USA TODAY International Edition
Password manager Dashlane gets a big discount
A month and change after one widely- used password manager service imposed the equivalent of a rate increase, another one just rolled out a substantial discount.
In the process, choosing an encrypted service to safeguard and synchronize passwords among your devices and apps may get simpler now that three of four top services charge almost the same.
Formerly a pricier outlier, Dashlane announced a $ 35.88/ year Essentials plan Wednesday morning that covers use on two devices of the same password tools as its $ 59.99/ year Premium service – without that bundle’s Virtual Private Network security and online identity- theft monitoring.
“There are very few people that were using all of those features,” said Dashlane CEO JD Sherman on Tuesday. “There are the essentials that everybody should be using, and they don’t include the VPN, they don’t include the dark- web monitoring.”
New York- based Dashlane’s new plan puts it on the same plane as LastPass ($ 36/ year for individuals on unlimited devices) and 1Password ($ 35.88/ year for solo use on unlimited devices). A fourth service, Bitwarden, still offers a free tier without limits on saved passwords or synced devices, plus a premium service at $ 10/ year for individuals.
At all four, end- to- end encryption leaves the companies no keys to your data, so an attacker would need your master password. Backstop that with “two- step verification” of any unusual login; the most secure sort relies not on codes sent via text message but on those generated by mobile apps like Google Authenticator or a $ 20- and- up USB security key.
All four offer family plans, too: $ 40/ year at Bitwarden, $ 48 at LastPass, $ 59.88 for 1Password, and $ 89.99 for Dashlane ( that covers Premium features since there is no multiple- user Essentials option).
Until March, LastPass and Bitwarden both offered unlimited free versions ( at the cost of less- elegant interfaces than 1Password and Dashlane), but then LastPass restricted its nocharge edition to access on either mobile devices or laptops and desktops.
“We gave people an opportunity to upgrade at a discounted rate to either Premium or Families and hundreds of thousands of users have chosen to convert,” said Dan DeMichele, product vice president at LastPass, in a statement.
This subsidiary of the Boston enterprise- software firm LogMeIn said in March it has 25 million- plus users.
Meanwhile, 1Password has kept prices constant through earlier LastPass increases and saw a 50% jump in new accounts the week after the latest LastPass shift.