ShareFile Alternative for Accountants

Why Accounting Firms Are Rethinking ShareFile

Per-user pricing is the core issue. ShareFile's Industry Advantage plan -- built specifically for accounting -- costs $41.66 per user per month on an annual contract, with a three-user minimum (as of September 2026, verified at sharefile.com/pricing). For a solo practitioner or a two-person office, that is $125 per month before you add a single client. The cost scales with your staff headcount, not your client volume -- which means a small firm with a large client roster pays the same as one with a small roster.

Accounting practices operate differently from most teams. You might have three staff members and sixty clients. The pricing model should reflect how many clients you serve, not how many people sit inside your firm.

What a Client Portal Needs to Do for a Firm

Four things are non-negotiable for an accounting client portal: let clients upload documents securely, deliver sensitive files back to them, log who accessed what and when, and do all of this under your brand. The rest is a nice-to-have.

• Secure document collection: clients upload W-2s, 1099s, receipts, and bank statements directly -- no email attachments that bounce, no consumer cloud links that expire in seven days.
• Branded delivery: the portal shows your firm's logo, not the software vendor's. Clients trust the source because they see your brand, not a generic file-sharing app.
• Audit trail: a timestamped log of who uploaded, downloaded, or previewed each file. Essential for compliance and for those "I never received that" client conversations.
• Baseline security: encryption in transit and at rest, multi-factor authentication, and access controls -- the floor set by the FTC Safeguards Rule for financial service providers.

The FTC Safeguards Rule applies to tax preparers and financial service providers that handle non-public personal information. It requires multi-factor authentication, encryption, risk assessments, and an incident response plan. A portal that lacks enforced MFA or stores files unencrypted is a compliance liability, not just a usability gap.

How ProjectSend Cloud Compares to ShareFile

The biggest structural difference is the pricing model. ShareFile charges per workspace user. ProjectSend Cloud charges per active client account -- the number of client logins inside your portal. Your team size does not change the bill. That flips the math for practices with many clients and few staff.

Other differences worth knowing:

• Branding: your logo and firm name on the portal from day one. Clients see your brand, not ours. Custom domain is included in Pro and Business plans.
• Open source foundation (GPLv2): the same code runs the hosted version and the self-hosted community edition. You can audit the code, move to self-hosting at any time, and export all your data. ShareFile is proprietary.
• Dedicated database per firm: your client data is not commingled with other firms at the storage layer. Each tenant has its own database.
• Clients never pay or install anything: clients log in from any browser. No app, no account fee on their end.

See how the file exchange works for a step-by-step walkthrough of the client upload and delivery flow.

What the Pricing Looks Like in Practice

Take a practice with two staff and 30 active clients.

• ShareFile Industry Advantage, annual, 3-user minimum (as of September 2026): $41.66 x 3 = $124.98 per month.
• ProjectSend Cloud Pro: $19 per month -- covers 25 active client accounts and 3 workspace users. The whole 30-client practice fits in Pro with 5 accounts to spare.

For a solo practitioner starting to formalize document exchange, the Free plan is a personal account with 2 GB of storage and a private link for every file -- at $0, with no expiration date on the account (files are kept for 30 days). It is a real plan, not a trial, without client accounts; Pro adds them.

The growth path: Free ($0) -> Pro ($19/mo for 25 client accounts, then $0.40 per additional account) -> Business ($49/mo for unlimited accounts, SSO, and exportable audit logs). Compare all plans to find the right fit for your roster.

What Counts as an Active Client Account

An active client account is a client login you have invited and that is currently active in your portal. Archive a client when the engagement ends -- it stops counting toward your plan immediately. Tax preparers with strong seasonality can keep their active count low between tax seasons by archiving clients who are not currently exchanging files.

Your own staff are workspace users, tracked separately from client accounts. The Free plan is a single personal account with no team seats; Pro includes 3 (additional seats at $4 per seat per month). Clients never count as workspace users -- they are always on the client side, and they never pay.

The Open Source Exit: Why It Matters

The software behind ProjectSend Cloud is open source on GitHub under the GPLv2 license -- 1,900+ stars, 4.8 million Docker image pulls, and an active community since 2010. The same code that runs ProjectSend Cloud is the same code you can self-host for free on your own server.

If you ever want to leave, you export your data and move to a self-hosted install. The migration works in both directions, and we handle it for you for free in under 48 hours. There is no proprietary format to escape.

The project has been running for over 15 years with more than 4,000 active self-hosted instances worldwide. ProjectSend Cloud is run by the same team that maintains the open source project -- every subscription funds ongoing development. See our commitment to open source for more on what GPLv2 means for your firm.

Who Should Switch -- and Who Should Not

ProjectSend Cloud is a strong fit if:

• Your firm is small (1-10 staff) with a growing client roster, and per-user pricing becomes expensive fast.
• You are currently using email, WeTransfer, or shared Drive folders and are ready to move to a dedicated client portal under your brand.
• You already self-host ProjectSend open source and want to hand off maintenance, backups, and updates.
• Data portability and vendor independence are firm-level priorities -- you want to own your data and have a clear exit path.

It is not the right fit today if your firm requires SOC 2 certification, a signed BAA for HIPAA, a guaranteed SLA, or built-in e-signature. Those are not features ProjectSend Cloud offers at this stage. Check the FAQ for the current status on compliance roadmap items.

Already Self-Hosting ProjectSend?

There are over 4,000 active self-hosted ProjectSend instances worldwide. If your firm runs one of them, moving to ProjectSend Cloud means the same software with no server maintenance, automatic backups, and a team keeping it current -- while your data stays in a dedicated database that belongs to your firm.

Migration is free and completes in under 48 hours. We covered what "a self-hosted install is just one tenant" means for your existing data in our launch post.

Start free on ProjectSend Cloud -- no credit card, no time limit. Client accounts, the audit trail and your firm's branding come with Pro, from $19 a month.