Password managers for freelancers and small teams
A password manager creates a long, different password for each of your accounts, stores them in an encrypted vault, and fills them in for you on every device. For a freelancer or a small team, the real choice is between the password manager already built into a browser or phone and a dedicated app, and then between a free plan and a paid business plan.
How to choose a password manager for your business
You are here because reusing passwords has started to feel risky, or because a client, an insurer, or a colleague asked how your team stores its logins. A password manager is step two of our plan for securing your business accounts, right after your main email account, and it is the tool that protects every other account at once. Both the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, in its digital identity guidelines (SP 800-63B), and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre now favor long passwords that differ for each account, which is exactly what a password manager makes practical.
This guide helps you decide what kind of password manager you need and points to the detailed guides for each question: safety, built-in or dedicated, free plans, the main apps compared, prices, sharing with a team, and the passwords you still have to remember.
What a password manager does, and what it does not
A password manager does four things. It generates a long random password when you create an account, stores it in a vault that is encrypted on your device, fills it in when you log in, and syncs the vault between your computer and your phone. Most also warn you when a saved password is reused, weak, or has appeared in a known data breach, and many now store passkeys as well.
It does not stop every attack. A fake invoice or a phone call from someone posing as your bank does not need your password at all. It also becomes a single point of failure: the password that opens the vault, and the second factor that protects it, matter more than any other login you have.
Three kinds of password managers
The choice comes down to three families, and most small businesses end up using one of them, sometimes two.
| Kind | Examples | Typical fit | Main limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built into a browser or an operating system | Google Password Manager, Apple Passwords | One person who stays in one ecosystem | Sharing and administration are limited, and switching ecosystems is awkward |
| Dedicated app, personal plan | Bitwarden, 1Password, Proton Pass, Dashlane, Keeper, NordPass, LastPass | A freelancer who uses several browsers and devices | One more subscription or account to manage |
| Dedicated app, team or business plan | The business plans of the same apps | A team of two to 20 that shares logins | Cost per user, and someone has to act as administrator |
The order of the examples in the table is not a ranking. Blue Hat Web earns no commission on any of these products.
Is it safe to keep every password in one place?
This is the first question most people ask, and the honest answer is that a well-designed password manager is far safer than the alternatives you are actually using: the same password everywhere, a spreadsheet, or a browser that nobody has configured. The risk does not disappear, it moves to the vault and to the password that opens it. National advice also differs: the UK’s NCSC considers saving passwords in your browser safe on your own devices, while the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security advises keeping banking and email passwords out of any password manager. Our guide on how much you can trust a password manager explains what the encryption protects, what happened in the breaches that made headlines, and how to protect the vault itself.
The password manager you already have
If you use Chrome or an iPhone, you already have a password manager, and for one person it may be enough. The trade-offs appear when you mix ecosystems, share logins with someone else, or need an administrator. We compare the built-in options with dedicated apps, including what happens when you change phones or browsers.
What you get without paying
Several dedicated apps offer a free plan, and the differences between them are not obvious from their marketing pages: some limit the number of devices, others limit sharing, and a few have no free plan at all. Our guide to the free plans and their limits lists what each one includes, checked on the providers’ own pages.
The main apps side by side
Once you know you want a dedicated app, the shortlist is usually the same seven names. We compare them on the criteria that matter to a small business: free plan, sharing, administration, passkey support, independent audits, and track record. You can read how the leading password managers compare, including the ones that pay no commission to anyone.
What it costs per person
Prices change, and several providers have raised theirs. For a team, the number that matters is the price per user per month, billed monthly or yearly, in your own currency. Our page on what a password manager costs for a team gives the prices we found on each provider’s site, with the date we checked them and the country they apply to.
Sharing logins without sending them by email
Sending a password by email or chat leaves a copy in two inboxes and probably a backup. A shared vault lets you give a colleague, an accountant, or a contractor access to one login, and take it back later. The guide on sharing passwords safely within a team shows how sharing works in the main apps and what to do when someone leaves.
The passwords you still have to remember
A password manager does not remove every password from your head. You still need one strong password for the vault, one for your computer, and possibly one for your main email account. Our guide to passwords you can actually remember explains what current guidance from NIST and the NCSC says about length, complexity, and how often to change them.
A quick way to decide
If you only read one section, use this one. It points to the guide that answers your situation.
| If you… | Then start with |
|---|---|
| Work alone, use only Apple devices or only Chrome, and share nothing | The built-in password manager, configured properly |
| Work alone but use several browsers, or Windows and an iPhone | A dedicated app; check the free plans first |
| Share a few logins with an accountant or an assistant | A dedicated app with item sharing |
| Run a team of two to 20 people | A business plan with shared vaults and administrator controls |
| Are worried about trusting one company with everything | The safety guide, then an app with published independent audits |
After the password manager
Once your passwords are unique, the next step is to make a stolen password useless on its own. That is step three of the plan: adding a second factor to your logins. The other guides of this series cover spotting a fake message, recovering a hacked account, and team-wide account security.