1Password vs LastPass 2026: Security Record, Pricing, Verdict

Pick 1Password in 2026 unless you need a free plan. Its Individual plan costs $2.99 a month billed yearly for the first year ($3.99 after), LastPass Premium costs $3 a month billed yearly, and that near-tie on price leaves the security record as the deciding factor: LastPass lost customer vault backups in 2022 and was fined £1.2 million by the UK regulator in December 2025, while 1Password has reported no customer data loss. LastPass wins only for a one-device-type free vault, which 1Password does not offer.

Both vendors encrypt vaults so that they cannot read them, and both sell personal, family and business tiers at prices within a dollar of each other. The differences that matter are what happened when each company was attacked, what the free and family tiers include, and how the business plans price single sign-on. All prices below were read on the vendors' pricing pages on 17 October 2026 and are in US dollars.

At a glance

Prices were read on 1Password personal pricing, 1Password business pricing and LastPass pricing on 17 October 2026. 1Password's personal prices are promotional first-year rates with the regular rate shown after the first 12 months; LastPass prices its personal and business tiers as flat annual charges with no promotional step.

Toolradar data: on Toolradar, the software directory we run, 1Password is the single most-listed alternative among the 37 password managers tracked, and LastPass sits at joint second, as of October 2026. Buyers cross-shop these two more than any other pair in the category, which is why the security record below settles more purchases than the price table does.

The security record is the whole argument

LastPass suffered the breach that every password manager buyer now asks about. In August 2022 attackers compromised a corporate laptop and then a senior DevOps engineer's home computer through vulnerable third-party software, captured his master password, and copied cloud backups of customer vaults. LastPass's own incident report says the sensitive vault fields were encrypted with each customer's master password, but that website URLs, file paths and some email addresses were not.

The regulator's finding is the part to weigh in 2026. The UK Information Commissioner's Office fined LastPass UK Ltd £1.2 million, announced on 11 December 2025, because its technical and security measures were not strong enough to stop a hacker reaching a backup database holding names, emails, phone numbers and stored website URLs of up to 1.6 million UK customers. The ICO found no evidence that passwords were decrypted, which is the zero-knowledge model doing its job, but a regulator does not fine a vendor whose controls held.

1Password's closest incident reads differently. When its Okta support tenant was abused, 1Password says it detected suspicious activity on its own Okta instance on 29 September, traced it to the Okta breach, and "found no compromise of user data or other sensitive systems". That is a detection story, not a loss story, and it is the distinction a security lead will be asked to defend. For a deeper look at how each vendor handles its vaults, read the 1Password review and the LastPass review.

Encryption and the Secret Key

Both vendors run zero-knowledge encryption, so neither can decrypt a vault on its servers. The structural difference is that 1Password derives the encryption key from your account password combined with a 128-bit Secret Key generated on your device, and encrypts everything with AES-GCM-256. A stolen copy of 1Password's data would need both secrets per account, and the Secret Key never leaves your devices unencrypted.

LastPass relies on the master password alone to derive the vault key. That is why the 2022 backups became a long-term risk: anyone holding them can run offline guesses against weak master passwords for as long as they like, and the unencrypted URLs tell them which vaults are worth the effort. A strong master password defends a LastPass vault; 1Password's design defends a weak one too.

What the free and personal tiers include

LastPass is the only one of the two with a free plan, and the limit is the device type. The free vault holds unlimited passwords with autofill and dark web monitoring, but syncs to computers or mobile devices, not both. A person who logs in from a laptop and a phone has to pay.

Paying means Premium at $36 a year, which unlocks every device, adds the security dashboard and keeps the dark web monitoring. LastPass also sells a Plus tier at $84 a year that bundles a VPN for up to 10 devices, Windows only for now. The VPN is the only reason to pay the extra $48, and a dedicated VPN at that price buys more; our cheapest VPN guide has the comparison.

1Password Individual covers all devices from the first dollar, with Watchtower alerts for weak or compromised logins, and costs $35.88 for the first year before stepping up to $47.88. Over two years that is $83.76 against $72 for LastPass Premium. The $11.76 gap buys the Secret Key model and the cleaner incident history, which is the trade most buyers make without noticing.

Family plans: five seats against six

LastPass Families costs $48 a year and gives six Premium accounts with shared folders and a family manager dashboard. 1Password Families costs $53.88 for the first year and $71.88 after, for five people with unlimited shared vaults and admin controls over who sees what.

Per seat, LastPass is cheaper in every year: $8 a person against $10.78 in year one and $14.38 from year two. A six-person household also fits one LastPass plan and does not fit one 1Password plan, so the price gap widens to a second subscription. Our cheapest password manager for families guide ranks both against the rest of the market on that per-seat basis.

Households that care about what happens after a breach should still read the gap the other way. The extra $5.88 in year one is the cost of a vault design where a stolen backup is useless without a key the vendor never held.

