Invite Your Team (Admins vs Viewers)

Peony has two different "invite" flows with very different pricing.

• Invite admins — adds a paid admin. $30/month on Business, $52/month on Data Room.
• Add a 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

Admins sign in with their own Peony account. Viewers never need one — they just open the link.

Where Each Invite Flow Lives

There are two different Settings surfaces, and people mix them up. Workspace settings live at the bottom-left of the home screen — that is where you invite admins. The per-data-room Settings tab (inside a room) is for room options and does not add admins. Add viewers from inside the data room itself.

Add a Viewer (free)

• Open the data room, go to Permissions
• Click Share securely
• Open an existing group (or create one), and go to the Visitors tab
• Add the viewer's email under People with access, then Save
• No billing impact

This is the flow you use 95% of the time. There is no "Invite Viewer" button — viewers are always added inside the room's Visitors tab. See Invite Viewers.

Invite an Admin (paid)

• Click Settings at the bottom-left of the home screen (outside any data room), in the navbar user menu
• Choose Invite admins
• In the Invite admins dialog, enter the email in the Enter email field and click Invite
• On Business or Data Room, this triggers a pro-rated per-admin charge

There is no role picker. Everyone you invite here is an admin by definition — Peony shows "Inviting admin…" then "Admin invited," and you are billed per admin. Use this flow only 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. There is no "read-only admin" or role tier — everyone invited under Invite admins is a full admin and costs one seat.

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:

1. You used Settings > Invite admins (instead of adding a viewer)
2. Anyone invited there is an admin — there is no viewer/admin choice on that screen
3. Peony pro-rated the charge for the rest of the billing period

The fix: Go to Settings > Invite admins, hover the extra admin's name, and click the cross to remove them — the seat drops from your next billing cycle. If the seat was already billed, contact support and we'll review it manually; Peony doesn't offer refunds unless agreed in writing before purchase. (Removing an admin only reduces future cycles — a removal after your renewal date still shows on the invoice already generated for that cycle.)

One trap on the admin list: the email autocomplete dropdown can cover the existing admin list. Dismiss the dropdown to reveal the admins you can remove.

To prevent: If the person is a counterparty, add them from the data room's Permissions tab via Share securely — never from workspace Settings > Invite admins.

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:

1. Invite the new owner as an admin. From workspace Settings → Invite admins, enter their email and click Invite. They sign in and accept.
2. Have the new admin remove the previous owner. Once they're in, ask them to open Settings → Invite admins, hover the previous owner's name, and click the cross to remove them.

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.
• Expecting a role choice on the admin invite. There isn't one. Everyone invited under Invite admins is an admin and is billed per admin.
• "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 add them from the data room's Permissions tab via Share securely instead.

Common Questions

How do I invite a teammate or add a seat? Use Settings → Invite admins on the home screen — not inside a data room. Enter the email, click Invite. Pricing is per admin, and all permissions auto-enable for the new admin.

I can't see my list of admins to remove one — the box only autocompletes emails. Open Settings → Invite admins. The email autocomplete dropdown hides the existing admin list; dismiss the dropdown and the admins appear. Hover a name and click the cross to remove them.

How do I check how many admin seats I'm billed for? Open Settings → Invite admins. If no one else is listed, you're on a single seat. (A seat you removed can still appear on the prior cycle's Stripe invoice.)

I removed an admin but was still charged full seats this cycle. Billing counts admins as of your renewal date. A removal after that date doesn't reduce the cycle already invoiced — remove admins before the billing date to pay less.

My colleague can't accept the admin invite ("Failed to accept invite"). Inviting an admin triggers a charge, so a declined, out-of-funds, or 3D-Secure-blocked card will block the seat. Try another card or check with the bank, and support can send a manual invoice if needed.

We got multiple charges but only signed up for one account — why? Billing is per admin invited to the workspace, not per data room or per storage. Every admin who accepted and logged in is billed. Remove extras via Settings → Invite admins; the next cycle bills only the remaining admins.

I want to leave and downgrade only myself, not my teammates. "Downgrade to free" affects the whole workspace. To remove only yourself, ask a teammate to remove you via Settings → Invite admins. You're billed for your seat through the current cycle.

Can I split two data rooms across different teams? Yes. The founding admin registers first, invites the other admins via Settings → Invite admins, then creates teams on the left of the main app (for example "founding team" and "branding team"). Put the founding admin in both teams for full access, and restrict each other team to its own workspace via team settings and team members.

Next Steps

• Admins vs Viewers: Who Pays, Who Doesn't
• Invite Viewers and Track Who Opened
• Workspaces, Data Rooms, Links, and Viewers