Virtual data room pricing
Of the 18 rooms on our leaderboard, 8 print a starting price, between $15 and $299 monthly; the other 10 are priced per project on request. Here is how to budget for both.
Cost calculator
Set your term and the number of paid users on your side. Rooms with a published price show an exact entry-price total; quote-only rooms show a market range for the project size you pick.
Entry-price totals for 6 months
Totals use each vendor's lowest published tier in US dollars, so larger plans, storage, extra admins and tax push the real bill up. Ranges for quoted rooms describe the market, not any one vendor. Get a written figure from the provider before you commit.
Published entry prices
Published entry prices, lowest to highest
| Provider | Entry price | Trial | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
 Box | $15 per user/mo | Free trial offered | 81 |
 Onehub | $15 a month | Free trial offered | 74 |
 DocSend | $45 per user/mo | Free trial offered | 65 |
 Citrix ShareFile | $55 a month | Free trial offered | 80 |
 Digify | $120 a month | Free trial offered | 68 |
 Ellty | $149 a month | 14-day free trial | 92 |
 SecureDocs | $250 a month | Free trial offered | 77 |
 CapLinked | $299 a month | Free trial offered | 77 |
Priced on request, oldest company first: Intralinks (1996), Datasite (1999), Drooms (2001), ShareVault (2003), SmartRoom (2004), Ansarada (2005), Firmex (2006), iDeals (2008), DealRoom (2012), Venue by DFIN (2016).
How data rooms are priced
Three ways data rooms are priced
One price for the room or plan, however many outside parties log in.
Ellty, Citrix ShareFile, CapLinked, SecureDocs, Onehub, DigifyPrice grows with each paid user; outside reviewers may or may not count.
Box, DocSendScoped by pages or storage, term, users and service level after a call.
iDeals, Datasite, Ansarada, Intralinks, Firmex, Drooms, SmartRoom, DealRoom, ShareVault, Venue by DFINHow a room charges matters more than the sticker figure. Under a flat monthly fee the bill does not move when the outside reviewer count goes from a handful to several dozen, which suits auctions and fundraising rounds with many investors. Seat-based billing starts low and climbs with every paid login, which works for a few in-house users dealing with a single counterparty. Quoted pricing bundles pages or storage, term, users and service, and is the norm for large transactions where a vendor's project team does part of the setup.
Market estimates for quoted rooms, by project size (USD a month, not any vendor's price):
| Project size | What it looks like | Typical monthly range |
|---|---|---|
| Single counterparty | One buyer or investor, up to a few thousand pages | $600 to $2,000 |
| Managed auction | A short list of bidders (roughly 3 to 10) with a formal Q&A log | $1,500 to $5,000 |
| Broad or cross-border auction | A wide bidder field, a busy Q&A log and a long timetable | $4,000 to $12,000 |
Worked examples at entry prices
Three common shapes of project, priced with each published entry price. Entry tiers bundle different things, so read these totals as a floor, not a quote.
| Provider | Seed round, 3 months, 2 users | Company sale, 6 months, 5 users | Long auction, 12 months, 10 users |
|---|---|---|---|
| Box | $90 | $450 | $1,800 |
| Onehub | $45 | $90 | $180 |
| DocSend | $270 | $1,350 | $5,400 |
| Citrix ShareFile | $165 | $330 | $660 |
| Digify | $360 | $720 | $1,440 |
| Ellty | $447 | $894 | $1,788 |
| SecureDocs | $750 | $1,500 | $3,000 |
| CapLinked | $897 | $1,794 | $3,588 |
Costs to ask about before you sign
Quoted plans often cap pages or gigabytes. Get the price per unit above the cap on paper.
Deals slip. Find out the charge for every month the room stays open past the agreed term.
Seat-based plans get dearer each time a colleague or adviser joins.
A view-only copy of the room plus its audit log, delivered on an encrypted drive or by download, is sometimes a separate line item.
Bulk upload assistance, indexing and a dedicated manager are sometimes paid services.
Some vendors include AI features in every tier, others charge for them. Price both options.
Getting a fair quote
How to get comparable data room quotes
- 1Write down the scope
Estimate pages or gigabytes, the number of outside parties, your own admins, and the term in months. Add two months of buffer.
- 2Ask three vendors for the same scope
Send identical numbers to every vendor, including at least one with a published price as a benchmark.
- 3Get the monthly rate after the term
Get the monthly charge that applies after the committed term in writing, and ask whether it can go up.
- 4Check caps and overages
Find out what happens at a page, storage or user cap, and the price per unit above it.
- 5Price the end of the deal
Ask the price of a closing archive (documents plus audit log) and how many weeks of view-only access you keep once the deal completes.
- 6Compare like with like
Put each quote into the calculator above with the same term and users, then weigh the difference against what each tier includes.
Data room pricing questions
How much does a virtual data room cost?
Among the providers we track, published entry prices run from $15 to $299 a month. Quote-only rooms are scoped per project; a common market range is commonly somewhere from $5,000 to over $50,000 for a whole project, set by scope, length and service level. Treat these as guides and check them with each vendor.
Why do so many data room vendors keep prices off their websites?
Big projects differ widely in volume, users, term and support, so many vendors prefer to scope each one. A published price is easier to budget but may cover a fixed set of features per tier.
Is per-user or flat pricing cheaper?
Per-user pricing is cheaper for one or two internal users; flat pricing usually wins once several advisers and colleagues need paid seats. Run both through the calculator with your own numbers.
Which extra charges should I raise before signing?
Overage on pages or storage, the rate once the committed term is over, extra admins, archive at close, paid setup or indexing help, and AI add-ons where they are sold separately.
Is data room pricing negotiable?
Often, particularly on quoted plans and longer terms. Rival quotes for an identical scope, a firm start date and a multi-deal commitment are the strongest levers.