How 1Password Created Better Products and Relationships with their Community
Founded in 2006, 1Password has surpassed competitors to become the market leader in password management. The solution keeps customer data secure without compromising convenience or productivity.
The
Challenges
After building a community forum with another provider, 1Password felt it was time to move on due to platform instabilities.
The
Search
As 1Password grew, they wanted to ensure their community could grow with them. They sought a software that could enable their own growth, provide stability to their brand and customers, and that could provide an excellent level of support and experience for their customers.
The
Launch
The team was excited to finally have a platform that was reliable and that could help them really connect with their customers. With high hopes for a great software, they were excited to get their Higher Logic Vanilla community up and running.
The
Results
The outcome of a Higher Logic Vanilla powered community has been exceptional! Along with deepening customer connections, finding new team members to add to the 1Password family – the 1Password community has 25,000 beta testers and helped to increase traffic by 108%.
“Vanilla helps to humanize 1Password – it reminds our team of who 1Password is for and who it strives to serve. The answer? Everyone, not just us folks working at the company. “
Mike Tselikman, Senior QA Specialist at 1Password

The Challenges:
An Ailing Solution
Initially, 1Password saw their community as a way to provide support to their users. However, they were using software that just wasn’t performing to the level they needed.
“When the forum was most busy at the most critical time, it would stop working. It’s the equivalent of an e-commerce shop failing on Black Friday. We just couldn’t continue this way.”
1Password found they were underserving their customers without a stable platform to provide fast and efficient support, as well as a place to connect, interact, and engage.
It was time to find a better solution. The team needed to find a software that could grow with the company and enable them to do better for their customers.
Pain Points
No Dedicated Space
1Password wanted to provide a space for customers to both connect with the brand and engage with one another. Their current space just wasn’t cutting it.
Failing Support
As a vessel for support, 1Password’s current online community was failing at the most critical times. Customers weren’t getting efficient support.
Poor Platform Capabilities
The unstable community software was beginning to reflect poorly on the brand and have negative impact on brand-customer relationships.
The Search:
Fit Like a Glove
The time had come to move on from their current provider; they wanted a solution that could grow as 1Password would.
The 1Password team had experienced a bad fit solution and were ready to start their search with a comprehensive checklist.
It was super important that they created a space their customers came to for support, but also came to engage with one another and the company. One of the top priorities of their search was to find a provider that could help them create this.
And then, they found Vanilla.
Compared with competitors, Vanilla topped the list of community software providers, but even as a standalone option, Vanilla was 1Password’s top choice. The features Vanilla offered out-of-the-box proved that an online community could be both affordable and effective.
The 1Password team relies heavily on customer feedback to build their product and without a reliable, dedicated space for customers to offer their knowledge and advice, they found they were missing out.
“During our product development process, for example during beta tests, the community was meant to act as a tool to engage with customers, and it just wasn’t performing.”
Answers in the community are automatically indexed within the platform – a key benefit of Vanilla – making it that much easier for users to find the answers they’re looking for, no matter how much time has lapsed.
Vanilla fit 1Password’s needs like a glove!

Knowledge Base
“It was really important that we could create a space where our customers and our employees were able to share information that could help our support system in the long run.”

Product Ideation
“Our customers are a huge part of our product development process so we wanted to ensure they had the ability to offer us insight and advice on where to bring 1Password.”

A Partner Provider
“We had experienced a platform that just wasn’t reliable and this time around, we wanted to choose a community provider that could grow with us.”
The Launch:
An Easy Transition
At Vanilla, we know that migrating a community can be stressful but the 1Password team felt comfortable in the hands of Vanilla’s team.
Migrating 1Password from their old platform over to their new, and improved Vanilla community was smooth and the transition in the time after was even better than expected.
Despite having several years of content to transition, the Vanilla team got it done in record time. The process was simple and stress-free.
The 1Password community was up and running in no time, and the benefits the company reaped were almost instantaneous.
The Outcomes:
Deep, Meaningful Connections
After the launch of the 1Password community on the Vanilla platform, the community has gone from strength to strength.
In a short time, a one-time support forum has become so much more than that. Once acting only as a part of a support solution, the 1Password community has become a central business driver.
1Password’s new community has enabled the company to create meaningful connections with customers, and indeed it has kept staff grounded, and to task with the essence of 1Password.
“The forum has very much become a community, not just your run-of-the-mill forum where people are simply looking for support but rather a place of active constructive discussions and sharing of opinions.”
The community has encouraged engagement between employees and customers, as well as creating better interaction between customers. It’s even been the source of new employees at 1Password!
“A great example of an inter-customer relationship within the 1Password Community forum is that of “MrC” – an incredible community member who’s been a 1Password customer since the very beginning. Over the years, he has created all of our import scripts and has even guided other users through them; he’s even fixed the scripts when bugs were detected. MrC is just one example of the many committed and incredibly helpful community members that we have in our Vanilla Community.”
1Password have also used their community to build better products with the help of their customers. In fact, over 25,000 beta users were directed to the community to help test and build 1Password for Mac!
The community has become the primary venue for interacting with devoted Beta and Early Access users. The forum has been instrumental in helping 1Password define their priorities – in particular, the open and multi-directional discussions and feedback they’ve received from the community have been extremely helpful: they actually built out 1Password 8’s feature set.
Overall, the community has even helped 1Password’s visibility. In just two years, the community directly contributed to a 108% increase in SEO traffic – an astounding number!
25,000
Beta Users Directed to the Community
108%
Increase in SEO Traffic
Reflecting on the 1Password Journey
1Password knew that they needed to make a change when it came to their online forum. Making the switch to a Vanilla powered community resulted in so much more than they had hoped for. In fact, the 1Password community has gone from strength-to-strength for almost a decade. If you’re thinking of making the switch, or even establishing a new community, don’t hesitate to reach out and chat with our experts. Find out what Vanilla can do for you!
See Something You Like?
Let's connect and discuss how we can help you build a strong and thriving community.
Book My Demo