Password managers fail in families for one reason: someone sets it up perfectly for themselves and then tries to convert everyone else. Do it in this order instead and it usually sticks.
Step 1: Pick a family plan, not individual accounts
Family plans cost roughly the same as two individual ones and cover up to five or six people. More importantly they include a shared vault, which is the feature that makes the whole thing work — the streaming logins, the router password and the utility accounts live in one place everyone can reach.
Step 2: Set up your own vault first
Install it on your phone and computer, import the passwords saved in your browser, and use it for a week before involving anyone else. You want to have already hit the annoying parts before you are answering questions about them.
Step 3: Write down the master password. On paper.
Each person needs one strong master password, and it must not be stored in the manager it unlocks. Write it on paper and keep it somewhere sensible at home. Also save the account recovery kit — most services give you one, and it is the only way back in if the master password is lost.
Step 4: Add family members one at a time
Sit with each person, install it on their phone, and migrate five accounts they actually use — email, banking, the shop they buy from most. Not everything. The goal is one working habit, not a complete migration on day one.
Step 5: Move the shared logins
Put the household accounts in the shared vault and delete them from wherever they were before — a notes app, a message thread, the back of a drawer. This is the step that pays for the whole exercise.
Step 6: Turn on two-factor authentication
Start with email, because email resets everything else. Then banking. Most managers can store the codes themselves, which removes the last excuse anyone has for skipping it.
