File sharing companies: the five things they actually sell

    Cameron James·
    · 6 min read
    Document sharingFile sharingTool comparison

    Search for file sharing companies and you get a wall of logos, all promising secure, simple, fast. Pick three at random and the pitch decks could be swapped without anyone noticing.

    The products are not the same, though. Underneath the identical homepage copy, file sharing companies sell five quite different things, and most bad purchases come from buying one when you needed another. So instead of another ranked list, here is the map I wish I'd had.

    If you want named products side by side, I've done that separately in secure file sharing platforms compared. This post is about the layer above it: which kind of company you should be shopping at.

    Company type one: storage that happens to share

    These are cloud drives. The core product is a place to keep files and sync them across devices, and sharing is a link bolted on top.

    They suit internal teams and anything you'd call a working file. They are the sensible default for most of what you share, and I'd not pay for anything fancier until you hit a specific wall.

    The wall is usually the outside world. A link to a drive file shows the recipient a folder interface, a login prompt or a download button, and shows you very little in return.

    Company type two: transfer services

    Built for the awkward moment when a file is too big for email. You upload, you get a link, the link expires. Speed and simplicity are the whole point.

    They're good at one thing and honest about it. If you're moving a pile of files once, hosting a zip file or using a transfer tool is fine. They're a poor fit when the file is a document you want someone to engage with, because the product's job ends when the download starts.

    Company type three: governance and compliance vendors

    This is the enterprise end. Permissions, audit logs, retention rules, admin consoles, and compliance paperwork your security team will ask for by name. What you're buying here is control and a paper trail, and the per-seat cost reflects it. I dug into that properly in what you are actually buying with enterprise file sharing.

    If you work in a regulated industry, this category exists for you and you shouldn't try to dodge it. If you don't, you can end up paying for a governance suite to send a quote.

    Company type four: portals

    A portal is a logged-in space where each client gets their own folder. It's built for files coming in as much as going out: payslips, ID, signed forms, the stuff you spend weeks chasing.

    My view is that a lot of small businesses buy portals when their real problem is delivery in one direction. Making a busy prospect create a login to read your proposal is friction you chose. File sharing portals: when you actually need one walks through the test I use, and file sharing with clients covers the habits that matter more than the tool.

    Company type five: document sharing with visibility

    The newest category, and the one I work in, so weigh my bias accordingly. These products treat the file as something a person has to read and understand, not just receive. You share a link to a viewer, and you get signals back about what happened next.

    Most of the established names here track attention: opens, time on page, who forwarded it. Useful, and it answers "did they open it". It doesn't answer "did they get it".

    LiveDocument sits in this group but leans a different way. You attach a recorded video walkthrough to a PDF or image, share it as a single link, and add clickable highlights that jump the video to the relevant section. You also get page-level analytics. To be clear about the limits: it isn't storage, an editor, e-signature or a data room, and while access control includes link expiry, revocation and named-email restriction, it is not a full governance suite. If you need the compliance end, you want type three. If you want to know whether a proposal landed, that's the job it's built for, and the file sharing software page explains it properly.

    How to choose between them

    Three questions, in this order.

    1. Which direction do files travel? Mostly in means a portal. Mostly out means you probably don't need one.
    2. Does anyone need to prove who saw what? If an auditor might ask, buy governance. If a salesperson is just curious, don't.
    3. Does the file need to be understood, not just received? If yes, a drive or a transfer tool won't tell you, and you want type five.

    Plenty of businesses end up with two. A drive for working files and something sharper for the documents that carry a deal. That's not tool sprawl, that's matching the tool to the job.

    One more thing before you shortlist: check pricing pages yourself. Plans in this category change often and many vendors quote on request, so any number I printed here would be stale quickly.

    FAQ

    What are file sharing companies?

    File sharing companies are vendors whose products let you send, store or give access to files over the internet. They range from cloud drives and one-off transfer tools to enterprise compliance suites, client portals and document tools that show you what happened after the file was opened.

    How do I choose between file sharing companies?

    Decide the job first: working files, one-off transfers, regulated sharing, client intake or documents that need to land. Then pick the category that matches. Comparing brands before you know the category is how people overspend.

    Do I need a portal to share files with clients?

    Not always. If files mostly come in from clients, a portal helps. If you mostly send proposals and reports out, a plain link is usually less friction for the reader.

    Are file sharing companies secure?

    Security varies by category and plan. Most encrypt files, but access controls, audit trails and compliance coverage differ a lot, so check what each vendor documents. LiveDocument's own position is on its security page.

    Pick the category, then the company

    Get the category right and the shortlist writes itself. Get it wrong and the best product in the wrong group will still disappoint you.

    I built LiveDocument because I was tired of sending things into the void. If that's a feeling you know, you can see how it works in the demo.

    Small teams can build a stack by job, as in file sharing solutions for small business.

    About the Author

    Cameron James

    Cameron is the founder of LiveDocument. He writes about sharing documents, PDFs, decks and contracts, and why pairing a video walkthrough with a document beats sending it cold.