1Password and Dashlane are the two glossiest consumer-grown password managers, both now squarely focused on selling to teams. They look similar from the outside — slick UX, big-brand customers, "passwords for work" messaging — but the team plans diverge sharply once you look at price and what's included.
This is written for founders, agency owners and ops folks weighing the two for a real team. Not "best of 2026" — just the actual trade-offs.
Quick verdict
Pick 1Password if you're a small team (≤10) who wants the Starter Pack flat-fee deal, or a bigger team that values mature reporting and the Secret Key model.
Pick Dashlane if you want the polished UX plus extras like a bundled VPN and dark-web monitoring, and you're comfortable with a higher per-seat price.
Dashlane has historically pushed harder on "credential security platform" positioning (Omnix), so if you're buying into that security-operations narrative, that's where the money goes.
Team pricing at a glance
| Feature | 1Password | Dashlane |
|---|---|---|
| Smallest team planAll prices USD, billed annually. Verify on vendor sites before buying. | Teams Starter Pack: $19.95/mo flat (up to 10 users) | Business: $8/user/mo |
| Next tier | Business: $7.99/user/mo | Enterprise: custom |
| Free tier for individuals | ||
| Bundled VPN | ||
| Dark-web monitoring | Yes — Watchtower | |
| SSO (SAML / OIDC) | Business and above | Business and above |
Collaboration model
| Feature | 1Password | Dashlane |
|---|---|---|
| Shared vaults / spaces | ||
| Per-item permissions | ||
| One-time secure share | Yes — Psst! | Limited |
| Guest / contractor access | Limited | Limited |
| Activity / audit log | ||
| SCIM / directory sync |
Security architecture
| Feature | 1Password | Dashlane |
|---|---|---|
| Zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption | ||
| Cipher | AES-256-GCM | AES-256-GCM (XChaCha20 in newer flows) |
| Key derivation | PBKDF2-SHA256 + 128-bit Secret Key | Argon2d (current Dashlane spec) |
| Open-source clients | ||
| Self-hosting | ||
| Published security whitepaper | ||
| SOC 2 Type II |
Pricing: where they really part ways
For very small teams, 1Password is dramatically cheaper. Teams Starter Pack at $19.95/month flat for up to 10 users works out to under $2/user — versus Dashlane's Business plan at $8/user/month, which means a 10-person Dashlane team is roughly 4× the cost of the equivalent 1Password Starter Pack.
Past 10 users, the gap narrows: 1Password Business is $7.99/user, Dashlane Business is $8/user. At that scale you're comparing roughly like-for-like prices, and the decision is about what's bundled.
Dashlane includes a VPN (licensed Hotspot Shield) and dark-web monitoring in its Business plan. 1Password includes Watchtower breach alerts but no VPN. If your team would otherwise pay for a VPN, Dashlane's bundle can offset the higher per-seat price.
Sharing and admin
Both ship a real shared-vault model (1Password calls them shared vaults; Dashlane calls them Spaces + Collections) with per-item or per-vault permissions and activity logs.
1Password's admin console is the more mature of the two — better reporting, more granular policies, and the Watchtower dashboard for credential hygiene at a team level. Dashlane is competent and has invested heavily in its "Credential Security" pitch with browser-level threat detection.
For ad-hoc external sharing, 1Password has the edge with Psst! — a no-account one-time secure link. Dashlane's external sharing is more limited and tends to assume the recipient is also a Dashlane user.
Security model
Both are zero-knowledge with published security whitepapers and SOC 2 Type II reports. The headline differences:
1Password's Secret Key is a 128-bit (34-character) device-stored secret combined with your master password before any vault decryption. It means a stolen server-side blob is computationally useless without also compromising one of your devices. It's a real defence-in-depth win.
Dashlane's current architecture uses Argon2d for key derivation (memory-hard, GPU-resistant) and AES-256-GCM for vault encryption. Their security paper documents the design clearly. Dashlane has also rolled out passkey-first login and passwordless flows aggressively.
Neither is open-source. Neither is self-hostable. With both, the trust model is "vendor + third-party audit".
What about the extras (VPN, dark-web, browser security)?
