Proton Pass vs 1Password Business (2026)

The verdict: compare the right plans, then decide how much administration you need

Proton Pass Professional is about half the price of 1Password Business, and both list identity-provider sign-in, directory provisioning and activity reporting. That makes the real decision a question of maturity and fit, not of features on a checklist. 1Password has the longer enterprise track record, deeper reporting and a smoother experience for non-technical staff. Proton Pass offers open-source clients, a Swiss company and the lowest price for SSO and SCIM. If budget and privacy posture drive the choice, shortlist Proton Pass Professional. If adoption, support and administration depth drive it, shortlist 1Password. Prices below are for annual billing, before tax, checked October 27, 2026.

We have not tested either product, and this comparison is based on vendor pricing, help and security pages and independent reviews. Do not read it as a score.

Compare Professional with Business, not Essentials with Business

The most common mistake in this matchup is comparing Proton's cheapest plan with 1Password's most capable one. Pass Essentials at $1.99 per user does not list SSO, SCIM, group sharing, enterprise policies or detailed activity logs, and it is limited to 3 to 30 accounts. The like-for-like comparison against 1Password Business is Pass Professional. The like-for-like comparison for a small team without an identity provider is Pass Essentials against the 1Password Teams Starter Pack, which caps at 20 members.

Treat the table as vendor-stated capability. Two entries need care. First, "Listed" means the vendor lists the feature on its pricing page, not that we tested it with your identity provider. Second, the reporting rows are not equivalent. 1Password lists custom business reports and SIEM streaming to named tools, and Proton lists detailed activity logs with SIEM integration available on request, so confirm what events you need and in what format.

What each costs at 10, 25 and 50 users

All prices are in US dollars on annual billing, before tax, with one license per employee.

The gap between Professional and Business is $540 a year at 10 users, $1,350 at 25 and $2,700 at 50. Over three years at 50 users, that is $8,100, which pays for a lot of hardware keys, training time or backup. It is also real money for a reason: the price difference funds a product that has been selling to businesses for longer, with phone support during business hours and a customer success manager for organizations with 101 or more users.

Monthly billing changes the picture. Proton lists Essentials at $4.99 and Professional at $6.99 per user per month when billed monthly, so the saving from annual billing is larger on Proton's side. Proton also shows discounted rates on its pricing page, so confirm the renewal price. Volume pricing, nonprofit discounts and marketplace purchases may apply on either side.

If you already pay for Proton Workspace Standard at $12.99 per user per month, check whether the bundle's Pass entitlement has the features you need before you buy a separate password manager. See our Proton business suite review for the wider picture.

The two buying briefs

Strengths of each, and where each falls short

Proton Pass is stronger on price and openness. At $4.49 it is the lowest published price among the four managers we compare that lists both SSO and SCIM. Its clients are open source, its security page lists audits by Cure53 in 2023 and Recurity Labs in 2026, and the company is Swiss and holds ISO 27001 and a SOC 2 Type II attestation. Admins can enforce two-factor for everyone, and Proton Sentinel monitors for account takeover. If your clients ask where data is processed or who can inspect the code, you have more to show.

1Password is stronger on maturity and the daily experience. It has the longer record in business deployments, a Secret Key that makes a stolen password alone insufficient to decrypt a vault, role-based sharing, Watchtower alerts, custom reports and provisioning that covers more directory services. Independent reviewers repeatedly cite its apps as the easiest for non-technical staff, and it lists 24/7 email support plus phone support on weekdays. It also lists guest accounts and developer tooling, which matter to agencies and technical teams.

Where Proton Pass falls short. It is a younger business product, so verify the admin console, provisioning and reporting in a pilot. SIEM integration is on request, and audit-log retention should be confirmed. Essentials is capped at 30 users, group sharing and policies sit behind Professional, and the 2026 audit scope covered client apps and the CLI while third-party commentators note it did not include server-side code. It cannot be self-hosted.

