# vault1984 — Pricing Plan
*March 2026*

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## The strategic goal

Pricing must make competition economically irrational at every tier. A competitor needs to out-price, out-cover, out-encrypt, and out-agent-support vault1984 simultaneously. That's not a startup problem — it's an impossibility.

The model is volume. Near-zero marginal cost means every dollar of revenue is margin. The job of pricing is to remove friction from adoption, not to maximize per-user revenue.

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## The market landscape

| Product | Individual | Notes |
|---------|-----------|-------|
| 1Password | $36/year | Market leader, premium positioned |
| Dashlane | $33/year | Declining market share |
| Keeper | $35/year | Security-focused |
| NordPass | $24/year | VPN bundle play |
| Bitwarden Premium | $10/year | Open source, price leader |
| Bitwarden Free | $0 | The real competition |
| Apple/Google built-in | $0 | Biggest consumer competitor |

**The real floor is $0.** Apple Keychain and Google Password Manager are free and good enough for most consumers. vault1984 doesn't compete with them on price — it competes on agent support, which they don't have, and encryption model, which they don't care about.

**The relevant paid competitor is Bitwarden at $10/year.** vault1984 at $12/year is actually $2 MORE than Bitwarden. That needs a justification — which is the agent story and the encryption model.

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## Is $12 the right number?

**Arguments for $12/year:**
- "$1 a month" is a clean, memorable pitch
- Below every competitor except Bitwarden and free tiers
- Makes price a non-conversation at any sales stage
- The launch price — can be raised later once established

**Arguments against $12/year:**
- More expensive than Bitwarden Premium ($10/year) — needs clear differentiation to justify
- At $12/year, reaching $1M ARR requires 83,333 paying users. That's achievable but not trivial.
- No room for a launch discount (can't go lower without giving the product away)

**The alternative: $24/year ($2/month)**
- Still far below every competitor except Bitwarden free
- "Two dollars a month" is still an easy yes
- Doubles revenue per user — $1M ARR at 41,667 users instead of 83,333
- Leaves room for a launch promotion: "First year $12, then $24"
- More defensible against "why are you more expensive than Bitwarden?"

**Recommendation: Launch at $12/year, standard price $24/year.**
Use $12 as the permanent early-adopter/launch price, visible on the page as a strikethrough: ~~$24~~ **$12/year — launch price**. Creates urgency, rewards early adopters, and gives a path to sustainable pricing without a price hike surprise.

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## Full pricing structure

### Free tier — Yes or no?

**The case for free:**
- Bitwarden's success was built on a robust free tier. People adopt free, recommend to paid users.
- Cost to serve a free user: ~$0 (SQLite, minimal compute)
- Free users seed the team and enterprise funnel

**The case against free:**
- Complicates support and operations
- "Free" attracts users who will never pay
- vault1984's differentiator (agent support, encryption model) is most valuable to paying users
- Bitwarden has free forever — competing on free is fighting on their turf

**Verdict: 30-day trial, no free tier.**
Let people experience the full product without commitment. After 30 days: pay or export your data. Clean. No free-rider problem.

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### Individual

| | |
|--|--|
| **Price** | $12/year launch (~~$24~~ standard) |
| **What's included** | Unlimited entries, all three encryption tiers, MCP agent access, browser extension, mobile apps, import/export, daily backups, email support |
| **What's not** | Shared vaults, admin console, SSO |

**The pitch:** A dollar a month. The only password manager built for AI agents. If your AI coding agent ever needs a credential, this is the answer.

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### Team

| | |
|--|--|
| **Price** | $3/user/month (billed annually) |
| **Minimum** | 2 users |
| **What's included** | Everything in Individual + shared vaults, team admin console, audit log, centralized billing |
| **What's not** | SSO, SCIM, SLA |

**The pitch:** A 10-person team pays $360/year. No procurement needed. Credit card. Done.

**Note:** $3/user/month is slightly above the previously discussed $2.50 — reflects that team features add genuine value (shared vaults, admin) and this is still far below every competitor.

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### Business (MME)

| | |
|--|--|
| **Price** | $5/user/month (billed annually) |
| **Minimum** | 10 users |
| **What's included** | Everything in Team + SSO (SAML/OIDC), SCIM provisioning, priority support, audit log export |
| **What's not** | Custom SLA, dedicated support, custom contracts |

**The pitch:** A 50-person company pays $3,000/year. 1Password charges $10,800 for the same. No negotiation required.

**Note:** SSO is the unlock for this tier. Price jumps from $3 to $5 at the SSO boundary — SSO is expensive to build and support, and enterprises expect it. This is justified.

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### Enterprise

| | |
|--|--|
| **Price** | $5/user/month + custom |
| **Minimum** | 100 users |
| **What's included** | Everything in Business + custom SLA, dedicated support contact, compliance documentation package (SOC 2, security questionnaire support), custom contract |
| **Pricing** | $5/user/month is the floor; large deployments negotiate volume |

**The pitch:** 1,000 seats at $5/user/month = $60,000/year. Competitors charge $84,000–$168,000. The CFO doesn't hold a meeting. They just sign.

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### MSP (wholesale)

| | |
|--|--|
| **Price** | $1.50/user/month wholesale |
| **Requires** | Commercial MSP license (separate from ELv2) |
| **Minimum** | 50 managed seats |
| **What's included** | Full Business tier for managed clients, multi-tenant admin console, white-label optional |

**The MSP math:** Buy at $1.50, sell at $4–6. 100 clients × 20 users = 2,000 seats = $3,000–9,000/month margin. vault1984 earns $3,000/month from that MSP.

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## Revenue model at scale

| Segment | Users/Seats | Price | ARR |
|---------|------------|-------|-----|
| Individual | 300,000 | $12/yr | $3.6M |
| Team | 50,000 seats | $3/mo | $1.8M |
| Business | 30,000 seats | $5/mo | $1.8M |
| Enterprise | 20,000 seats | $5/mo | $1.2M |
| MSP wholesale | 200,000 seats | $1.50/mo | $3.6M |
| **Total** | | | **$12M ARR** |

**At 8x ARR multiple: $96M valuation.**

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## Launch promotion

**The LastPass offer:** Free lifetime account for breach plaintiffs. This is not a pricing tier — it's a PR move. The cost is near-zero. The return is press coverage, credibility, and brand positioning.

**Early adopter pricing:** $12/year for the first 12 months of the product's life. After that, $24/year for new signups. Early adopters are locked in at $12 forever (their loyalty built the product).

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## What we don't do

**No per-agent pricing.** The agent story is the differentiator — taxing it would punish exactly the use case we want to grow. MCP access is included in all paid tiers.

**No feature-gating the encryption model.** Credential and Identity Encryption are available on all tiers. Security is not a premium feature.

**No freemium.** 30-day trial, then pay. Clean. No free-rider infrastructure burden, no support complexity.

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## Open questions for Johan

1. **$12 or $24 as standard individual price?** Or $12 launch, $24 after 12 months?
2. **Free tier?** 30-day trial recommended, but worth discussing.
3. **Is $3/user/month right for teams, or stick with $2.50?**
4. **SSO included in Business at $5, or is that too aggressive a price jump from Team?**
5. **MSP minimum seat count** — 50 is the proposal; could go higher or lower.

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*Draft — George for Johan.*