A price you can see today.Not a quote gate and SAS 70 language.
SmartRoom is quote-only with no self-serve trial, bills by the page, and its own security page still cites SAS 70 Type II — an attestation retired in 2011. Peony gives mid-market advisory teams AI-powered Q&A, screenshot protection, page-level analytics, current SOC 2 Type II, and transparent pricing from $30/admin/month — with 5-minute self-serve setup.
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Side-by-side comparison
SmartRoom is the flagship VDR of BMC Group, with genuine restructuring heritage and post-download controls. Peony is a modern data room with published pricing, AI on every Business plan, and page-level analytics — see the full field in our SmartRoom alternatives review.
PeonyWhy boutique M&A teams choose Peony over SmartRoom
SmartRoom is a capable restructuring-heritage platform with real post-download control. Boutique advisory teams switching to Peony cite four reasons.
Transparent pricing
SmartRoom is quote-only with no self-serve trial, and its one public reviewer reports billing by the page, not by storage. Peony starts at $30/admin/month, and Data Room ($52/admin/mo) adds unlimited data rooms — no per-page metering or surprise invoices.
Page-level analytics
SmartRoom tracks which documents were opened. Peony shows which pages each bidder read, how long they spent on your financials versus your management section, and who is seriously engaged — on every plan, including the free tier.
Current SOC 2 Type II
SmartRoom's own page still cites SAS 70 Type II — retired in 2011 — and its SOC 2 claims appear only on affiliate sites. Peony maintains a current SOC 2 Type II report, self-serve on the Deal Team plan. No ISO 27001 — we say so plainly.
Self-serve setup
Seeing SmartRoom at all requires a sales call — there is no trial. Peony gets your associates to a shareable, AI-indexed, watermark-ready room in a verified 4 minutes 19 seconds, free, with no card and no demo gate.
Pricing comparison
Peony publishes its pricing. SmartRoom requires a sales call.
Peony
Data Room — Most Popular
$52/admin/mo
Unlimited data rooms and storage — AI, full security
Business
$30/admin/mo
Up to 3 data rooms — AI chat, e-signatures
Free
$0
For evaluation
Business includes data rooms, AI chat, e-signatures, screenshot protection, watermarks, and NDA gating. Data Room adds unlimited rooms, Advanced NDA, and Screenshield. Deal Team ($64/admin/mo) adds Advanced Redaction, an Advanced Q&A module, SSO, and API. Analytics on all plans.
SmartRoom
Standard VDR
Quote
Custom quote; billing reported by the page
PE flat-fee
Quote
Flat-fee, unlimited-use offer for private equity
Free trial
None
Sales call required to see the product
No published pricing. Capterra lists "Contact vendor for pricing." Page-based billing reported by its one public reviewer. Flagship VDR of BMC Group.
What Peony gives you that SmartRoom does not
Know exactly what bidders read and for how long
SmartRoom's activity tracking tells you which files a user opened and for how long — the document-level view. Peony goes further with page-by-page analytics showing exactly which pages each bidder read, how long they spent on your financial projections versus your management section, and which counterparties are seriously engaged — on every plan, including the free tier — so your follow-up calls are informed by real engagement data.
Traceable leaks without a proprietary viewer
SmartRoom's SmartLock and SmartIRM deliver genuine post-download control — a real strength Peony does not replicate — but persistent DRM relies on a controlled viewer path that adds reviewer friction. Peony takes a different path: it actively blocks and logs screenshots across all devices on the Business plan, and stamps every page with dynamic watermarks tied to the viewer's identity for leak traceability — without forcing your bidders into a special desktop viewer.
Let bidders ask your documents questions directly
SmartRoom publishes a real AI suite — SmartSearch, SmartSummary, and AI Document Conversation — but couples it with quote-only pricing and document-level tracking. Peony Business ($30/admin/month) includes AI document chat, and Data Room ($52/admin/month) adds AI room generation, basic Q&A, and auto-indexing with OCR that organizes a raw upload into deal-ready folders in under three minutes — all at a transparent price your boutique firm can budget for.
"Peony is a standout for data rooms and gated file sharing — intuitive, secure, and beautifully designed. The AI actually adds value, not just a checkbox feature."
