Has Family License been removed with 1Password 7 ?

eliotw

I've been a happy Family License user since 1Password 3 and glad to pay for upgrades knowing the product continues to improve. But the phrasing in the announcement letter sounds like the Family License is no longer available. Can that be true ? Am I going to be required to purchase a new license for every family member. I'm not interested in using 1Password with your cloud.

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1Password Version: 6.8.9
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: Not Provided

Ben

1Password Families is now a membership option:

Password manager to keep your family safe | 1Password

I hope that helps!

Ben

eliotw

I know that family memberships are available but I want to know what happens to my family license if I upgrade the app. If I opt to not buy a family membership, does it require me to purchase a new individual license for every family member ? I think this needs to be more clearly explained. When memberships were first introduced it was clear that signing up was optional but it doesn't seem to be staying that way.

chucksense

@Ben, you avoided the question entirely. I am also interested in knowing whether standalone family licenses will be available.

And if not, are we relegated to purchasing stand-alone for every family member (assuming no interest in cloud subscription)?

davamb

I'm also interested to get clarity on the future of family licenses, with a further question.

The pricing page doesn't mention the standalone version at all. I assume that this means you are phasing out standalone licensing - like Adobe, Microsoft and others have done. If I bought a membership now, then decided in a year's time that I prefer the standalone option - will that still be an option, or is taking the membership route now, a one-way journey?

chucksense

@davemb, not affiliated with 1P but from a business perspective, the more people who don't bother to go standalone, the less reason there will be to continue to support it. Given they've chosen to stop advertising it on their website, it's only a matter of time before they phase it out entirely as all new users (and an ever-increasing % of existing) will be subscription.

Stephen_C

To make this perfectly clear, my understanding (as a long-time user and sometime moderator here) is:

• AgileBits killed off family licences for standalone licence users some time ago amid some reasonably strong pressure for people to go the subscription route—insisting that represents good value (when, frankly, for a "family" of two people it doesn't, in my view).
• If you want a standalone licence for 1Password 7 (as I did) you can have one, and you can use it on as many of your own computers as you wish. However, anyone else who wants to run 1Password 7 in your family has to have their own licence.

Don't shoot me: I'm merely the messenger.

Stephen

the_webers_inc

Also have a Family License and am not interested in moving to a "Membership" So are we out of luck?

Stephen_C

The position is as in my previous post.

Stephen

vplewis

@Stephen_C You said "when, frankly, for a "family" of two people it doesn't." Well, in USD, after the discount period ends, two licenses cost $130 and 1 family subscription of 2-5 users costs $60. I get that AgileBits let everyone skate for the 4-->6 upgrade fees, but I don't see them doing that again for 7-->8-->n.
On a positive note, thank you for your very valuable service on these forums. Much appreciated.

jje

I'm a long time 1Password user, as are members of my family since I insist that they store their passwords with our family non-subscription membership. I find it ironic that a security company seems to be moving away from supporting those of us who refuse to store our passwords on someone else's servers. I get it, it's a business. I'd be happy to pay for a new 1Password 7 family (non-subscription) license since I'm very happy with the product. But from what I'm reading about the subscription model for 7, it looks like my family and I will never be moving off of 1Password 6.

Stephen_C

@vplewis you make a perfectly fair point, of course—although 20% tax here does have an impact (admittedly on both standalone and subscription). I'm afraid I'm just one of those people adamantly opposed to subscriptions—maybe because everyone argues each one is so "cheap" but have more than a handful and it's a very substantial outgoing. (I ought not start that discussion here: sorry! Please, others, don't let this degenerate into one of "those threads"!)

Thanks for the kind remark. I still consider that AgileBits deserves support—even if I get a little worked up about the obfuscation of standlone purchases in favour of the subscription puff that floats above everything. ;-)

Stephen

eliotw

While I'm hesitant to move to the Agile cloud for syncing, the travel mode and multi-vault support is compelling for me. But it sounds like they do still support other sync options and just local vault storage presumably with the membership license:
https://support.1password.com/sync-options/

hawkmoth

@Stephen_C was clear in his answer: There have not been any new stand-alone family licenses sold for at least a couple of years now. That change happened well before 1Password 7 was announced, at the same time, as I recall, that the Family Membership was announced. However, the change only affected new customers. License terms for existing customers did not, and have not changed. (Unless, of course, the exiting user purchased a membership at that time.)