Where 1Password falls short. It costs more than twice as much per seat. The Secret Key adds onboarding friction and a recovery step. The code is closed, so you rely on audits and certifications. Some provisioning methods use a self-hosted SCIM bridge that you must run and patch, and personalized training is reserved for the largest customers. For a technical team that wants self-hosting, neither fits, and Bitwarden is the comparison to read.

How to read the price difference

A cheaper seat is not automatically better value, and a pricier one is not automatically safer. Ask what the extra $4.50 per user per month buys you in practice. For a 25-person firm it is about $1,350 a year. If the money buys support that you will use, a rollout your least technical colleague can complete without help and reports you will actually open, it is a reasonable cost. If your administrator is comfortable with a less polished console and nobody will read the reports, the money is better spent on hardware keys for administrators and an offline backup of break-glass credentials.

Also consider switching cost. Moving 25 people between managers costs a few hours of administrator time, a rotation of the most sensitive secrets and a few weeks of confusion. That is not a reason to avoid either product, but it is a reason to run the pilot properly and choose once, rather than choosing on a promotional price that renews higher.

Security and recovery: how the models differ

Both products use end-to-end encryption, so the vendor cannot read vault contents, but they differ in how a user proves identity and how recovery works.

1Password combines the account password with a Secret Key stored on the user's devices and in an Emergency Kit. That makes a stolen or guessed password insufficient on its own, which is a strong default, but it means a new employee must save the kit and a recovery path must exist for someone who loses everything. 1Password lists account recovery on Business and recommends planning the approval process.

Proton Pass builds on a Proton account with optional extra protections. Its security page lists TOTP, FIDO2 hardware keys, passkeys, biometric unlock, a PIN and an Extra Password that sits on top of the account login. On Professional, administrators can enforce two-factor across the organization and the vendor describes Proton Sentinel as an account-takeover defense with human analyst review. The business admin panel and account recovery are listed on Essentials and Professional alike.

Neither vendor's description proves that your recovery works. The pilot below is the real test, and you should include a simulated lost device and a simulated departure for each product.

Operating reality: the work neither license covers

Both products give you a place to store shared logins. Neither decides who owns each login, retires accounts nobody uses or rotates the password when a contractor leaves. Before you pick, do the following.

• Inventory the shared accounts. Name one owner per account and remove the ones that no longer matter.
• Decide what lives in each vault. Use groups or roles, not names, so a departure does not orphan items.
• Name two administrators. Recovery and billing should not depend on one person.
• Enforce two-factor for everyone, and use hardware keys for administrators.
• Rotate critical shared secrets when someone leaves. Removal from the vault does not erase memory.
• Review access quarterly. Pick a date and put it in the calendar.

Our implementation guide goes through the rollout step by step.

A fair five-person pilot

Run the same test for both products, with the same people, for the same two weeks.

1. Create a business vault and two permission groups in each product.
2. Import a small, noncritical set of work credentials and business passkeys, and check who owns them.
3. Enforce two-factor and test account recovery with a backup administrator.
4. Add and remove a pilot employee, and verify that vault access and the underlying service access are both revoked.
5. If SSO or SCIM is required, repeat the test with the exact paid plan and identity provider you were quoted.
6. Ask each vendor for the log or report you would show a client or insurer, and see what it contains.
7. Export the pilot data and check the exit path. Delete the export afterwards.

Score the results for yourself against the requirements you wrote down first. If the two products tie, pick the cheaper plan and revisit at renewal.

Alternatives: when to look at something else

• Bitwarden Teams ($4) or Enterprise ($6). Open source, self-hosting on Enterprise, SCIM on Teams. See our Bitwarden review.
• NordPass Business ($3.99). Lowest list price, simple for Google Workspace firms. See our NordPass review.
• Built-in browser and operating-system managers. Cheaper for very small teams, with limits explained in our 1Password vs built-in managers comparison.
• The full four-way view. Our password manager comparison shows every tier and cost side by side.

For each product alone, read the Proton Pass review and the 1Password review.

Frequently asked questions

Prices and plan details were checked on October 27, 2026 from Proton's and 1Password's pricing and security pages and independent reviews. See our research methodology and affiliate disclosure. Some purchase links in the buying briefs may earn a commission, which does not affect the comparison.