Keeper Password Manager & Digital Vault Review

Keeper Password Manager & Digital Vault delivers a hassle-free password management experience for platforms and browsers. It also offers varied multi-factor authentication options and attractive apps with intuitive interfaces. That said, some of Keeper’s most appealing features are paid add-ons that competitors offer for free. We recommend checking out Editor’s Choice winner Bitwarden for full-featured, inexpensive password management.

How Much Does Keeper Cost?

Keeper offers a free version, but the company keeps whittling away its useful features. Since our last review, Keeper has capped free vault storage to just ten vault credentials. According to an emailed notice from Keeper, free users can only get help from the training videos and FAQ section on Keeper’s website.

Several competing password managers offer robust free versions that sync unlimited credentials across platforms alongside a full-featured premium version. Bitwarden, LogMeOnce, NordPass, Proton Pass, and Zoho Vault all come to mind. Other competitors, like Enpass, offer free password management for a single platform.

Skip Keeper’s limited free version and try the service using the generous one-month free trial instead. A Personal Keeper subscription plan is $34.99 per year and includes unlimited password storage on unlimited devices, plus the ability to sync between devices. For a $74.99 Family subscription, you get an additional five vaults, 10GB of file storage, and the ability to manage vault access permissions and share folders and records.

For small business owners, a Keeper Business Starter plan is $24 annually per user, with support for up to 10 users. The full Business plan is $45 annually per user and includes administration rights-sharing options.

You can add more services to your subscription plans, such as increased file storage. There’s also an option to pay $99.99 each year for Keeper’s “concierge service,” which appears to be more attentive customer support. BreachWatch, a dark web monitor, is available to Keeper subscribers for an additional $19.99 annually.

Getting Started With Keeper Password Manager

Keeper’s password manager is available for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows. You can download an extension for the following browsers: Brave, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, and Opera.

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We like Keeper’s onboarding module because it guides you through every step of the setup process. The module helps you create your first credential and shows how to install the browser extension during the optional tour of the app’s features. The tour shows you how to add payment card information to their vaults and encourages the use of multi-factor authentication. It’s a thorough, impressive introduction.

To start using Keeper, import any passwords stored in your browsers into your vault. Keeper can import from more than 20 competitors, among them Bitwarden, Dashlane, Enpass, and Proton Pass.

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We were initially unimpressed with how messy the vault looked after importing our testing credentials. Website icons didn’t display by default, passwords were missing altogether, and the username or email addresses for each credential populated the “Title” section instead of the app or site names.

If you come across a similar issue when importing your passwords to your Keeper vault, there’s a quick fix. Delete the wonky-looking credentials in your vault and import your credential file again. This time, map the correct label to the data set. That means you’ll need to click the dropdown menu above each column to choose the correct data type. See the image below.

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We like that editing credentials is pretty easy, but we’d rather not have to do it. To ensure that there wasn’t something wrong with our credential test file, we imported the test credentials to a fresh Bitwarden vault. Each was displayed as expected, with an icon and a title.

As you can tell from the pretty purple sidebar in the images above, you can customize Keeper’s color scheme. The option is available in the desktop app’s Settings menu. Desktop app accessibility options include the ability to make notifications linger for longer on the screen and the ability to zoom in on sections of the app windows using the keyboard.

Authentication Options

A basic feature that all password management apps should include is support for multi-factor authentication (MFA). Without MFA, anybody who guesses, steals, or hacks your master password can access your vault. To set up MFA with Keeper, head to the Settings section in the web interface, tap Security, and then toggle on Two-Factor Authentication.

What Is Two-Factor Authentication?

Keeper supports authentication via SMS, mobile authenticator apps, RSA SecureID, Duo Security, Keeper DNA (Keeper’s biometric authenticator), or hardware security keys. In testing, we didn’t have any trouble setting up MFA using Google Authenticator.

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Keeper can also function as an authenticator app for any password entry that supports Google Authenticator, which is a helpful feature. To set up this integration, navigate to a password entry, and click on the Add Two Factor Code button underneath the Custom Fields and File or Photos options. You can then upload a QR code or manually set up the connection to an account that allows authentication via Time-based One-Time Password apps. 

Keeper’s Data Privacy and Security Policies

Before we review and test a password manager, we send questions to the parent company to ask about its privacy and security practices. We want consumers to have plenty of information about the companies that handle their data. We’ve included Keeper’s responses to our questions below.

Has your company ever had a security breach?

No.

What unencrypted information does the password manager store in user vaults?

None. Every record in the Keeper vault is protected with AES 256-bit and zero-knowledge encryption. Because Keeper uses a zero-trust, zero-knowledge security architecture, it makes it a more secure product. All encryption and decryption operations occur on the user’s device upon login to their Keeper Vault. The user is the only person who can encrypt and decrypt their data.

