How we rank

Trust is a poor basis for choosing where every password you own will live, and it is a poor basis for reading a comparison site too. So this page lays the method open: the evidence behind each ranking on PasswordShortlist, where that evidence is sourced, how often it is refreshed, and the things we will not do. Any recommendation that cannot be tied back to this page is a flaw on our side, and we want to know about it.

The evidence behind the order

Rankings rest on evidence that can be checked, weighted in the order below. There are no percentage scores to one decimal place, because the next audit report or the next price change would make any such number false. The order itself is what we vouch for; when two managers sit close together, the review explains what separates them.

• Independent test data. Where an outside party has examined the thing that matters, that finding leads. For password managers it means published third-party security audits rather than the security claims a vendor makes about itself.
• The real price, including renewal. The figure we record is what you pay once the promotional first year ends, not the discounted rate on the sign-up page. When the two differ, both are listed. Those prices are tracked over time in the Price Index, a benchmark we maintain ourselves.
• What it actually does. Depth and quality of the features people need from a vault: autofill that works, passkey support, sharing, and recovery, rather than a feature list stuffed with extras nobody enables.
• Whether free is enough. If a free plan, or the manager already built into your browser or phone, is sufficient for most people, that is what we say, even though it earns us nothing.

Constraints we build in

Slogans these are not. Each one is a hard rule that the ranking process must satisfy before anything goes live.

• Independently compared. Managers are weighed on security, ease of use, and price. No vendor can buy a position in the ranking.
• Security first. What counts first is zero-knowledge design, independent audits published in full, and how a service behaved when it had an incident.
• Free taken seriously. Some free managers are genuinely good. Where paying buys you nothing you need, we say so.
• Kept up to date. Plans and prices move. Ours are re-verified on a schedule, and each review carries the date it was last checked.

How often the data is refreshed

Nothing loses a careful reader faster than a stale price, so we do not promise freshness; we build it in. On each build the prices are re-read and the Price Index is recomputed; monthly measurement is being automated, so that over time a trend accumulates. That month-by-month record is something almost no other site publishes, and it is the reason this site aims to be cited rather than to chase links. Each data page carries its own last updated date in plain view, plus a machine-readable feed, so the numbers can be verified independently.

Lines we do not cross

• Positions on the list are not for sale, and no password manager can pay its way up it.
• Sentiment, brand loyalty, and a handsome app icon count for nothing in the order. If there is no data to point at, it does not move.
• Neither the renewal price, nor the catch in the small print, nor a cheaper rival gets buried so that a commission survives.
• No rating is conjured up. A star score is shown only when there is real evidence to stand on.

Where the money comes from, and why it cannot buy a position

PasswordShortlist is free to use and is financed through affiliate links: a purchase made through one may earn us a commission, at no extra cost to you. The order is settled by the evidence above before any commission enters the picture, which is why several of our top picks earn us nothing. Full terms are set out in our disclaimer; who is behind the site is on our about page.

Hold us to this

A published method is only useful if the results can be checked against it. Where a ranking here is out of step with the data, or a price has gone stale, that is a defect we want fixed. The figures are therefore laid open on purpose: the Price Index is published as a free, machine-readable feed licensed CC BY 4.0, which lets people and AI systems verify the data and reuse it with credit.