1Password Teams is $7.99 per user per month, so a five-person team pays roughly $1,438 over three years, forever, with everything in someone else's cloud. Vaultly runs the same zero-knowledge model on your own $5 VPS: everything is encrypted in your browser with AES-256-GCM before it reaches the server, which only ever stores ciphertext. $39, once, however many people you add.
This is the full pricing breakdown: what 1Password Teams actually costs over one, two and three years, what Vaultly gives you for $39 paid once, and the honest cases where the subscription is still the right call.
What 1Password Teams actually costs you
1Password Teams prices per user — $7.99/user/mo — so the subscription grows with every user you add. The comparison below uses the catalog's annual figure of $96; the per-user table underneath shows how the bill scales either way.
| Vaultly | 1Password Teams | |
|---|---|---|
| Sticker price | $39 once | $7.99/user/mo |
| Cost after 1 year | $39 | $96 |
| Cost after 2 years | $39 | $192 |
| Cost after 3 years | $39 | $288 |
1Password Teams bills per user, so the total scales with headcount:
| 1Password Teams users | Per year | Over 3 years |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | $95.88 | $287.64 |
| 5 users | $479.4 | $1,438.2 |
| 10 users | $958.8 | $2,876.4 |
Three years in, the gap is $249 — and every year after that adds another $96 to the subscription side of the ledger.
Vaultly vs 1Password Teams, feature by feature
Price is only half the story — here's how the two line up on the things that decide day-to-day use:
| Vaultly | 1Password Teams | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $39 once | $7.99/user/mo |
| 5-person team, 3 years | $39 | ~$1,438 |
| Zero-knowledge encryption | Yes | Yes |
| Your data on your server | Yes | No |
| Shared vaults | Yes | Yes |
| TOTP codes | Yes | Yes |
| Audit log | Yes | Business tier |
| Works offline / air-gapped | Yes | Limited |
| Source you can read | Yes, MIT | No |
What you get for $39, once
Bitwarden-style zero-knowledge vaults, shared teams and TOTP, self-hosted with no per-seat fee. The highlights:
- 🔒 Zero-knowledge client-side crypto — PBKDF2 at 600k iterations into AES-256-GCM via the Web Crypto API, so a server compromise is not a vault compromise.
- 👥 Shared team vaults — Vault keys are wrapped with each member RSA-OAEP public key in the browser, and the server only relays wrapped keys it cannot read.
- 🔑 Logins, notes and cards — Store logins, secure notes and cards with folders, search, a strong password generator and a strength meter.
- ⏱️ Inline TOTP — Store a 2FA secret alongside a login and get live 6-digit codes with copy-to-clipboard that auto-clears.
Five months of 1Password for a five-person team already costs more than Vaultly, which then never charges you a per-seat cent again.
Switching is 3 steps
- Buy once on Whop. One payment of $39 gets you the packaged 1-click installer, or clone the MIT source at github.com/bensblueprints/password-manager-selfhosted-mvp and run it yourself for free.
- Deploy on your own server. Docker-compose onto a $5 VPS for a public team vault, or run the Electron desktop build air-gapped, then set ADMIN_PASSWORD so a stranger cannot claim the first account.
- Add your team. Send invite links; each member gets a zero-knowledge vault whose contents even your server cannot read.
When paying 1Password Teams is still the right call
Being straight about it: the subscription earns its keep in three situations. If your team is large enough that 1Password Teams's collaboration features, permissions and admin controls are genuinely load-bearing; if your workflow is built on its integrations and leaving means rebuilding that plumbing; or if you have enterprise requirements — SSO, audit logs, SLAs, a vendor to call — that a pay-once app doesn't come with. Everyone else is paying $7.99/user/mo for a job that runs fine on hardware they already own.
If that's you, Vaultly is $39, once. For the deeper dive, read the Vaultly vs 1Password Teams head-to-head.
Frequently asked questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes. Vaultly is MIT-licensed at github.com/bensblueprints/password-manager-selfhosted-mvp and always will be. The $39 buys the packaged 1-click installer and setup; building from source is free.
Where does my data live, and what can the server see?
On your own server, as ciphertext. The server can see email addresses, item counts and timestamps, vault names and audit metadata, but not names, URLs, usernames, passwords or notes, which stay inside the encryption.
What if I forget my master password?
It is unrecoverable by design; there is no reset. Export regularly (the export is ciphertext too) and store it safely.
Is this a subscription in disguise?
No. $39 once, no renewal, no per-seat billing, no license server. Deploy it on your VPS and it keeps working regardless of team size.
More on 1Password Teams pricing
Vaultly — product page, demo & full feature list · All OneTimeSuite pricing breakdowns
Try Vaultly — $39, once
Bitwarden-style zero-knowledge vaults, shared teams and TOTP, self-hosted with no per-seat fee.