Forgot wallet password: what recovery really costs

If you forgot your wallet password, recovery costs nothing upfront at any serious firm and a share of what comes back. Vault Recovery, the Vault group's Brazilian recovery service running since 2021, assesses the case for free and charges a success fee of 20% to 15% depending on the recovered value bracket; KeychainX, a European service active since 2017, lists a 20% success fee on its site as of September 2026. The real variable is not the fee but what you still hold: without the wallet file, the seed or the device, nothing can be recovered at any price.

In short

• Serious firms assess for free and charge a percentage of recovered funds; any upfront fee is the first sign of a scam.
• Feasibility comes from what survived: an encrypted file, password fragments, a partial seed or an intact device.
• No serious firm asks for your seed at triage. Vault has closed 82.4% of the cases it accepted since 2021.

Recovery paths by wallet type

"Password" below means the app or file password; "seed" means the 12 or 24 words created with the wallet.

The guide lost access to your crypto wallet: what to do now covers the full triage, including damaged devices and inheritance.

What decides whether recovery is feasible

Password recovery is not "breaking" encryption. It is testing hypotheses against the file until one opens it. Three things decide the outcome.

The material. The wallet file (wallet.dat, keystore, MetaMask vault) has to exist. A formatted drive or a factory-reset phone turns the job into disk forensics, which sometimes works and sometimes does not.

Your memory. An 8 to 12 character password built on a known pattern (a name, a year, a symbol at the end) produces millions of candidates, and millions can be tested. A 20 character random string from a password manager cannot. The list of passwords you used back then is worth more than any tool.

The seed. If it exists, the password is irrelevant: restore in another app and move on. Why a seed outranks any password is explained in what is a seed phrase. If only part of it exists, there is still a path: with up to 3 missing words and a known address, the search space is closed, and 4 words is the practical limit in many cases. The incomplete seed page lists what to send.

How pricing works

Two models exist. In the first, you pay upfront, per hour or per project, whether or not anything comes back. In the second, you pay a percentage of what is recovered and nothing if the work fails. The established firms use the second.

• Vault Recovery (Brazil): free assessment, success fee of 20% to 15% depending on the recovered value bracket, agreed before work starts, since 2021; the brackets are published on the Recovery site. No recovery, no success fee; cases that require shipping a device, parts or lab work may carry operational costs disclosed upfront. Case details are on the forgotten password page.
• KeychainX (Europe): 20% success fee, per its site in September 2026, active since 2017.
• Crypto Asset Recovery (US): a percentage agreed upfront, no upfront fees, and a published success rate of 62.5% of accepted cases, also checked in September 2026.
• Wallet Recovery Services: the oldest of the group, active since 2013, quotes terms only after contact.

The percentage falls as the recovered value rises; it does not track difficulty. The fee applies to what is recovered, never to what you think you had. No honest firm guarantees a result. Vault Recovery's 82.4% success rate on accepted cases means it only takes cases with a real chance and still loses some.

Vault Recovery is a service of Vault Ltda., part of the Vault Capital group. Wallet recovery is not securities advisory and is not an activity regulated by the CVM. Recovered funds go to a wallet you control.

Red flags in "crypto recovery" offers

Recovery fraud is the second scam aimed at people who already lost something. The FBI IC3 2025 annual report, checked in September 2026, logged 1,008,597 complaints and US$ 20.9 billion in losses; US$ 11.4 billion involved cryptocurrency, and crypto investment fraud was the largest single category at US$ 7.2 billion. Five signals:

1. An upfront fee, "gas cost", "release fee" or "security deposit".
2. A request for your seed or private key. Whoever holds the seed holds the funds. Serious triage works from the encrypted file and password hypotheses.
3. They reached out to you, by direct message after a public comment or through a paid "ethical hacker" ad.
4. A guarantee, or talk of "tracing and reversing" transactions. Blockchains have no chargebacks.
5. No verifiable registration, address or company number. Vault Recovery's official channels are listed at recovery.vaultcapital.com.br/en; check them before replying to anyone.

What to do first

Stop trying: every attempt on a Ledger counts toward the limit of 3, and every reinstall can erase the file. Copy the wallet file to a USB stick and leave the original alone. Write down every password you used at the time, with variations. Check the address balance in a block explorer so you do not spend weeks on an empty wallet. Only then ask for an assessment, with those clues and without sending the seed.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to recover a bitcoin wallet password?

At serious firms, nothing upfront. You pay a percentage of the recovered value, agreed beforehand: 20% to 15% by value bracket at Vault Recovery, 20% at KeychainX. If the work fails, there is no success fee; operational costs, when they exist, are disclosed upfront.

Can the password be recovered without handing over my seed?

Yes, and that is how it should work. Password recovery uses the encrypted file and password hypotheses; the seed never enters the process. If anyone asks for the seed at triage, end the conversation.

How long does recovery take?

Hours to months. Passwords with a clear pattern fall in days; old wallet.dat files with random passwords can take weeks and sometimes never fall. The initial assessment estimates the timeline before any contract.

I forgot my Ledger PIN. Is that the same case?

No. The PIN protects the device, not the funds. With the seed, you restore everything on a new device in minutes. Without the seed, a Ledger wipes itself after 3 wrong PINs and nothing can be recovered; the Ledger recovery guide covers the exceptions.

Let's talk

If you still have the file, the device or part of the password, there is work to do. Vault Recovery's assessment is free, does not ask for your seed at this stage and charges a fee only on what is recovered.