Dashlane's Business plan bundles a VPN and dark-web monitoring, plus its "Omnix" credential-security browser extension that detects phishing pages and risky pastes in-context. If you're a non-technical team that would otherwise piece this together from three tools, it's a real value-add.
1Password leans on its ecosystem — Watchtower for breach alerts, integrations with developer tools (1Password CLI, SSH agent, dev secrets), and tighter platform fit. If your team is more engineering-heavy, 1Password's surface tends to fit better.
1Password
Pros
- Starter Pack is unbeatable on price for ≤10 users
- Secret Key is genuine defence-in-depth
- Best-in-class admin reporting and policies
- Developer-friendly: CLI, SSH agent, dev-secrets integration
Cons
- Per-seat price jumps past 10 users
- No free tier
- No bundled VPN or dark-web monitoring on smaller plans (just Watchtower)
- Closed source
Dashlane
Pros
- Bundled VPN and dark-web monitoring on Business plan
- Argon2d KDF + modern crypto stack
- Polished UX and aggressive passkey rollout
- Free tier for individuals (1 device)
Cons
- $8/user/mo is steep for small teams vs 1Password Starter Pack
- Closed source; no self-hosting
- External one-time sharing is weaker than 1Password's Psst!
- Plan structure has churned recently — what's bundled can change
A third option worth considering
If you've sized both up and the answer is "neither is quite right for a small team that just wants to share credentials by project," Pwdly is built for exactly that gap.
- Per-project vaults instead of one giant shared bucket — matches how teams actually organise work.
- $2/user/month, flat — no Starter Pack ceiling, no Business-tier cliff, no Enterprise quote-haggle. See pricing.
- XChaCha20-Poly1305 + Argon2id — a deliberately conservative modern stack. We wrote about why.
- No VPN, no dark-web monitoring, no breach alerts. Because we genuinely can't see your data, we can't fake telemetry around it. Read the full list of trade-offs.
If your team needs a VPN bundled in, Dashlane's a better fit. If you need polish and integrations, 1Password. If you want a simple, honest team password manager priced like one, that's our pitch.
Frequently asked questions
Is 1Password or Dashlane cheaper for a 10-person team?
1Password is dramatically cheaper at that size. The 1Password Teams Starter Pack is $19.95/month flat for up to 10 users. Dashlane Business is $8/user/month, so a 10-person team is around $80/month — roughly 4× the 1Password Starter Pack. Past 10 users, prices converge.
Does Dashlane really include a VPN?
Yes — Dashlane bundles a VPN (a licensed version of Hotspot Shield) on its Business plan and on personal Premium plans. If your team would otherwise pay for a separate VPN subscription, that bundle can offset Dashlane's higher per-seat price.
Which has stronger encryption?
Both are zero-knowledge and use industry-standard primitives. 1Password adds a 128-bit Secret Key on top of your master password as defence-in-depth — meaning a stolen server-side vault blob is computationally useless on its own. Dashlane uses Argon2d (memory-hard) for key derivation, which is more GPU-resistant than 1Password's PBKDF2. Different strengths, both serious.
Are either open source?
Neither. Both publish detailed security whitepapers and undergo third-party audits, but the clients are closed source. If open-source clients are a hard requirement, Bitwarden is the obvious alternative.
Keep comparing
- 1Password vs BitwardenTeam-focused, vendor-neutral breakdown.
- LastPass vs BitwardenTeam-focused, vendor-neutral breakdown.
Also worth a read: The XChaCha20-Poly1305 explainer, our security model, and the free password generator.
Sources & further reading
- 1Password — Business pricing
- Dashlane — Plans and pricing
- 1Password Security Design white paper (PDF)
- Dashlane Security white paper
- PasswordManager.com — Dashlane vs 1Password
Worth fact-checking
- Dashlane has restructured its Business plans more than once recently (Credential Protection / Password Management / Enterprise). Confirm what's bundled at your tier before buying.
- Bundled-VPN inclusion can vary by region and plan iteration. Verify with Dashlane.
- 1Password Teams Starter Pack pricing of $19.95/month flat for up to 10 users is current as of May 2026.
Last updated May 2026. Vendor pricing and features change frequently — always confirm on the official site before purchasing. Pwdly is not affiliated with 1Password, Bitwarden, LastPass, or Dashlane.