9 Best Data Rooms for Due Diligence, With Prices (2026)

An investor likes your pitch and asks for the data room. Or a buyer signs an NDA and sends a request list that runs for pages. Either way, you need one place where the other side can read everything. And you want to see what they read. This guide compares nine data room software providers for those two jobs, with the prices each one publishes. Full disclosure: Waveup doesn't sell data room software. We prepare the documents that go inside, and we explain that near the end.

It depends on the job. For a seed or Series A raise, a light room with tracked links is enough: DocSend, Papermark or Peony. For an M&A sale, buyers expect a full virtual data room with Q&A, permissions and an audit trail. Datasite and Intralinks are the big names on large deals. Ansarada, SecureDocs and FirmRoom publish prices for smaller ones.

Data rooms for due diligence compared at a glance

They fall into two groups. Light rooms like DocSend, Papermark and Peony are built around tracked links for decks and documents, and they suit a fundraise. Full virtual data rooms like Datasite, Intralinks, Ansarada, Firmex, SecureDocs and FirmRoom are built for M&A. They add Q&A, finer permissions and audit trails, and most cost more.

We picked well-known rooms for each job and checked each one on its own website in October 2026. A price appears only where the provider publishes it. Prices change, so check the page before you sign.

What is the best data room for startups raising a round?

For most seed and Series A rounds, a light room is enough. You want tracked links, an email or NDA gate, page-by-page analytics and folders you can set up in a day. DocSend is the one many investors already know. Papermark and Peony do the same job, have free plans and cost less for one or two founders.

Investor diligence is fairly short. For a Series A, Carta says it typically runs four to six weeks (Carta). It mostly starts once the term sheet is signed. YC's advice is to have the room ready before you sign. It says that can cut as much as a week off closing (Y Combinator). YC adds that closing a Series A can take more than a month, much of it spent tracking down documents for lawyers. Investors who read your monthly updates will also check that the room's numbers match them.

1. DocSend: the tracked link investors know

DocSend is part of Dropbox. You send a link instead of an attachment. You get an alert when someone opens it, and page-by-page analytics show what they read. You can also revoke access after you've sent it.

Data rooms start on the Advanced plan, at $150 a month billed yearly with three users. That plan adds NDAs, dynamic watermarks and file-level security. Advanced Data Rooms, at $180 a month, adds an audit log, automatic indexing and due diligence tracking. There's no free plan, only a 14-day trial.

Best for — founders who want a familiar tool and a simple room for one raise.

2. Papermark: the open-source DocSend alternative

Papermark is an open-source tool for document sharing and data rooms. You can use the hosted version or run it on your own servers. Its Data Rooms plan includes NDAs, dynamic watermarks, file-level permissions and data room analytics.

There's a free plan for sharing up to 50 documents. The Data Rooms plan costs $119 a month billed yearly, for three team members. Month to month, it's $179.

Best for — founders on a tight budget, and teams that want to host the room themselves.

3. Peony: priced per admin, with room to grow

Peony charges per admin, and viewers are free. Its Data Room plan adds dynamic watermarks, a signed-NDA flow, granular permissions, an audit trail and basic Q&A. The Deal Team plan adds advanced Q&A and redaction for M&A. It costs $64 per admin a month billed yearly, for at least four admins.

There's a free plan for up to 50 documents. Data Room costs $52 per admin a month billed yearly. Month to month, it's $75. Peony itself suggests a cheaper plan for decks, then Data Room once diligence starts.

Best for — founders who want a cheap room now and an M&A-ready plan later.

Also worth a look: Digify, Carta and a shared Google Drive

Digify is strong on document control. Its Team plan adds Q&A, dynamic watermarks and protection that follows a file after download, still in preview. Plans start at $140 a month, billed monthly.

If your cap table is on Carta Launch, Carta says you can create a data room for free. Some seed rounds simply run on a shared Google Drive folder or a Notion page. It costs nothing, and every investor can open it. Move to a proper room once a lead investor starts diligence.

Which are the best virtual data room providers for an M&A sale?

Buyers expect a full virtual data room in a sale. Look for Q&A, permissions by bidder and by file, watermarks, redaction and a complete audit trail. Datasite and Intralinks are the big names on large deals. Ansarada, SecureDocs and FirmRoom publish their prices. Firmex quotes per project or by subscription.

A sale room also stays open far longer. On Datasite's platform, median active diligence took 181 days in the first half of 2026 (Datasite). That's Datasite's own data, not the whole market. Still, plan for months, not weeks.

If you're preparing a sale, start with our guide to selling your startup. The sell-side M&A process shows where the data room fits, step by step.

4. Datasite: built for large M&A

Datasite Diligence is a virtual data room for sell-side M&A. It has Q&A with a full audit trail, AI search across the room, translation, redaction and analytics on buyer activity. Support runs around the clock in more than 20 languages.

Datasite says it handles about 16,000 new deals a year. Prices are quoted per transaction. You can start preparing a room free for 90 days.

Best for — large or cross-border sales run by a bank, with many bidders.

5. Intralinks: for bank-led deals

Intralinks VDRPro is SS&C's virtual data room. Its page lists bulk Q&A, AI redaction of personal data and granular permissions. It can also pull a document back after someone has downloaded it.

Intralinks says more than 10,000 M&A deals close on its platform each year. Prices aren't published, so you'll need a quote.

Best for — large, bank-led or regulated deals that need its security features.

6. Ansarada: published prices by data and months

Ansarada shows its full price grid. You pick how much data you need and for how long. The longer the term, the lower the monthly price. The room is free to set up until it goes live, for up to 90 days.