What is the company’s policy regarding master passwords?

It is the user’s responsibility to protect the secrecy of their Keeper Master Password. The master password has a minimum required length of 12 characters although 16 characters is recommended.  Access to Keeper Security services is protected by a unique username/email and Master Password that is known by the user only. Keeper Security has designed internal security processes that encrypt customer passwords to protect them from being divulged or accessed by anyone other than the user. Neither Keeper Security employees nor contractors can obtain or access your master password. 

What is the company’s policy regarding user data collection and data sales?

Keeper Security does not collect, sell, market, or transact upon user information outside of its cybersecurity operations. Keeper Security collects limited personal information from customers who register with our services, including a username or email address and phone number for account verification and two-factor authentication. Keeper Security internally utilizes limited personal information on vendor-sourced software under strict confidentiality and security protocols to provide essential business services, including customer support, account management, analytics, payment processing, and live chat. The information we share is limited to email addresses and IP addresses. Keeper Security has data protection agreements with its vendors, which protect and relegate the use of customer information to essential business functions only. 

How does your company respond to requests for user information from governments and law enforcement?

Keeper Security does not have access to or knowledge of an account holder’s master password, encryption keys, or access to his or her Keeper vault. Accordingly, any account disclosure required by law under a subpoena would be limited to general account information such as the account holder’s name and account term.

Keeper Security may disclose aggregated user statistics in order to describe its services to prospective partners, affiliates, and other third parties for lawful purposes. Keeper Security will never disclose such data on an individual or identifiable basis to third parties except when it must comply with laws that require such disclosure to law enforcement authorities or other government third-party officials, such as subpoenas, or if disclosure is necessary to protect Keeper Security’s rights, its safety or the safety of others and to investigate fraud.

We appreciate Keeper’s thorough answers to most of our questions, and we found that the responses above match the company’s privacy policy. We also like the company’s robust security information and data collection policy sections on the corporate website.

What Notable Security Features Do You Get With Keeper?

In Keeper’s Settings menu, you can set up an Auto-Logout timer and choose whether you want to auto-approve devices from familiar IP addresses.

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We like that Keeper retains a list of your login activity in the Account section of the app. If you see a device logged in that you don’t recognize or an unfamiliar IP address, it’s time to investigate who’s accessing your password manager!

Self Destruct

The Keeper app has a feature called Self Destruct, which the company says erases all Keeper files stored on your device after five failed login attempts. Once you’re able to log in again, Keeper repopulates your vault on the device using a cloud backup.

Security Audit

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In the Keeper vault, you can view a Security Audit section, which rates your passwords from weak to strong and notes any reused passwords stored in your vault. It’s a feature similar to the password hygiene feature found in competing products like Dashlane and LogMeOnce.

BreachWatch

Keeper’s data breach monitoring is available as an add-on for $19.99 annually. 1Password and NordPass offer a similar data breach report scanning feature that’s included with a paid subscription. Bitwarden offers username-only data breach report scanning for both free and paid users.

Hands On With Keeper Password Manager

We tested Keeper’s password management apps using a desktop computer running Windows 10, Google’s Chrome browser, and an iPhone 12 mini.

Windows Desktop Application

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Like most password managers, Keeper captures passwords while you log in to secure sites. To start, log in as you normally would and then accept Keeper’s prompt to save those credentials. Alternatively, you can click the Keeper lock icons that appear in every username and password field to directly create a new login entry in Keeper. At this time, you can give the entry a friendly name and add a note. If you choose this method, Keeper will fill the credentials in on the page after you save the entry.

In testing, the Windows desktop app worked as expected. We could replay our existing credentials all around the web, and capturing newly created credentials was easy, too.

Chrome Browser Extension

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Keeper’s browser extension and password-filling tool is called KeeperFill. Clicking on the browser extension’s icon brings up a simple menu featuring the following items: Enable KeeperFill, Generate Password, Create New Record, Vault, Settings, User Guide, and Logout. Clicking Settings lets you toggle a dozen important features, such as whether Keeper should prompt you to create a new login and whether it should automatically submit filled-in credentials.

We like that the color theme setting syncs across the desktop and browser extension platforms. You can control autofill preferences on a per-site basis and use the domain-matching tool to ensure you are entering your credentials on a legitimate site. In testing, the Chrome version of the browser extension filled in our credentials and stored new passwords in the vault, as expected.

Password Generator

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Keeper’s password generator creates a new password any time you create a new record. If you’re logging in with an existing password, you simply overwrite the generated one. By default, it creates 20-character passwords using all character types (letters, numbers, and symbols), which meets the PCMag security team’s password recommendations.