Michael Hui
Managing Director, Piton Partners
Frequently asked questions
I run a 4-person boutique M&A advisory firm and we handle five $30M-$100M sell-side mandates per year — is Peony a better fit than SmartRoom?
Yes. For your $30M-$100M mandates, Peony Data Room ($52/admin/month) gives your 4-person team unlimited data rooms with AI document chat, AI room generation, screenshot protection, Screenshield, dynamic watermarks, Advanced NDA, and page-by-page analytics — for $208/month total. SmartRoom does not publish standard pricing at all: Capterra lists it as 'Contact vendor for pricing,' there is no self-serve trial, and its one public reviewer reports billing 'based on pages, not MB' — a variable your firm cannot forecast as a document set grows. SmartRoom is a capable restructuring-heritage platform with genuine post-download controls, but for a straight mid-market sell-side process you get a price you can read today and current SOC 2 Type II attestation from Peony, versus a sales gate and a security page that still cites SAS 70 Type II (retired in 2011) from SmartRoom.
Our 3-person deal team just won a $75M sell-side mandate and the client wants the data room live by Wednesday — how fast can we set up Peony versus SmartRoom?
Your team can have a Peony data room live in under 5 minutes — verified median setup time is 4 minutes 19 seconds from account creation to first document shared. Sign up on the free tier, create your room, drag in your CIM and diligence files, configure NDA gating and watermarks, and share a branded link with your bidders. SmartRoom has no self-serve trial — seeing the product at all requires a sales conversation first, because Capterra lists its pricing as 'Contact vendor.' SmartRoom's strengths are real on a live deal (24/7 support with dedicated project managers, persistent post-download control), but for a $75M mandate with a Wednesday deadline, Peony's self-serve setup means your bidders are accessing an AI-indexed, watermark-ready room the same hour you win the mandate — before a SmartRoom rep would typically call you back.
We're running a $150M competitive auction with 12 bidders and separate buyer groups — does Peony match SmartRoom's security for mid-market M&A?
Peony matches and exceeds SmartRoom on current attestation for your $150M auction, while conceding where SmartRoom leads. Peony Data Room ($52/admin/month) includes AES-256 encryption, screenshot protection that actively blocks and logs screen captures of your CIM and financial exhibits, Screenshield, dynamic watermarks stamped with each bidder's identity, Advanced NDA-gated access, granular permissions, and a full audit trail — backed by a current SOC 2 Type II report (self-serve on the Deal Team plan). SmartRoom's own security page still cites SAS 70 Type II, an attestation retired in 2011, alongside TLS 1.2 AES 256-bit encryption; SOC 2 and ISO 27001 claims for SmartRoom appear only on third-party affiliate sites, not its own pages. Where SmartRoom genuinely leads is persistent post-download DRM — SmartLock and SmartIRM restrict viewing, printing, and copying even after a file leaves the room. Peony does not replicate that; it traces leaks through identity-stamped watermarks and revocation instead, without forcing bidders into a proprietary viewer.
SmartRoom's own security page still cites SAS 70 Type II — should our mid-market advisory firm be concerned?
It is worth weighing. SmartRoom's own product page states its data centers are 'SAS 70 Type II compliant,' but SAS 70 was retired and superseded by SSAE 16 and then the SOC framework back in June 2011. Citing it in 2026 is a dated attestation posture next to VDRs that publish current SOC 2 Type II reports. SmartRoom also publishes HIPAA-compliance guidance and offers a BAA, which is useful — but that is guidance plus a contract, not a certification, and the SOC 2 and ISO 27001 claims you may see for SmartRoom live on third-party affiliate review sites rather than SmartRoom's own pages. Peony maintains SOC 2 Type II with a self-serve report on the Deal Team plan, and does not hold ISO 27001 — we state both plainly. For a boutique firm running $30M-$150M mandates, a security document you can download and hand to counsel is worth more than legacy language you cannot verify.
Our deal team fields 30+ buyer diligence questions per week on a live $60M mandate — does Peony have AI features that compare to SmartRoom's?