The cheapest plan is $244 a month, for the smallest room on a 12-month term. Its pricing page notes that projects typically run 9 to 12 months. Its AI tools sort, redact and translate documents, and help with Q&A.

Best for — mid-market sales that want a known price before they start.

7. Firmex: per project or by subscription

Firmex has offices in Toronto and London. It covers the core M&A kit: Q&A, redaction, watermarks and single sign-on. A View As mode shows you exactly what each user can see.

You choose a single project, priced by data and length, or a yearly subscription for repeat deals. Prices come with a quote.

Best for — advisers and companies that run more than one deal a year.

8. SecureDocs: flat fee, no sales call

SecureDocs is now part of Onit. You can set up a room yourself in about ten minutes, without talking to sales. Flat fees start at $250 a month and include unlimited users and documents.

You get audit trail reports, activity alerts, Q&A, custom NDAs and two-factor login. You can host the data in the US or in Europe.

Best for — smaller sales, long processes and companies that want a standing deal-ready folder.

9. FirmRoom: month-to-month by storage

FirmRoom charges a flat monthly rate by storage, with unlimited users. Every plan includes watermarks, granular permissions, an NDA workflow, redaction and a full audit trail.

The smallest plan costs $395 a month and holds about 20,000 pages. Billing is month to month, and there's a 14-day trial. For full deal management, FirmRoom's own page points you to DealRoom.

Best for — small and mid-size sales that want month-to-month billing.

Also worth a look: iDeals and DealRoom

iDeals is another established M&A data room. Its Core plan covers one project with five admins, unlimited users, Q&A, AI redaction and e-signatures. Prices come with a quote, and there's a free trial.

DealRoom is less a data room than an M&A workspace for buyers. It joins up pipeline, diligence and integration. It's priced by deal volume on a yearly plan, and prices aren't published.

What are the best DocSend alternatives?

The closest DocSend alternatives are Papermark and Peony. Both track reading page by page, gate access behind an email or NDA, and add data rooms on paid plans. Unlike DocSend, both have free plans. Papermark is open source, and Peony prices per admin. Digify suits teams that care most about control after a file is downloaded.

Why switch? Price is the usual reason. DocSend has no free plan, and its first plan with data rooms costs $150 a month billed yearly. For one or two founders, Papermark and Peony cost less for a room.

You may also have read that Dropbox killed DocSend's tracking. It didn't. On 31 March 2025, Dropbox retired Send and track, a separate tracking feature inside Dropbox, and pointed users to DocSend (Dropbox Community). DocSend still sells page-by-page tracking.

How much does a virtual data room cost?

Published prices in 2026 start with free plans for a few documents. At the top, a large room on a short term costs about $2,800 a month. Fundraising rooms cost roughly $50 to $300 a month. Full M&A rooms cost hundreds to thousands a month. Datasite, Intralinks and Firmex quote per deal.

Providers charge in four ways. Per page means you pay for every page you upload. Several rooms market against it: FirmRoom, Peony and DealRoom all say they don't charge per page.

Per user means you pay for each admin or seat, while viewers are free. Peony and Papermark work this way. Flat monthly means one fee for a storage tier, like SecureDocs and FirmRoom. Per project means a price for one deal's data and time. Ansarada publishes its grid, while Firmex and iDeals quote.

The term matters as much as the rate. Say you're selling a company with about 1 GB of documents, and diligence runs six months. Here's what that room costs at published prices.

On Ansarada, the same room costs over $3,000 more on the month-to-month rate than on the 6-month plan. But a 12-month plan wastes money if the deal closes in four. Ask what happens when you go over your storage, too. FirmRoom bills $150 per extra GB a month, and Ansarada charges for extra data until the term ends.

What should a data room for due diligence include?

Start with an index the other side will recognise: company and cap table, financials, customers, contracts, IP, people, tax and compliance. In a sale, add a Q&A folder and the deal papers. A fundraise needs the first few folders in full and key documents from the rest. A sale needs everything, in depth.

Here's the index we'd start from. Number the folders, keep the numbers fixed and follow the order of the request list you're sent.

For the full request list by stage, use our due diligence checklist. If you're new to data rooms, start with what a data room is and how to set one up. In a sale, the CIM sits at the top of the room and frames everything below it.

How do you choose a data room for due diligence?

Start with the job. For a raise, pick a room investors can open without friction that shows you who read what. For a sale, test Q&A, permissions and the audit trail with a dummy bidder before you launch. Then price your real data size and deal length, not the headline rate.

One last test. Ask two people outside the company to find three documents in the room. If they can't do it in a minute, fix the index before you blame the software.

Who should build and index the data room?

The company does, with its lawyers, finance lead and any adviser. The software only stores the files. In our work, diligence moves fastest with a clear index and clean documents. The numbers should also match the deck and the model. That work starts before the first investor or buyer asks.

Full disclosure: this is where Waveup comes in. We don't sell data room software. We build and index the room against the investor's or buyer's request list. We also prepare the documents at the top of it. That means the deck, the financial model and the valuation, plus the CIM in a sale.

Since 2014, Waveup has been behind $3B+ raised for 600+ startups. We've also supported 50+ M&A transactions, including 20+ exits. Our due diligence work starts at $10,000 and takes two to six weeks.

In a sale, we prepare the materials, give expertise and help find buyers. We don't run the final sale. If you need an outside firm for financial or legal diligence, see our list of due diligence companies.

One example. In 2017, a lithium battery company needed $20M quickly to fund its first acquisition. We built the information memorandum, pitch deck, financial model and valuation for the outside investors, and advised on buying two battery companies. The company secured the $20M and completed both acquisitions. Read the case.