Perhaps in a situation like this, restrict family plans from all sharing the same corporate email URL. For example, if you link two family plans together, 50% or less can share the same email URL (@mycompany.com) - whitelisting @gmail, @hotmail, etc. Obviously, some companies are cheap and all use @gmail.com addresses for their team, which is silly. On the flip, some (rare) families share a family URL (@smithfamily.com). But if your family can afford your own email domain and paid email accounts, Bitwarden team accounts should be within your budget. lol
I think the main point is being able to admin a family plan for your large immediate family or extended family and share some passwords amongst the group. Having an integrated authenticator (TOTP) and vault health/password coaching are helpful, too. I’m trying to keep my family safe as painlessly as possible.
I’m not worried about Bitwarden Send or file sharing (I can share through OneDrive or Google Drive for that). And the Teams/Enterprise features: Event and audit logs; Organization two-step login via Duo, User groups, Directory Connector, SCIM support, Passwordless SSO integration, Policies, Access Intelligency, Custom roles, Account recovery workflow, aren’t needed either.
Perhaps capping family plans at 8 or 10 seats (original 6, purchasable seats capped at 2 or 4)? There are other features in the Teams subscription that are not available in a Family plan. The Duo MFA option can also be removed since Duo is by subscription. If you can afford to have Duo, you can afford the Teams plan.
@Micah_Edelblut Thank you, I appreciate the candid reply. I’m sure we all suspected something like this, but to confirm it and be on the same page is appreciated. Even if I disagree.
I hope Bitwarden understands that its family users want this feature and that Bitwarden will strongly consider some of the ideas in this thread.
I agree with many of the ideas in this thread (and disagree with others). There are many levers to tweak to make this work rather than the current complete switch from Families to Teams
the idea of not giving a the 7+ persons premium features through the family
Allow only a separately paid premium account to join a family
This is a steep +$20 per year for that 7+ persons, but more reasonable than the (+$288) switch to Teams.
Limiting fine grained sharing and permission features for families
Linking 2 family plans as an option (or alternatively a new “Large family” plan). Again a steep +$48 per year for the 7th person (7-12 users), but still better than the switch to Teams.
I do disagree with:
Taking away current features
limiting number of collections (though if something has to give, then I can live with this)
limiting based on domain
whitelisting certain domains is a whack a mole game
@jonathandotbz suggested that a family use of custom domain would put you within a “teams” budget. - Strongly disagree here. A custom domain can be had for Single digit $ per year costs, and can include free or low cost email forwarding to a free provider (like gmail).
This is more complicated than one might imagine at least in part because anyone can front their true email with an mail anonymizer (e.g. proton, nord, addy, etc.).
Also, one need not be rich to have a custom email domain. Cloudflare, for one, offers email forwarding for no more than the cost of the domain itself (~$12/yr).
@seancole40 & @DenBesten, points noted. I use my own domain for my email, but family use standard gmail / hotmail accounts. I was trying to think of a way to lock out “typical” businesses from abusing multiple Family licenses while still allowing “typical” family setups to, perhaps, join two family plans together.