1Password vs Okta vs Microsoft Entra: Real Identity Security Cost per User
Short answer
These three products aren't fully interchangeable — 1Password is primarily a password manager with SSO integration, while Okta and Microsoft Entra are full identity-and-access-management platforms that 1Password plugs into rather than competes with directly. 1Password Business is confirmed at $7.99–8.99/user/month (sources show a recent price increase in early 2026, explaining the spread), with a genuine pricing cliff at 11 users that forces an entire team off its cheaper flat-rate Teams plan. Microsoft Entra ID is the most transparently priced of the identity platforms proper, at $7/user/month for P1 and $10/user/month for P2 following a July 2026 increase — and for any Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 customer, this cost may already be bundled in at no additional charge. Okta, as a standalone best-of-breed identity platform, is priced on top of whatever productivity suite an organization already runs, with a reported $1,500 annual minimum.
Pricing at a glance
| 1Password | Okta | Microsoft Entra | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product category | Password manager with SSO/SCIM integration into other identity providers | Standalone identity and access management platform | Identity platform bundled into Microsoft's ecosystem |
| Public rate card | Yes, confirmed | Base suite pricing not confirmed in available sources; a $1,500 annual minimum is reported | Yes, confirmed directly on Microsoft's own pricing page |
| Entry tier | Teams: $19.95/month flat, covering up to 10 users (effectively $1.99/user/month at full capacity) | Not confirmed | Entra ID Free — included with Microsoft cloud subscriptions |
| Mid tier | Business: $7.99–8.99/user/month, billed annually (sources vary, reflecting an early-2026 price increase) | Workforce Identity suites, priced per user per month — exact figure not confirmed in available sources | P1: $7/user/month (up from $6 before the July 1, 2026 increase); included in Microsoft 365 E3 |
| Top tier | Enterprise: custom pricing | Add-ons priced separately: Identity Governance, API Access Management, Device Access, and Privileged Access (the last using a Resource Unit model rather than per-user pricing) | P2: $10/user/month (up from $9); included in Microsoft 365 E5. Entra Suite (bundles P2 with Internet Access, Private Access, ID Governance, and Verified ID): $12/user/month |
| Notable pricing mechanic | A genuine "cliff" at 11 users — exceeding the Teams plan's 10-user cap moves the entire account to per-seat Business pricing, not just the additional user | $1,500 annual minimum reported, plus a fundamentally different Resource Unit billing model for Privileged Access specifically | For a Microsoft-centric estate, identity cost may already be absorbed into existing E3/E5 licensing at no marginal cost |
| Reported negotiated range (Business tier) | $65–96/user/year at various volumes and contract lengths, against a list price of $107.88/year (at $8.99/month) | Not confirmed | Not typically negotiated separately, since bundled M365 pricing is the primary lever |
What headline pricing excludes
1Password's Teams plan has a genuinely sharp pricing cliff, not a gradual scaling curve. Adding an 11th user doesn't just add one more seat at the Teams rate — it moves the entire team onto per-seat Business pricing. One detailed analysis calculates that this 11th user effectively costs the company an additional $73.94/month — a reported 296% increase — because the whole account, not just the new seat, migrates to the higher tier.
Every 1Password Business seat includes a free 1Password Families membership for that employee's personal use — a real, quantifiable perk (a standalone Families plan costs $60/year) that softens the effective per-seat cost for any organization whose employees would otherwise pay for a personal password manager themselves.
Microsoft Entra's identity cost is frequently already paid for, not a new line item. Microsoft 365 E3 includes Entra ID P1, and Microsoft 365 E5 includes Entra ID P2 — an organization already licensed for either bundle gets its baseline identity protection at zero marginal cost, a structural advantage neither 1Password's SSO integration nor a standalone Okta subscription can replicate, since both are priced independently of whatever productivity suite an organization runs.
Okta's Privileged Access product uses a fundamentally different billing model (Resource Units) than the rest of its suite's per-user pricing — a company budgeting Okta on a simple per-user basis across its full product line will miscalculate once Privileged Access is added.
Hidden costs
- 1Password raised prices across all its plans in early 2026 — a company seeing a higher renewal quote than the prior year should expect this reflects a genuine, general price increase rather than an error or a negotiation failure.
- Microsoft increased Entra ID P1 and P2 pricing on July 1, 2026 (P1 from $6 to $7/user/month, P2 from $9 to $10/user/month) — the same currentness consideration applies to any comparison using pre-July-2026 figures.
- Bitwarden, a direct 1Password competitor, is reported to run roughly 50% cheaper for comparable enterprise features — multiple sources note that even a partial evaluation of Bitwarden can move a 1Password quote by 15–25%, a real, actionable negotiation lever specific to this category.
- Mid-contract user additions on 1Password Business may trigger pro-rated charges at list price rather than an organization's negotiated rate — a detail worth confirming explicitly in any negotiated contract, since it could erase negotiated savings for a growing team adding seats mid-term.
- Multi-year 1Password agreements should explicitly lock the per-seat price for the full contract term in writing — a real, recommended contract protection given the vendor's demonstrated willingness to raise list prices generally.
