Keeper review: An easy-to-use password manager with top-notch security features

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• Keeper offers secure password management starting at $34.99 annually for individual users and $74.99 annually for families of up to five. Secure file storage and data breach alerts are available as add-ons starting at $9.99 per year and $19.99 per year, respectively. 
• Keeper offers the essentials of password management with an easy-to-learn interface and excellent user guides. It also has more granular settings for record types and encrypted sharing than some competitors. 
• Keeper’s free tier is extremely limited, with just 10 items allowed on a single mobile device, and several of its premium features come at an added cost. 

When browsing, banking, or shopping online, it’s inconvenient to have to track down account passwords or pull out your wallet to remember your credit card number (or locate and text the streaming login to your family members for the hundredth time). A good password manager — like Keeper — puts this information securely at your fingertips, so you can access it across devices and browsers when you need it. 

Also: The best password managers: Expert tested

Keeper offers two paid plans: a personal subscription for a single user costs $34.99 per year, while a family plan with up to five private vaults is billed at $74.99 per year. Both include the essentials like unlimited records, secure sharing, and passkey support as well as premium features like password health reports, emergency access, and an offline mode. A family subscription includes 10GB of secure file storage, which individual users can add on for $9.99 per year (with options to upgrade to 50GB or 100GB of storage). 

Keeper’s real-time dark web monitoring feature, BreachWatch, also comes at an additional cost: $19.99 per year for individual users and $39.99 per year for families. The service is currently our pick for the best password manager for security.

Keeper does have a free tier, but it is extremely limited — 10 vault records accessible on one mobile device — and likely won’t be much use to most people. The company offers a 30-day trial of Keeper Unlimited, so you can try the service and features before you commit to a subscription. Keeper is multi-platform with a web vault; apps for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android; and browser extensions for Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Brave, and Opera. 

Installation and setup process

Get started with Keeper by signing up for a 30-day free trial. All you need to do is enter your email address and set up a master password. You’ll receive a verification code via email, which you’ll need to finish creating your account and gain access to your web vault. 

Once you are in, follow Keeper’s on-screen onboarding wizard to import passwords, install the appropriate browser extensions, and set up account recovery (you can come back to these at any time if you skip them). Keeper has instructions for importing records from more than two dozen password managers and browsers if you are migrating from another service, or you can add individual vault records by choosing from nearly 20 item types (from logins and payment cards to health insurance and software licenses). During my testing, importing and creating records worked smoothly, and new and updated items synced quickly across my devices. 

Keeper offers account recovery via a generated passphrase, which you can use to access your vault if you forget your master password. Download and save this somewhere secure. 

You’ll also want to install any applicable browser extensions and desktop apps. Most of Keeper’s core features are available in the web vault, but the desktop app allows biometric unlock and comes with KeeperFill for Apps, which gives you quick access to your data from the system tray or menu bar of your computer and autofills credentials in native apps. Finally, download the Keeper app for your mobile device. 

Keeper’s user interface is clean and consistent across platforms, and the guided onboarding and detailed support pages make setup easy to navigate even if you are newer to password management.

Keeper basics 

With Keeper, I found it easy to create new logins and passwords, save them to your vault, and autofill across browsers and apps on both mobile and desktop. Keeper has record types for everything from bank accounts to birth certificates with the option to add custom fields (like the last four digits of your Social Security number) that can be matched to specific login requirements. 

You can also add an identity/address and payment methods; however, these are not automatically suggested in form fields and require several manual steps to fill. Payment cards can also (confusingly) be added to and stored in your vault in two ways, and those in my main Identity & Payments tab were not visible in my Chrome extension, though they did populate in the autofill context menu. 

Keeper has more flexible sharing settings than some of its competitors. You can share items with other Keeper users and set the permission levels as well as one-time, read-only shares (or self-destructing records that automatically disappear from your vault after they are viewed) for those without Keeper accounts. Keeper supports biometrics for apps on iOS, Android, MacOS, and Windows and can fill time-based one-time password (TOTP) codes and passkeys for sites that support them. 

Your Keeper vault is protected with 256-bit AES encryption and requires a master password and an optional two-factor authentication method (such as an authenticator app or physical security key) to open. Keeper has a unique self-destruct feature, which will wipe any locally stored data after five failed login attempts, such as in the event your device is lost or stolen. Your vault is restored with a correct login. 

Unique features (and how well they work)

All paid Keeper users have access to vault security audits, which show a security score as well as passwords that are weak or reused. You can launch the affected website directly from the record to change your login credentials. If you add BreachWatch to your subscription, Keeper will also scan your passwords and notify you if any have been exposed or compromised. BreachWatch can be accessed in the web vault as well as desktop and mobile apps. This is a useful feature, though some password management tools include it at no additional cost. 

Keeper’s legacy feature allows you to grant up to five Keeper users emergency access to your vault in the event you are incapacitated. You can allow immediate access or designate a waiting period ranging from 24 hours to three months — the countdown begins once the user tries to log into your vault. This feature takes several steps to set up, as you have to enable a “sharing relationship” with the user before you can add them as an emergency contact, and it does require them to also have a Keeper account. 

Finally, Keeper allows offline access to your data in the event you don’t have a network connection. Offline mode saves an encrypted copy of your vault to your local device, which is unlocked only upon entering your master password or enabled biometrics. Like emergency access, this feature must be enabled before it can be used. However, it works across platforms (unless your mobile device has settings enabled that prevent it).

ZDNET’s buying advice

Keeper is a relatively intuitive password manager with a clean, consistent interface and unique features like emergency access for five trusted contacts and an offline mode. The guided setup process, comprehensive user guides, and customer support options are nice if you are newer to password management or any of Keeper’s features — this may be especially helpful in figuring out some of the clunkier features like filling payment cards. Finally, while some users may appreciate the flexibility to pay for data breach monitoring and file storage only if needed, other password managers include these features at similar or lower cost.