You can continue to use 1Password 6 and earlier versions as long as you like (and as long as an OS update doesn't break it) under your purchased license terms. But 1P7 requires a new license or a membership for everyone who wants to upgrade to version 7. And these are the terms for getting such a new license. They apply to everyone, previous users and new ones alike. (I am only reporting here - I do not have any inside information about how the decision came about.)

As of the date of that license pricing and change in terms a couple of years ago, each user of the stand-alone license must have his/her own license, and there aren't any discounts for multiple purchases. Each license allows one user to use 1Password on as many devices of the same platform as they wish. If you use a second platform (such as Mac and Windows), each platform requires a separate single user license. (Memberships include access to all platforms and upgrades as part of the membership price.)

This is only one of many threads like it that I've read since returning to the forums after a long absence.

FWIW, I bought a new Individual membership when 1Password 7 was announced. Once I'm happy with it, I will be trying to coax two more family members to come in on a Family Membership. I'm back here in the forums to learn more about using the new features.

Stephen_C

@hawkmoth excellent post and very nice to see you back here.

Stephen

eliotw

Agile has done a pretty good job but this is the first time a license purchase is required when the family license is no longer available. Their upgrade support page sadly doesn't state that the family license has been retired:

https://support.1password.com/upgrade-mac/

Maybe they should fix that so that people don't upgrade and only then find out their prior license type is no longer available.

the_webers_inc

I can appreciate that this was announced previously, but this new licensing structure had no usability impact until I installed 1password 7 today. I'm sure I saw the announcement at some point when this was changed, wasn't really a concern at that time. I guess an annual family subscription/membership is doable, just personally dislike subscriptions.

chucksense

Thank you @Stephen_C and @hawkmoth for the detailed clarifications.

To echo others here, this may have been announced, but is news to me as I don't have the time to follow every AgileBits announcement. The only time I engage is when there is a major upgrade that has an impact on my workflow.

They could have done a bit better job explaining to those of us who have paid a certain way for over 10 years and suddenly have to change how we pay with something as simple as a "Oh we see you have a family license. Sorry, those have been discontinued in favor of subscriptions or standalone individual plans." bit of text on the upgrade screen. @Ben as an official rep, consider sending this feedback up the pipe and let it be a lesson for the future on expectation setting—you can't assume we read your blog for announcements. Most customers probably don't.

-Chuck

hawkmoth

@chucksense wrote -

They could have done a bit better job explaining to those of us who have paid a certain way for over 10 years and suddenly have to change how we pay with something as simple as a "Oh we see you have a family license. Sorry, those have been discontinued in favor of subscriptions or standalone individual plans."

I happen to agree with that.

PezHead65

The problem with the subscription model is that I have to save my password file in YOUR cloud, correct? I use the Mac/Windows Family stand-alone product because it allows my wife and I to own our database, and keep it on an encrypted cloud drive by Tresorit. So what I'm hearing is that if we both want to use it like I do today, I'd have to buy two individual stand alone versions? But then I can't becuase she'd be a new user and she'd have to use a subscription service. Just trying to get clarification, since I really like 1Password, but I'm not liking your company a lot right now based on the pain you're causing us :'(

Saying we can continue to use version 6 is lame, since we all know as soon as the next MacOS is released, you'll stop any support for versions prior to 7.

Big time pissed customer.......

punintended

Agreed with most of what is stated on this page. I have really enjoyed the product and been a licensed user on Mac and iOS since 1Password 3. I would like to encourage AgileBits to make a family option available without the use of the AgileBits cloud. At the same time, I will be sadly comparing the other options out there.

hawkmoth

Users can take a membership without using the AgileBits sync solution. All of the previous options are still available, thought I’m not sure myself why you’d want to take that route, unless annUal charges being lower than a stand-alone license and the other new features make sense for you.

punintended

Thanks - nice to know the other options still exist.

