1Password

Small businesses use online services to run their operations, ranging from invoicing to website management, social media, accounting, inventory, and more. But memorizing passwords for all these online services is hectic as a business owner; imagine having to know dozens of passwords off the top of your head.

However, 1Password is one of many password managers that solve this problem. It keeps all your passwords in one place, and you can retrieve them anytime. Instead of struggling to memorize passwords, you can keep them in a digital vault and retrieve any whenever needed.

1Password is accessible from a web browser, desktop app, or mobile app. This guide explores why small businesses should use 1Password, how to use it effectively, and how it stacks up against rival password managers.

You can see the full pricing details on the 1Password website.

Below are some of the best use cases for 1Password:

Security: 1Password doesn’t just store passwords for your business. It securely stores them while enabling your team to manage, access, and share them without hassles. Your master password and a secret key protect all credentials stored on 1 Password.

With 1Password, your business becomes more secure instead of storing passwords in plain files or notes, where they’re more likely to be hacked. Another helpful feature is that 1Password alerts you if any of your company’s passwords were caught in a data breach, so you can take immediate action to avert further consequences.

Convenience: 1Password removes the need for your employees to sort through various digital or physical locations looking for passwords. Instead, everything is stored in one place, and they can simply scroll to find what they want. As your business grows, you can create 1Password accounts for new employees and let them access vaults seamlessly. This software ensures every employee has the correct credentials to access critical business tools. 

Third-party integration: 1Password has direct integrations with other critical business software. For example, you can integrate it with Slack to receive alerts whenever employees log into 1Password, ensuring no one makes unauthorized changes.

Limited budget: Small businesses usually have limited IT budgets. If other software tools have eaten into your budget, it’s understandable the $7.99 monthly fee per user isn’t doable. In that case, you can use a free password management alternative like KeePass. KeePass isn’t as user-friendly as 1Password and doesn’t offer as many advanced features. However, it’s a suitable alternative if you don’t have the budget for 1Password. You can also choose NordPass, which costs $3.59 per user monthly, less than half the cost of 1Password. NordPass offers features similar to 1Password at a lower price.

Likewise, Dashlane, Bitwarden, and LastPass are 1Password alternatives with reasonable prices. LastPass and Bitwarden have Teams plans that cost $4 per user per month, half of 1Password’s cost, and Bitwarden offers a free plan with good password management features. However, the Teams plan doesn’t provide all the features your business would get with 1Password’s Business plan.

Product bundles: You might have another business software that provides a password manager under a discounted bundle. For example, Nord Security offers a bundle that includes NordVPN, NordLocker encrypted cloud storage, and NordPass. If you already use a Nord Security product, adopting the NordPass password manager makes sense because of the discount.

Signing up: You can start by creating a 1Password account for your business. You can do this from the website, or via the desktop and mobile apps. Fortunately, 1Password offers a 14-day free trial for Business users, so you do not have to pay to access the platform initially. You can create a Business account using this link.

You’ll need to create a master password and secret key for your 1Password business account. Choose a password you can always remember because it can’t be reset later. Without this password, you won’t gain access to your 1Password vault. Likewise, save the secret key on your device (in PDF format) because it keeps your passwords safe even if someone breaches 1Password.

Storing and retrieving passwords: 1Password keeps your passwords in digital vaults. You can add passwords manually to these vaults or import passwords from other password managers. It makes retrieving a password you’ve stored in a vault easy. Just open the vault and look for the password you stored earlier. 

1Password also has autofill when you visit the login page for a website whose credentials you’ve stored on your vault. However, this option only works after downloading the 1Password app or browser extension.

Generating passwords: Storing passwords securely isn’t the only way 1Password protects your business. It also generates strong, unique passwords that are difficult for hackers to crack. Memorizing these strong passwords is hectic, but you don’t need to worry about that. 1Password stores these passwords securely and lets you retrieve them anytime.

Inviting team members: Your small business might have several employees who need individual 1Password accounts. You can easily invite them to your shared 1Password vault. You just need their email address, and 1Password will send an email prompting them to sign up.

As the 1Password administrator, you can control team members’ access and set policies. For instance, you can block users from specific vaults and limit what documents they can access. Activity logs let you track which users accessed particular information at specific times; this feature helps you trace the source of a leak, breach, or related issues.

1Password makes migrating from another password manager easy. You can import passwords from other password managers into your 1Password vaults. The easiest way is to download the passwords as a CSV file from the tool you’re migrating from.

For example, if switching from Dashlane to 1Password, download your Dashlane data in CSV format. Then, you’ll upload this file to a specific vault on your 1Password account; the passwords will be extracted and added. You’ll see the passwords previously stored on Dashlane in your 1Password vault.

Some password managers let you download and export passwords in other file formats, such as JSON for Bitwarden and XML for KeePass. 1Password supports these formats, so you can still import passwords seamlessly.

You can also import passwords stored on a web browser, such as Chrome, Edge, and Safari. These browsers let you download your saved passwords in a CSV format. Then, you’ll upload this file to 1Password to import the passwords.

Migrating from other tools to 1Password is as easy as it gets. It’s one of the reasons why many small businesses choose this platform. 

1Password integrates with many other software tools that small businesses use. These integrations provide extra functionality and let you access features you usually can’t on 1Password.

Integrations are classified under user provisioning, events reporting, alerts, two-factor authentication, masked email, and virtual cards.

User provisioning involves identity management tools. For example, if your business already uses Okta for corporate accounts, you can integrate it with 1Password. Then, any team member can sign into 1Password with Okta instead of a separate password.

Events reporting entails sending reports from 1Password to an external platform. For example, a log can be sent to Datadog, a cloud monitoring platform, whenever a team member tries to export a password from a vault. This feature helps you keep tabs on team members’ activities and act fast if you observe atypical behavior.

Alerts involve notifications about 1Password events, e.g., a Slack notification when a new team member creates an account. Two-factor authentication adds an extra protection layer to your account. Masked emails let your team members use alias email addresses when signing up for online services, and virtual cards entail storing corporate credit/debit card details on 1Password and auto-filling them when you want to pay for something online.

Adding an integration
Find the tool on the Integrations menu that you want to integrate with, e.g., Slack. Then, follow the onscreen instructions to complete the integration process.

The process differs depending on your chosen integration. For instance, Slack only requires signing into your Slack account to authorize the integration. However, Datadog integration requires generating a token on 1Password and inputting this token into your Datadog dashboard.

1Password has sophisticated integrations, but the integrations library might not contain what you want. For example, you can’t export your custom policies directly from another password manager to 1Password; you’ll need to set these policies from scratch when migrating from a rival tool like Dashlane and LastPass. It’s also challenging to share passwords stored on 1Password with people outside your team using other apps.

However, you can use tools like Zapier to create custom integrations and transmit data from 1Password to another app (or vice versa).