Looking for a ShareFile alternative? Start with what you actually send

A three-partner family law practice pays for ShareFile because a client once asked if they had "a secure portal".

Two years later, the portal holds 1,400 folders. Most were used once, to send a draft order or collect a payslip, and nobody has opened them since.

That's the question worth asking before you compare tools. What do you actually send, and do you need to keep it there?

What ShareFile costs in 2026

ShareFile is priced per user, with a minimum of three users. As of 9 October 2026, its pricing page lists Advanced at $16.50 per user a month on annual billing ($18.15 monthly), Premium at $26 ($28.59 monthly) and Enterprise at $35 ($42 monthly).

The Virtual Data Room plan is $69.30 per user with a five-user minimum.

So the smallest annual plan is about $49.50 a month before anyone sends a file. For a firm that uses it as a portal, a document store and an e-signature tool, that can be fair value.

Where ShareFile is genuinely better

We'd rather say this up front. ShareFile is a document platform, and it does things we don't.

It stores files and keeps previous versions, with sync across desktop and mobile apps. Premium adds e-signatures, document requests, tasks and a branded client portal. Enterprise adds security monitoring and access management at scale. Clients get personalised logins.

If your firm signs engagement letters in it, keeps matter files in it, or needs the audit trails and access controls its higher plans describe, you need a document platform. TinyX isn't one, and switching would be a mistake.

Most small firms mainly do two things

Look at what actually moves through the portal in a normal month. A solicitor sends a draft contract, a completion statement or a bundle for a hearing.

A client sends back a passport scan, three bank statements and a signed form.

Neither of those needs a permanent home on the file-sharing tool. The working copy lives in your case management system. The share is just the trip from one place to another.

When the share is only the trip, the safest file is one that disappears when the trip is over.

Sending a document that stops working

On every TinyX plan, including Free, you can send a file on a link with a password and an expiry.

Expiry can be a date, a download limit or both. When it's reached, the file is purged and the link shows a dead page with no redirect.

So a draft order can go to the client with a 7-day expiry, and the password can go by text message. If the email is forwarded to the wrong person a month later, the link opens nothing.

File size limits run from 150 MB on Free to 1 GB on Pro and 5 GB on Max, and they're all on the pricing page. A large disclosure bundle may need splitting on Free.

Getting documents back without email attachments

Clients emailing ID to a general inbox is a risk most firms already know about. TinyX upload links give the client a page to drop files into, with no account to create. Upload links are on Pro and Max.

On Pro and Max, files you send can also be end-to-end encrypted in your browser with AES-256-GCM before they leave your computer, so we hold only ciphertext we can't read.

We explain how in how TinyX encrypts your files, and why that differs from what Dropbox means by "encrypted" in Dropbox is encrypted. It isn't zero-knowledge. If you're comparing providers, three things 'encrypted' can mean is the short version.

If you also collect new-client details, we wrote up a law firm client intake form you can copy. One thing to know: questionnaire responses are not end-to-end encrypted.

What you'd give up by leaving ShareFile

Be clear-eyed about it. You lose version history, desktop sync, e-signatures, client portals with logins, and the compliance features ShareFile markets on its higher plans. TinyX deletes files on expiry by design, so it can't be your archive.

We keep minimal logging, only what's needed. Access logs are kept for 7 days on Free, 90 on Pro and a year on Max.

TinyX is hosted on Cloudflare (a US company). If your regulator or client contract asks for a specific data location, check that before moving anything.

So is TinyX a ShareFile alternative?

For a firm that only needs to send and receive, yes, and at $9 a month for one Pro account rather than a three-user minimum.

For a firm that uses ShareFile as its document system, no. Keep ShareFile, and use expiring links for the one-off sends that don't belong in it.

There's more on how law firms use TinyX in secure file sharing for law firms.

FAQ

Is there a free version of ShareFile? ShareFile's pricing page offers free trials on its plans, not a free tier. TinyX has a free plan with password and expiry on file links.

Is ShareFile the same as Citrix ShareFile? It was sold for years as Citrix ShareFile. Today it's sold under the ShareFile name at sharefile.com.

Does TinyX have e-signatures? No. If you need signatures in the same tool, ShareFile Premium or a dedicated e-signature service is the better fit.

Can clients upload documents without an account? Yes, through an upload link, on Pro and Max.

If what your firm mostly does is send a file and get one back, try it on the free plan with your next draft, and see the full feature list on the features page.