Invite Your Team (Admins vs Viewers)
Inviting a team admin adds a paid admin. Inviting a viewer is free. Here is the exact distinction so you avoid surprise charges.
Last updated May 6, 2026
Peony has two different "invite" flows with very different pricing.
- Invite Team Member (admin) — adds a paid admin. $30/month on Business, $52/month on Data Room.
- Invite Viewer — free and unlimited on every plan, including the free tier.
Admins are people on your team who manage data rooms. Viewers are counterparties who read the rooms you share. If you just want to send a pitch deck to 20 investors, they are viewers.
Read this before clicking any "Invite" button.
The Full Comparison
| Role | Who They Are | What They Can Do | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Admin | Someone on your team (co-founder, analyst, assistant) | Create and manage data rooms, upload files, invite viewers, see analytics, manage billing | Paid admin: $30/month on Business, $52/month on Data Room, per admin |
| Viewer | Your counterparty (investor, buyer, client, lender) | Open the link, read files under whatever protections you set, upload files back if allowed | Free and unlimited on every plan |
Admins sign in with their own Peony account. Viewers never need one — they just open the link.
Where Each Invite Button Lives
Invite a Viewer (free)
- Inside a data room, go to Permissions
- Click Invite Viewer
- Enter the email and send
- No billing impact
This is the flow you use 95% of the time. See Invite Viewers.
Invite an Admin (paid)
- Go to workspace Settings (top-right, outside any data room)
- Click Team > Invite Member
- Enter the email, select the Admin role
- On Business or Data Room, this triggers a pro-rated per-admin charge
Use this flow when a colleague joins your company and needs to help manage rooms.
Persona Examples
Founder sharing a deck with 20 VCs. All 20 are viewers. Free. The free tier works — upgrade only for paid features like advanced watermarks or custom domains (Data Room tier).
M&A advisor with an analyst helping manage the room. The analyst is an admin — they upload files, answer Q&A, manage links. Two admins on Data Room is $104/month.
Sell-side deal with 5 buyer firms, 3 people each. All 15 buyer-side reviewers are viewers. Zero admin impact. Create one link per buyer firm and invite each individual on that link.
Assistant who uploads files but not billing. Still an admin — role scoping controls what they touch, but the admin cost is the same.
Solo consultant sharing with one client. Your client is a viewer. You are the only admin needed. Free tier works.
"Why Was I Charged for an Extra Admin?"
The most common billing confusion. If you see a surprise admin charge:
- You clicked Settings > Team > Invite Member (instead of the viewer invite)
- You added a colleague with the Admin role
- Peony pro-rated the charge for the rest of the billing period
The fix: Go to Settings > Team, remove the extra admin, contact support. Peony refunds the charge every time.
To prevent: If the person is a counterparty, invite them from the data room's Permissions tab — never from workspace Settings.
Admin Pricing Per Plan
- Free — 1 admin (you)
- Business — $30 per admin per month
- Data Room — $52 per admin per month
- Deal Team — $64 per admin per month (minimum 4 admins)
- Enterprise — custom
Viewers are always free and unlimited.
Transfer Account Ownership
If you need to hand the workspace over to someone else — a co-founder taking over billing, a colleague replacing you, or transferring an account between team members — the flow is straightforward:
- Invite the new owner as an admin. From workspace Settings → Team → Invite Member, send them an admin invite. They sign in and accept.
- Have the new admin remove the previous owner. Once they're in, ask them to go to Settings → Team and remove the previous owner's admin.
The remaining admin inherits ownership and billing. The current owner cannot remove themselves — another admin has to do it.
The same pattern works for changing your own email address on the workspace: invite the new email as an admin, then have it remove the old email.
Common Mistakes
- "Business limits viewers." No. Business bills per admin; viewers are unlimited on every plan.
- Test admin left running. Even test admins trigger the per-admin charge. Remove them.
- Assuming viewer count affects billing. It never does.
- "Upgrade your plan" prompt when inviting. That means you hit the admin limit on the free tier, not a viewer limit. If the person is actually a counterparty, cancel and use the data room Permissions tab instead.