
From the sourced cells below · nobody pays for a position
Best fit for this goal
Bitwarden
100% fit
Free to use
Proton Pass
Free on the official website
Compare
One judgement per cell. Click a row to read every app’s answer; click a cell to open that answer’s sources.
100%fit | —Synced family sharing unknown |  —Synced family sharing unknown | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purchase | |||
| Current price≤ $0 first year★ | $19.80/yr +3 | $0/mo +14 | $4.99/mo +3 |
| Features | |||
| Synced family sharingYes★ | ✓ | – | – |
| Credential Sharing | ! | Vaults · expiring links | Family/team sharing |
| Security maintenanceYes★ | ✓ | – | – |
| Family account recovery | Preconfigure Emergency Access: the… | – | – |
| Product | |||
| What it does | NAMED BEST PASSWORD MANAGER… | Store | Welcome to 1Password 7 |
Head to head
Two apps side by side, full answers, nothing truncated. Swap either side.
Website: Free individual USD 0; Free organization USD 0 (2 users, 2 collections); Premium USD 19.80/year; Families USD 47.88/year (6 users); Teams USD 48/user/year or monthly billing (older official PDF: USD 5/user/month; current checkout unverified); Enterprise USD 72/user/year or monthly billing (older official PDF: USD 7/user/month; current checkout unverified); tailored enterprise quotes available. Unlimited devices. No one-time or lifetime license listed. Mac App Store (US): Free download;?
Website (USD): Free $0/month; Pass Plus $4.99/month or $35.88/year ($2.99/month); Pass Family (up to 6 users) $6.99/month or $59.88/year ($4.99/month); Proton Unlimited $12.99/month or $119.88/year ($9.99/month). Business: Pass Essentials $1.99/user/month (billed $23.88; 3–30 users); Pass Professional $4.49/user/month (3+ users); VPN and Pass Professional $10.99/user/month (3+ users); Workspace Standard $12.99/user/month. Business billing intervals beyond the stated monthly rates are not fully e
Yes — family members use their own accounts and share organization-owned passwords through collections with assigned viewing/editing permissions. Subsequent edits sync across users and clients; organization items sync every 30 minutes, and Mac users can pull changes immediately with File → Sync vault. Free organization supports 2 people and 2 collections with unlimited items; Families supports 6 people with unlimited shared items and collections and includes Premium for everyone (USD 47.88/year
Checked the available sources and found no traceable answer. That is not a “no”.
Share through organization collections for ongoing, synced access, or Send links containing a temporary copy that recipients can view without changing the original. Collection permissions: View items; View items with hidden passwords; Edit items; Edit items with hidden passwords; Manage collection. Hidden passwords remain usable through autofill and do not prevent extraction. Free organization: 2 users, 2 collections, unlimited items; Families: 6 users, unlimited collections/items; Teams/EOF
Shared vaults with member-access/permission management; encrypted links with expiration for recipients without Proton Pass (Business). Developer tokens: item/vault-scoped, revocable PATs; vault-scoped AI tokens with expiry windows. Recipient permission levels, link-expiry ranges, human-sharing revocation options, and recipient/item-count limits are not stated.
Yes — the current Mac app is maintained; the App Store lists 2026.10.0 and its history includes security fixes. Bitwarden maintains the current and previous two major client versions; “major” means the second version component, representing monthly releases. Older versions fall outside that maintenance window. The Mac listing requires macOS 12+, while Bitwarden aims to support operating systems still supported by their vendor. No fixed Mac end-of-support date or paid-tier requirement is stated.
Checked the available sources and found no traceable answer. That is not a “no”.
Preconfigure Emergency Access: the family member needs Premium (included in Families), invites a trusted contact, and confirms them after acceptance. The contact can have a Free account on the same server; contacts are unlimited. After approval or the configured waiting period, Takeover lets the contact set a new master password and removes existing two-step login methods; View only exposes individual-vault items and does not reset the password. Family organizers do not get administrator resets:
Checked the available sources and found no traceable answer. That is not a “no”.
NAMED BEST PASSWORD MANAGER BY THE VERGE, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, CNET, AND MORE. Manage, store, secure, and share unlimited passwords across unlimited devices from anywhere. Bitwarden delivers open source password management solutions t…
Store, share and sync passwords, passkeys, email aliases, and more, on any device, with our open-source, free password manager. No trials, just free forever.
Cost over time
Plays from month 1 to year 10 when you scroll here. Each bar is split by year; a one-time purchase stays one block.
Releases
Each dot is a release. The hatched bar runs from the last release to today; its color says whether that gap is normal for the app.
Every app with a dated changelog is shipping at its usual pace.
Score
A reference score weighted by the priorities set for this research. Nobody pays for placement.
Reference score
Priority-weighted · 56% evidence · 1 must-have · 2 important
| App | Score | Payment | Price | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11pts | Free · One-time | Free · $19.80/yr | 5 / 6 |
| — | Free · Subscription | Free · $4.99/mo | 3 / 6 |
| — | Subscription | App Store: $4.99/mo · $47.99/yr · $7.99/mo | 3 / 6 |
Sources
Where every claim comes from, when it was checked, and how to report an error.
How this report was made
Every cell links to the page it came from. Nobody pays to change a score.
- Report ID
- TMA-1UGX8CN
- Sources
- 20
- Verified cells
- 12/18 (67%)
- Last checked
- Oct 18, 2026
- Reading saved
- ≈ 1.5 h
Scoring
Must-have factors weigh 5 and important ones 3; only these are scored, or the first five factors if none are marked. An app earns a factor's weight only when a cited source confirms it, and unknown cells count for no one. A pick is named only when the lead is larger than everything still unresolved could swing. Reading time assumes about 4 minutes per source. Full methodology
Corrections
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