Business plans: SSO is where the prices diverge

Small teams get the cheapest 1Password seat on the page. The Teams Starter Pack costs $2.49 per user a month billed yearly, with a 10-user minimum and a 20-user cap, so a 10-person team pays $298.80 a year. LastPass Teams costs $51 per user a year for up to 50 users, so the same 10 people pay $510. Neither tier includes single sign-on.

The order flips at the business tier. 1Password Business costs $8.99 per user a month billed yearly, or $107.88 a year, and integrates with Okta, Entra ID, OneLogin and Duo at that price. LastPass Business costs $84 a year per user and bundles a LastPass Families plan for every employee, but its SSO is sold on top: the Advanced SSO add-on costs $24 per user a year and Advanced MFA $36, taking a fully equipped LastPass seat to $144. Business Max, at $132 a year, folds in unlimited SSO apps plus the monitoring features LastPass labels AI, SaaS and Web Monitoring & Protect.

For a 50-person company that wants SSO, 1Password Business costs $5,394 a year, LastPass Business plus the SSO add-on $5,400, and LastPass Business Max $6,600. The two vendors land within $6 of each other on the plain SSO build, so the business decision is not price either; it is the 1Password vs Bitwarden question of which admin plane and audit trail a security team wants to run. Teams already leaving LastPass should read the LastPass alternatives list before they default to 1Password.

Who should pick which

• A person who will not pay and uses one kind of device: LastPass Free, with a strong master password, because nothing else here is free.
• A person on a laptop and a phone: 1Password Individual. The first-year price matches LastPass Premium within a cent a month and the key model is stronger.
• A household of six: LastPass Families, since 1Password stops at five seats and the second plan doubles the bill.
• A household of five or fewer that weighs the breach record: 1Password Families, at $5.88 more in year one.
• A team of 10 to 20 with no identity provider: 1Password Teams Starter Pack, at $211.20 a year less than LastPass Teams for 10 people.
• A company with Okta or Entra ID: either, at near-identical cost; pick on admin tooling, and read the best password managers ranking for the field beyond these two.

How we compared

We read both vendors' pricing pages and their own incident reports on 17 October 2026, plus the ICO's penalty announcement of 11 December 2025. Prices are the printed US-dollar rates for annual billing; yearly totals multiply the monthly figure by 12 or use the vendor's annual charge where that is what it prints. The verdict rests on the pricing, the documented encryption designs and the public incident record, not on our own use of either app. Cyberpresso's editorial policy and paid-placement rules are on the about page.

FAQ

Is 1Password better than LastPass in 2026?

For most buyers, yes. The personal prices are within a cent a month of each other for the first year, and 1Password's Secret Key design plus a record with no customer data loss outweigh LastPass's lower family and renewal prices. LastPass is the better choice only when the free plan or the sixth family seat decides it.

Is LastPass safe to use after the 2022 breach?

The encrypted vault fields were never shown to be decrypted, and the ICO's December 2025 decision found no evidence that passwords were cracked. The risk sits with weak master passwords, because the stolen backups allow unlimited offline guessing, and with the unencrypted URLs that tell an attacker which accounts a vault holds. Users who kept a short master password in 2022 should treat every credential from that vault as exposed.

How much does 1Password cost compared with LastPass?

1Password Individual costs $2.99 a month billed yearly for the first year and $3.99 after; LastPass Premium costs $3 a month billed yearly with no step-up. Families cost $4.49 then $5.99 a month at 1Password for five people, against $4 a month at LastPass for six. Business seats cost $8.99 a month at 1Password with SSO included and $7 at LastPass with SSO as a $24-a-year add-on.

Does 1Password have a free plan?

No. 1Password offers a 14-day trial with no credit card on every plan, and then charges. LastPass Free remains available with unlimited passwords on one device type.

Which is cheaper for a family?

LastPass Families, at $48 a year for six people, against $53.88 for five at 1Password in the first year and $71.88 afterwards. The gap is $5.88 in year one and $23.88 from year two.

Can I move my passwords from LastPass to 1Password?

Yes. 1Password's apps import from a LastPass export, and the 14-day trial is long enough to move a vault and check autofill before paying. Change the master password on the old account before you delete it, because a LastPass vault copied in 2022 is only as safe as that password.

Cite this: Cyberpresso, "1Password vs LastPass 2026: Security Record, Pricing, Verdict", October 2026.

Sources: 1Password personal pricing, 1Password business pricing, LastPass pricing, LastPass security incident update, 1Password on the Okta incident, 1Password security model, ICO: password manager provider fined £1.2m, and the Toolradar profiles of 1Password and LastPass.

Related reading: 1Password pricing, 1Password review, LastPass review, LastPass alternatives, Dashlane vs 1Password, best free password managers and best password managers for families.

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