Password managers without a subscription

A password manager is the one piece of software almost everyone should run, and also one of the stickiest subscriptions there is. Once your whole vault lives in a service, leaving it feels like moving house, so the price can creep up without much resistance. In March 2026 1Password raised its Individual plan from $35.88 to $47.88 a year, and earlier in the year Bitwarden Premium went from $10 to $19.80 a year.

You do not have to rent one. Below are the options that work without a yearly bill: buy once, use a free plan, or keep the vault in a file you own. Prices were checked on 26 October 2026 and are in US dollars, the currency these vendors list.

What the subscriptions cost

• 1Password Individual: $47.88 a year since March 2026. No free plan and no lifetime option.
• RoboForm Premium: $23.88 a year. The free plan is limited to one device, which is exactly where a password manager stops being useful.
• Proton Pass Plus: $35.88 a year on yearly billing. There is a free plan, covered below.
• Enpass Individual: $23.99 a year, though Enpass also sells a lifetime licence, covered below.

Over five years the cheapest of these is around $120 and 1Password about $240, assuming prices stay where they are, which is the assumption the last year has argued against.

Buy once: Enpass Lifetime

Enpass sells a Lifetime licence for a one-time $79.99 next to its yearly plan. It does not run its own cloud: the vault syncs through storage you already use, such as iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or a WebDAV server. That keeps your passwords off Enpass's servers and is also why it can sell a licence once. The desktop app is free with unlimited items; the licence is what unlocks the mobile apps.

The catch: syncing through your own storage means you set it up yourself and two devices editing at once can occasionally conflict. Sharing with family members is less polished than in the subscription services.

Buy once: Sticky Password Lifetime

Sticky Password offers a Lifetime licence for $79.99 against $29.99 a year for the subscription. Unlike Enpass it includes its own cloud sync, so it behaves more like the mainstream services, and you can also sync over your local Wi-Fi only if you would rather the vault never left your network.

The catch: it is a smaller company, and the extras around it (dark web monitoring, for example) are sold separately after the first year.

Buy once, Apple only: Strongbox Pro

On iPhone, iPad and Mac, Strongbox sells a Pro Lifetime edition for $99.99. It reads and writes the open KeePass format, so the vault is a file you control and can open with other KeePass apps on Windows, Linux or Android.

The catch: Apple devices only, and the most expensive one-off price here. It makes most sense if you already use KeePass on a computer and want a good app on your phone.

Free: Bitwarden's free plan

Bitwarden's free plan, now called Basic Free, syncs an unlimited number of passwords across all your devices. For most people that is everything a password manager needs to do. Premium adds extras like a built-in authenticator, emergency access and vault health reports, and now costs $19.80 a year.

The catch: you are still trusting a company that can change its free plan, though Bitwarden's code is open source, which makes a quiet downgrade harder.

Free: Proton Pass Free

Proton Pass Free includes unlimited passwords synced across your devices, two vaults, sharing with two people and ten hide-my-email aliases, which are handy for sign-ups you do not trust. It is made by the company behind Proton Mail and is open source.

The catch: the free plan is a way into Proton's paid bundles, and the built-in authenticator and more aliases sit behind Pass Plus.

Open source, your own file: KeePassXC

KeePassXC is free and open source (GPLv3) for Windows, macOS and Linux. There is no account and no server: your vault is a single encrypted file. Put it in a folder you already sync, and use a KeePass-compatible app on your phone, such as KeePassDX on Android or Strongbox on iOS. Version 2.8.0 came out on 21 October 2026.

The catch: you are the sync service and the backup plan. That is little work once it is set up, but it is your work.

Open source, your own server: Vaultwarden

If you already run a home server or a small VPS, Vaultwarden is an open-source server that speaks Bitwarden's protocol. You use the official Bitwarden apps and browser extensions, pointed at your own server, and the paid features are available without a subscription.

The catch: it is an unofficial project, and running the server that holds every password you own means keeping it updated, backed up and reachable. Only worth it if you self-host other things already.

Which to pick

• You want it to just work and pay nothing: Bitwarden or Proton Pass on the free plan.
• You want to pay once and forget it: Enpass or Sticky Password Lifetime, both $79.99.
• You want the vault to be a file you own: KeePassXC on your computers, plus KeePassDX or Strongbox on your phone.
• You already self-host: Vaultwarden with the Bitwarden apps.

Most services can import from each other, so switching is usually an export, an import and an afternoon of checking that nothing important is missing. Delete the export file afterwards: it holds every password in plain text.

The full list, with prices, is on the Passwords & Security page. Know a password manager without a subscription that is missing? Suggest it.