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What justifies the huge subscription price increase?
Today I received an email from 1Password with the message of a price increase.
Current price: €31.80 EUR / year New price: €43.80 EUR / year
This is an enormous price. Can someone from 1Password...
Hey everyone! We hear the concerns about AI, especially when it comes to privacy and security. That’s completely fair. We want to clarify and be very transparent about how this specific feature actually works.
We use AI internally to help create and maintain a reference list of common websites, things like primary URLs, login URLs, and human-readable names. This work happens entirely on our own systems, not on your device. That information is compiled into a static database. When you create a new login item in the browser extension, 1Password simply checks that database and applies the appropriate readable name. For example, it might label a login “American Airlines” instead of “aa.com” or “AA.” That’s what the AI-powered item naming feature (launched in 2024) actually is, essentially a smart lookup table that makes saved items clearer and easier to find.
Importantly, this doesn’t access or analyze your vault, your data stays end-to-end encrypted, nothing from your vault is sent to any AI systems, and no external AI services or large language models are involved.
We know AI raises important questions, especially when it comes to security and privacy. Our approach is intentionally limited and privacy-respecting, designed to improve usability without ever touching your vault data.
While disliking the communication about it - aside from the price increase itself - as others said, they have kept it low for the longest time. Soliciting another password manager is something you should always look out for, people talking big on BitWarden, having used both the paid and community versions, I'm not impressed. While I'd rather have our old beloved 'sync it yourself' 1password back, monthly fees are the norm nowadays (try taking any video or audio cloud account from your kids). What you should be evaluating though, is the core of the alternatives as strong as what you are leaving + what price would you be willing to pay less for more risk. Note that most candidates for alternatives do not have the 'oops, I didn't write down recovery keys or printed my emergency kit'. Convenient, sure, also for brute forcing. While everything has a weak link, making sure you have the right stack of things has worked out for 1password since day 1. For those that were with me with the earliest inceptions on our phones ... would we have (back then) paid more than what we did to get a longer free-for-life service? I doubt it, but we wouldn't use said old version nowadays without sometimes unavoidable OTP/MFA and passkeys. Would those options work without a cloud and monthly-recurring backing, sure, but how would the company responsible for said enhancements have (kept) hiring the people to do so.
So while I'm very much against price increases and 'troublesome' (to understate it) communication, I think we should look at it in the correct light. Also note that your (up to now) selected password manager isn't a US product but a Canadian one. Not to get political here, but the dumpster fire that all (not just a single country or nation) parties started with tariffs works in fantastic ways, even on something as simple as having to rent hosting for your service.
So basically two ways ... try and find something as secure as 1password, preferably without recurring costs. Or convince AgileBits of another model (which in all likelihood no company would do nowadays as the monthly recurring income ensures a profitable stream to keep your product up to date).
Yes, for myself, I could not justify switching to an alternative password manager in order to save about USD$1 per month. For all its numerous limitations, 1Password is still the "gold standard" for password managers today, in my opinion (e.g., see this recent research).
When the problem is managing and protecting something as important as the collection of all your digital assets, I want the very best solution available, at any cost.
