Bitwarden licensing covers two different things. The first is the commercial subscriptions under which Bitwarden sells its Password Manager and Secrets Manager. The second is the open source and source-available licences under which it publishes their source code. The subscriptions are sold to individuals, families and organizations under the Bitwarden Terms of Service. Those terms are made with 8bit Solutions LLC, a company wholly owned by Bitwarden Inc.[2] The code is split by licence. The clients default to GPL v3.0 and the server to AGPL v3.0. Code in bitwarden_license directories is under the Bitwarden License v1.0.[7][13]
For business customers the unit is the user seat: “the billed license for one user within a Bitwarden organization”.[5] Teams and Enterprise organizations can have an unlimited number of users, “priced per user”, billed annually or monthly.[3] Secrets Manager adds its own seats, plus machine accounts for applications and pipelines.[4]
Editions
| Offering | Price shown 2026-10-07 (USD) | Unit | Catalog row |
|---|---|---|---|
| Password Manager Teams | $4 per user per month, billed annually | User seat | Password Manager Teams |
| Password Manager Enterprise | $6 per user per month, billed annually | User seat | Password Manager Enterprise |
| Premium (individual) | $19.80 per year | Individual | Premium |
| Families | $47.88 per year, up to 6 users | Organization | Families |
| Free organization | Free, 2 users | User | Free organization |
| Secrets Manager Free, Teams, Enterprise | Free; from $6; from $12 per user per month | Seat and machine account | Secrets Manager Teams, Secrets Manager Enterprise |
Sources: Bitwarden business pricing page, Password Manager Plans and Secrets Manager FAQs.[1][3][10] Bitwarden shows prices “in USD and based on an annual subscription. Taxes not included.”[1] Catalog proof: Teams and Enterprise list prices per user per month, billed annually.
Teams includes event logs, directory sync, SCIM and API access. Enterprise adds granular access control, passwordless SSO, self-hosting, Access Intelligence and a free Families plan for all users.[1] Self-hosting a business organization is therefore an Enterprise right. Only Families and Enterprise organizations can be imported to self-hosted servers.[3]
Metrics
| Unit | Catalog row | Where it applies |
|---|---|---|
| User seat | User seat | Teams and Enterprise organizations |
| Secrets Manager seat | Secrets Manager user seat | Secrets Manager Teams and Enterprise |
| Machine account | Machine account | Secrets Manager |
| Provider seat minimum | Provider seat minimum | MSPs using the Provider Portal |
| Storage | Encrypted file storage (GB) | Organization file attachments |
A seat is not tied to a person. An invited user occupies a seat, and seats “are not permanently attached to a specific member”.[5] The Terms of Service add that a login “may only be used by one person”, and that “the number of Users must not exceed the number of accounts you’ve ordered from us”.[2] Catalog proof: One login per person; organizations limited to ordered users; Users must not exceed accounts ordered.
Counting / floors
Seats scale up, not down. In cloud Teams and Enterprise organizations, inviting users “will automatically increase the number of billed user seats” unless the admin sets a seat limit.[5] Removing a user “does not automatically reduce your organization’s billed subscription seats”. Unassigned seats “are still billed”.[5] Seats added mid-cycle are prorated, and removed seats are credited against the next charge.[5] The full mechanics are in Bitwarden Terms of Service and seat billing. Catalog proof: Cloud Teams and Enterprise seats scale up automatically on invitation; Removing a user does not reduce billed seats; Unassigned seats are still billed.
Secrets Manager. Secrets Manager seats “must be lower than or equal to” the organization’s Password Manager seats. Teams includes 20 machine accounts and Enterprise 50, and extras are billed per account.[4] See Bitwarden Secrets Manager licensing.
Providers. MSPs commit to Teams and Enterprise seat minimums, which are “a fixed floor which you are billed for monthly”.[9] Catalog proof: Provider seat minimums are a fixed monthly floor.
Virtualization & partitioning
Bitwarden counts users and machine accounts, not hosts or cores. The one deployment rule is for self-hosting: “one organization deployment is permitted per subscription”, unlocked by a licence file downloaded from the cloud organization.[6] See Bitwarden self-hosted organization licensing. Catalog proof: One self-hosted organization deployment per subscription.
Cloud / BYOL
Cloud organizations are hosted by Bitwarden in its US or EU region. A self-hosted organization is a licensed copy of a cloud organization: “Before starting an organization on your self-hosted server, retrieve your organization license from the cloud web app”.[6] Self-hosted seat counts “always mirror” the cloud organization.[5] The licence file is the only bring-your-own mechanism.
Programs
- Open source and Bitwarden License. The core clients are GPL 3.0 and the server AGPL 3.0. “Commercial.Core and SSO integration” and similar modules are under the source-available Bitwarden License. That licence allows non-production development and testing and “requires a paid subscription for production use”.[8] See Bitwarden open source and Bitwarden License. Catalog programs: Bitwarden open source licences (GPL v3 and AGPL v3); Bitwarden License v1.0 (source-available Commercial Modules).
- Free use for business. Users may use Bitwarden clients “with either paid or free accounts, for personal or business purposes” if they comply with the Terms of Service.[12] Catalog proof: Free plans may be used for business purposes under the Terms.
- Sponsored Families for Members. Enterprise organizations can sponsor free Families organizations for members. These cost nothing while the member stays active, unless extra storage is added.[11]
- Provider Portal, 14-day Enterprise trial and 30-day refund policy. These are covered in the seat billing article.[2][9]
Audits and compliance
The Terms of Service contain no audit clause. Compliance is enforced in the product. Cloud seats scale with invitations, and self-hosted seat counts “are set by the license”.[6] The main SAM risks run the other way. Seats bought for departed users remain billed until reduced, and auto-scaling can grow the bill without a purchase order.[5] For source code the compliance questions are copyleft obligations and production use of Bitwarden Licensed modules. See GNU GPL, LGPL and AGPL obligations.
Out of scope
- Negotiated enterprise quotes and reseller pricing.
- Prices for additional machine accounts and storage, which were not captured.
- Bitwarden Authenticator, Passwordless.dev and Bitwarden Send as stand-alone products.
- Litigation. No court case about Bitwarden software licensing was found in a primary court record.