The math hasn't worked that way in the past, since AgileBits let version 4 licenses work through version 6. We weren't paying $65/year. I get that we're in a brave new world where software developers have adopted a subscription model for licensing. I'm just bummed and was hoping AgileBits would continue to not be one of those. I probably will end up buying the family license since there only seems to be one remotely decent competitor with horrible execution.

rinkydink

...and @Ben has left the building!
I agree. There are tons of hype on their website for v7 but slim pickens on anything subscription. I truly did not know about this till I launched v7 this morning. Used to have a family license . Sure, we can continue to use v6 but like @PezHead65 said, when the new OS arrives, support to this will most likely drop. And voila, welcome to the rip-off subscription model!

ALyons

I also got burned by this, AFTER I upgraded. Maybe shame on me but since family licenses were always an option, I thought I would be able to upgrade just the same. I feel ripped off. 49.99 is not upgrade pricing and then on top of that no family option? Add me to the list of annoyed long term customers. 49.99 would be fair for a family upgrade but for single user. And sorry I don't want your cloud model for my security.

Jacob

Hey all! Since 1Password 7 is a paid upgrade, you'll need to get a new license for it if you decide to go that route. You can also use it with a 1Password membership, specifically the family one a few of you have mentioned in this thread. That'll give you and 4 other people in your family access to 1Password, sharing with each other, and all the benefits of a 1Password membership:

What are the benefits of a 1Password membership?

You're welcome to keep using the app with a license as well, but you will need to purchase one for each family member since they're per-user in 1Password 7.

erika_snap

Thanks, Jacob. Can you tell us what the end-of-life-support-date for version 6? Will Agilebits support version 6 on the new Mohave OS once it is released?

Like many of us on this thread, my family (of 2), are longtime users of 1Password. For versions 3, 4 and 6 we purchased the non-membership/stand-alone Family license. It has served our need and we don't require new features. We have purchased during promotional offers and paid around $35 every 18 moths. We are able to skip versions until our licensed version starts to fail due to OS changes. The membership model and removal of the family stand-alone license brings a higher cost. It would be helpful to know when 6 will no longer be supported and when 7 would also end-of-life. I know it was just released, but we are trying to understand why the upgrade non-membership prices rise just as the OS annual release cycles devalue the usefulness of non-membership product.

Jacob

@erika_snap 1Password 7 is the latest version of 1Password and will continue to be supported going forward. For 1Password 6, we'll only be updating it if there are some major security issues that come up related to it. You're welcome to keep using it as long as you'd like to – we can't make any promises on its lifespan because a lot of that depends on other factors, but it is unlikely we'll keep supporting it in the long term since it's no longer the latest version.

kf0s

The problem with the subscription model is that I have to save my password file in YOUR cloud,

This is what needs to be corrected on the 1Password website. Don't make people think that a membership means you HAVE to store data in the Agilebits cloud. You can continue to store it locally, or in Dropbox, etc. like you do stand-alone (or maybe they really don't want people to know this).

So, look at it this way: single user, windows and Mac (buy 2 licenses is $100 or $130 if you wait). Subscription is $36/yr. You basically get 3 yrs of subscription for the cost of a license (plus get other platforms if you want and free upgrades). Granted you lose access to edit/add data in 3 yrs, but if they make you pay the $100 again, you are on track. And you don't need to use their cloud if you don't want too..

Now if there are two (or more of you) and depending on number of platforms, the price changes some so the 3 yr point will change.

Jacob

@kf0s Sorry about the confusion. While you could store your data outside the 1Password account, there's no reason to if you're going to use Dropbox or iCloud since an account is more secure. It's also good to note that third-party sync services and the WLAN Server are advanced methods we can only troubleshoot so much. Sync with a 1Password account is built specifically for 1Password and any issues can be troubleshooted and fixed directly by us :) That gives everyone a much better experience overall.

kf0s

@Jacob I agree that using a 1Password account is better for a lot of reasons. Just want people to understand that a subscription DOES NOT REQUIRE them to use a 1Password account. They may still use their old third party sync will paying the subscription price instead of the stand-alone ($60 a yr vs $250-$325 for 5 stand alone licenses in my case). I leave it as an exercise for the reader to which cost works better in their scenario.