Both platforms have real AI, but the difference is transparency and analytics depth. SmartRoom publishes an AI suite — SmartSearch (AI-driven search), SmartSummary (document insights), and AI Document Conversation (ask a question, get an answer from your documents) — but couples it with quote-only pricing and document-level tracking. Peony Business ($30/admin/month) includes AI document chat that lets your bidders ask questions about your CIM and get instant, cited answers 24/7, and Peony Data Room ($52/admin/month) adds AI room generation, basic Q&A, and auto-indexing with OCR that organizes a raw upload into deal-ready folders in under three minutes. For deal teams that need structured answer routing, Advanced Q&A on the Deal Team plan ($64/admin/month, minimum four admins) layers that on top. Both platforms have AI; only one lets you check the bill before a sales call.
I'm a VP at a boutique bank evaluating VDRs for our $50M-$200M deal pipeline — what is the biggest difference between Peony and SmartRoom?
For your $50M-$200M pipeline, the biggest difference is transparency and analytics. SmartRoom does not publish standard pricing, and its one public Capterra reviewer reports billing 'based on pages, not MB' — page-based metering scales unpredictably as your deal documents grow, and procurement cannot benchmark a number against a number without first entering a sales cycle. Peony Data Room is $52/admin/month with unlimited data rooms, unlimited storage, and no per-page, per-viewer, or per-deal fees. On analytics, SmartRoom's activity tracking tells you which files a user opened and for how long — the document-level view — while Peony provides page-by-page analytics showing exactly which pages of your CIM each bidder read, how long they spent on your financial projections versus your management section, and which bidders are seriously engaged, on every plan including the free tier. For boutique banks running mid-market mandates, that engagement intelligence drives better follow-up calls and faster closings.
We need to control documents after download the way SmartRoom's SmartLock does — how does Peony handle that?
SmartLock and SmartIRM are genuine SmartRoom strengths, and Peony takes a different path rather than replicating them. SmartLock restricts viewing, printing, forwarding, and copying even after a file leaves the room — rare, and a direct product of SmartRoom's claims-administration heritage. Its documented limitation, per SmartRoom's own page, is that SmartLock does not support per-file expiration dates: access is controlled only by modifying or suspending a security profile, which affects every file under that profile. Peony does not force reviewers into a proprietary desktop viewer to get post-download control. Instead, Peony Data Room ($52/admin/month) stamps each viewer's identity into every rendered page with dynamic watermarks, actively blocks and logs screenshot attempts, and cuts a link off entirely with access revocation. Match the tool to whether persistent post-download DRM (where SmartRoom leads) or reviewer-friction-free control matters more for your process.
SmartRoom barely has any reviews — how do we diligence it against Peony before trusting a live deal to either?
SmartRoom's public review footprint is nearly empty: Capterra shows a single review (2.0/5, from a Director of IT in December 2022), SourceForge shows zero, and there is no reliable mainstream rating to average. That is not disqualifying on its own — SmartRoom's restructuring heritage is genuine — but it is a data point for a director doing vendor diligence. Verify the same four things on any VDR: pull the current compliance report directly from the vendor's site (look for a dated SOC 2 Type II, not legacy SAS 70 language), confirm pricing is published or quotable without a mandatory demo gate, test export and audit-trail integrity before committing, and cross-check claims across independent platforms rather than affiliate review sites that often carry fabricated tiers. Peony publishes its pricing, offers self-serve security documentation on the Deal Team plan, and lets you start free with no sales call.
How do we migrate an active deal off SmartRoom to Peony without losing the audit trail?
Do not cut over mid-transaction. Export your full document library from SmartRoom with the folder structure preserved — SmartRoom's SmartDrive desktop sync can help pull large sets locally — and download the Q&A logs and activity/audit reports separately, because those do not transfer automatically. Run a parallel setup on Peony during a quiet window rather than switching while bidders are active. Peony's AI auto-indexing (Data Room plan, $52/admin/month) reorganizes the uploaded set into deal-ready folders in under three minutes, replacing manual re-indexing. Configure granular permissions, NDA gating, dynamic watermarks, and screenshot protection, then issue new access links and verify them from an external test account before going live. Peony's tamper-proof archive (Deal Team plan) and optional USB archive ($99/drive) preserve the room, audit logs, and Q&A history for post-deal record retention. Most migrations take one to two hours.