Worked scenarios
25 users
| Estimated annual cost | |
|---|---|
| 1Password Business | 25 × $7.99–8.99 × 12 = $2,397–2,697/year — this scenario exceeds the Teams plan's 10-user cap, so Business pricing applies to the full 25 |
| Okta | Likely at or near the reported $1,500 annual minimum at this scale, though the exact per-user rate above that floor is not confirmed |
| Microsoft Entra P1 | 25 × $7 × 12 = $2,100/year — or $0 incremental if already on Microsoft 365 E3 |
| Microsoft Entra P2 | 25 × $10 × 12 = $3,000/year — or $0 incremental if already on Microsoft 365 E5 |
250 users
| Estimated annual cost | |
|---|---|
| 1Password Business (list) | 250 × $7.99–8.99 × 12 = $23,970–26,970/year |
| 1Password Business (reported negotiated range for 100+ users) | 250 × $65–75 = $16,250–18,750/year |
| Okta | Not confirmed at this scale from available sources |
| Microsoft Entra P1 | 250 × $7 × 12 = $21,000/year — or $0 incremental if already on E3 |
| Microsoft Entra P2 | 250 × $10 × 12 = $30,000/year — or $0 incremental if already on E5 |
At this scale, an organization already on Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 has a dramatic structural cost advantage for baseline identity protection specifically, since that cost is already absorbed — though this doesn't replace 1Password's password-management-specific functionality, which serves a different (complementary, not competing) purpose.
2,500 users
| Estimated annual cost | |
|---|---|
| 1Password Business (reported multi-year negotiated range) | 2,500 × $70–80 = $175,000–200,000/year |
| Okta | Not confirmed at this scale from available sources; likely a substantial negotiated enterprise contract given the platform's positioning and add-on structure |
| Microsoft Entra P1 | 2,500 × $7 × 12 = $210,000/year — or $0 incremental if already on E3 |
| Microsoft Entra P2 | 2,500 × $10 × 12 = $300,000/year — or $0 incremental if already on E5 |
Normalizing across billing units
1Password and Microsoft Entra both price cleanly per user per month, making them directly comparable on that basis — but they solve different problems (password management versus core identity/access management), so a lower 1Password price doesn't mean it can substitute for Entra or Okta, and vice versa. Okta's mixed per-user-suite-plus-Resource-Unit model for Privileged Access specifically resists a single clean per-user comparison against either competitor once that product is included.
Break-even and crossover
The clearest calculable crossover in this article is 1Password's own internal pricing cliff: at exactly 11 users, an organization's effective cost jumps from the Teams plan's $19.95/month flat rate (regardless of headcount up to 10) to per-seat Business pricing across the entire team — a discrete, sudden increase rather than a smooth scaling curve. Any organization near this threshold should model both sides of it explicitly before adding an 11th user casually.
The clearest cross-vendor finding: for a Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 customer, Microsoft Entra's baseline identity cost (P1 or P2 respectively) is already bundled in at zero marginal cost — making the real comparison for such an organization not "Okta versus Entra versus 1Password" on price, but "is Okta's or 1Password's additional capability worth paying for on top of identity coverage already included."
Who pays more, and when
- A small team under 10 users needing basic password management with SSO is well-served by 1Password's Teams plan, but should watch the 11-user threshold carefully before adding headcount casually.
- An organization already on Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 gets baseline identity management (Entra P1 or P2) at zero marginal cost — the question for this buyer is whether Okta's vendor-neutral, best-of-breed capability or 1Password's dedicated password-management features are worth paying for on top, not whether identity coverage itself needs a new budget line.
- A heterogeneous or multi-cloud organization not centered on Microsoft has a genuine structural reason to consider Okta despite its cost premium over Entra, given its vendor-neutral integration breadth.
- A cost-sensitive organization evaluating 1Password specifically should get a comparative quote from Bitwarden, reported at roughly half 1Password's price for comparable enterprise features — even a partial evaluation is reported to move 1Password's own quote by 15–25%.
- A large organization needing privileged access management specifically should model Okta's Resource Unit pricing for that product separately, since it doesn't scale the same way as the rest of Okta's per-user suite pricing.
Limitations and uncertainty
1Password's Business tier pricing shows a genuine spread across sources ($7.99 vs. $8.99/user/month), which most likely reflects a price increase implemented in early 2026 that not all sources have caught up to — treat $8.99 as the more current figure and $7.99 as a slightly older or promotional rate. Okta's base per-user suite pricing was not confirmed to a specific dollar figure from available sources — only its $1,500 annual minimum and its add-on structure are known with confidence. Microsoft Entra's pricing is confirmed directly from Microsoft's own official pricing page, including the July 1, 2026 increase. 1Password's reported negotiated ranges at volume (100+ users, multi-year terms) come from Vendr transaction data and third-party benchmarking rather than official 1Password figures.
Official sources
- 1password.com/business (Business tier pricing)
- microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/microsoft-entra-pricing (confirmed official Entra pricing, post-July-2026 increase)
- Public sources do not provide a specific confirmed figure for Okta's per-user suite pricing