Storage and Form Filling

You can attach a file or photo to any password entry in Keeper or create an entry to hold the attachment. With a free account, you can store five such attachments. If you want more, pay for a Personal plan and pay an additional $9.99 per year for 10GB of secure online storage, $39.99 for 50GB, or $79.99 per year for 100 GB. We’d prefer to see more robust storage offered to users as part of the subscription plans instead.

Keeper notably retains every version of every credential entry. You can scroll back through every password you’ve ever used for a given site and even restore an old version. You can also peruse all versions of files you’ve saved, as well as any entries you’ve deleted.

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Keeper can also store and use personal data to fill in web forms. Unlike 1Password and many others, Keeper doesn’t let you create multiple identities. Instead, you can only create a single identity, but you can use 18 record templates to fill in online forms. We found this feature helpful when storing multiple mailing addresses (billing, home, work) under a single identity.

Sharing and Emergency Access

Two ways to share your passwords with other users are via email access or Keeper’s One-Time Share feature. If you click on the Share button within a password entry in your Keeper vault, you can enter the email addresses of the people you want to access the credential. You can also determine whether users can edit, share, edit and share, or simply view the credential. You can also transfer ownership of the credential to someone else.

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Keeper’s One-Time Share feature cuts out the middleman and allows you to generate links to credentials and deliver them using Airdrop, email, QR codes, or SMS. Access to the link is restricted to the recipient’s device, and you can choose when the link expires. Even if a third party gets hold of the link, they can’t access it because they don’t have the original recipient’s device.

You can create a shared folder if you want to share multiple passwords with other users. Here, too, you can limit how much control you grant to the other users. To start, you get to say whether each user can add or remove users and add or remove records. You also control whether other users can edit or share each record. A small icon distinguishes shared folders from others.

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In the event of death or incapacitation, you may want to grant another person emergency access to your credentials. Keeper, Bitwarden, Dashlane, and several other password managers include a system to give a trusted friend or relative emergency read-only access to your accounts. To access these settings, go to Account and tap the button labeled Emergency Access.

From there, you can enter the email addresses of up to five trusted individuals who have a Keeper account. For each entry, you set a timeout period from no delay to three months. If one of your appointees requests access while you’re still alive, you get a notification and an opportunity to revoke their access. A similar feature in RoboForm allows a timeout of 30 days.

How Good Is Keeper’s Mobile App? 

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For mobile device testing, we used Keeper’s app on an iPhone running iOS 17.3.1. Keeper also offers an Android app. You can autofill credentials by enabling KeeperFill in the Settings menu on the app. The mobile apps operate as expected and include the functions found in the browser extension and desktop version of the app. In testing, Keeper didn’t have trouble creating, filling, or storing our passwords, and we did not experience any app crashes.

Like Bitwarden, Keeper’s app doubles as a mobile authenticator. After a recent update, you can use passkeys with Keeper, too. In testing, we found it easy create, store, and use passkeys in our vault. There’s also a Keeper app for Apple Watch, but we haven’t tested that platform yet.

Is Keeper Good For Business?

With Keeper’s Business tiers, each team member gets an encrypted password vault and the ability to share passwords and other information with coworkers. The business versions of Bitwarden and Dashlane also offer these features.

All of Keeper’s features from the Personal and Family tiers carry over to the Business plan, including the Security Audit scoring system. The BreachWatch add-on is also available for business users; it searches data breaches on the dark web for passwords used by anyone in the company and prompts users to change any compromised ones. Additionally, administrators can email users who disregard these requests and ask them to update their passwords.

If the worst happens and your business is the victim of a cyberattack, you’ll want to find out how the perpetrators got in and who is responsible for the security lapse. For an additional fee ($10 per person per year), Keeper enables you to generate custom reports for every user on your team that show logins, usage statistics, password resets, BreachWatch activities, and other security-related data. Competitor Zoho Vault’s business solution also lets you view comprehensive reports on password hygiene and user access.

To further encourage excellent password-keeping habits, Keeper offers a free Family account to all employees enrolled under a business account. If an employee leaves the company, they get to keep their Family plan with all their passwords, and the plan reverts to a free trial for 30 days.

Is Keeper Right For You?

Keeper offers attractive applications for all the platforms and browsers you could want, and its subscription plans deliver secure password protection across unlimited devices and emergency access. The apps are good, but the hiccups we encountered when importing credentials, the added fees for file storage and data breach monitoring, and the free tier’s limited usability hurt Keeper’s score. Bitwarden remains our Editors’ Choice award winner in the category because of its low price and helpful features.