Free File Sharing for Freelancers: What ProjectSend Cloud's Free Plan Includes

Most file-sharing tools give you a timer. The link expires in seven days, the trial ends in two weeks, or the free tier disappears once you hit a threshold. ProjectSend Cloud's Free plan works differently: it is a permanent tier built for freelancers who want a professional way to hand files to clients without the subscription pressure. The account has no time limit; each file you upload is kept for 30 days.

What does ProjectSend Cloud's free plan include?

ProjectSend Cloud's Free plan gives freelancers a personal account on files.projectsend.site, a shared site we run, with 2 GB of storage, a private link for every file you upload, encryption in transit and at rest, and community support. Files are kept for 30 days after you upload them. There is no credit card required and no time limit on the account. Client accounts, your logo and a portal of your own come with Pro, from $19 a month.

One detail worth noting: your portal displays a small "Powered by ProjectSend" badge visible to your clients. That badge is removed on the Pro plan. Everything else -- the file exchange, the per-client access log, the encrypted transfers -- works exactly the same on Free.

Is it really free, or does it expire?

The Free plan is a permanent tier, not a 14-day trial. There is no countdown clock and no credit card required. You get a working account you can use for as long as you need -- the constraints are 2 GB of storage, files that are kept for 30 days after upload, and no client accounts: files reach your clients by private link.

This matters for freelancers who are just starting out or who maintain a stable roster of two or three long-term clients. You do not have to rush a purchasing decision. When your practice grows, you upgrade -- and not a moment before.

What can your clients do on the free plan?

Your clients get a branded login page with your name on it. They can upload files directly to their portal, download anything you share, preview documents in-browser, and receive email notifications when new files arrive. You see a complete log of who accessed what and when -- on every plan, including Free.

For self-employed professionals, that access log is more than a convenience. The IRS self-employed tax center covers record-keeping guidance for independent contractors; a client portal gives you one auditable channel where every file exchange is timestamped and logged, rather than scattered across email threads.

When does it make sense to upgrade to Pro?

Upgrade to Pro ($19/month) when any of the following applies:

• You have more than three active clients and need to invite a fourth.
• Your total file storage exceeds 2 GB.
• You want to remove the "Powered by ProjectSend" badge from your portal.
• You need more than one team member -- Pro includes three team seats, with additional seats at $4/seat/month.
• You want a full year of audit history rather than the standard window.

The Free plan does not limit the number of files per client account, the number of uploads, or the frequency of downloads. You are bounded by the count of active client accounts and total storage -- not by how active you and your clients actually are.

How does this compare to other free file-sharing tools?

Several tools offer free file-sharing tiers, but each one makes different trade-offs. WeTransfer's free plan sends links that expire after seven days -- your client cannot come back two weeks later to re-download a contract. Dropbox Basic provides 2 GB of personal storage, not a client-specific portal with a branded login. Google Drive is personal storage that turns messy fast when you are managing multiple clients across different shared folders. For a closer look at why dedicated portals outperform shared drives and email, see Email Attachments vs. Client Portal.

On the Free plan each file gets a private link that anyone holding it can use to download, and you can see when it was downloaded. A persistent, dedicated space for each client -- their own login, under your logo -- comes with Pro, where files stay accessible as long as the client account is active and every access event is logged in one place.

If you already run a self-hosted ProjectSend instance, note that the cloud Free plan is a different offer: the open source version has no storage cap and keeps files for as long as you like, but you maintain the server, handle updates, and schedule backups yourself. The cloud Free tier is a hosted, maintained personal account -- no infrastructure to manage, no updates to apply.

Built on open source -- your exit is always open

ProjectSend Cloud runs on the same codebase as the ProjectSend open source project (GPLv2), which has 4.8M+ Docker downloads and 4,000+ active instances on GitHub. The code is public. If you ever decide to move to a self-hosted setup, your data exports cleanly and the same software runs on your own infrastructure.

The model is: your client portal on our infrastructure today, on yours if you ever need it. The code is open. So is your exit.

See everything included across all three plans -- Free, Pro ($19/month), and Business ($49/month) -- and read the plans FAQ if you want to dig into the limits before deciding.

Start free · No credit card, no time limit.