Legal data rooms for law firms and in-house teams that keep privileged files under control
Share matter files with clients, co-counsel and opposing counsel behind a signed NDA, give each party only the folders it should see, and keep a timestamped record of every view and signature: one secure Peony room per matter, closing or investigation, with unlimited matter rooms on Data Room.
No credit card · 7-day Data Room trial that never auto-charges · clients, co-counsel and opposing counsel view free, no account
24/7 dedicated support for enterprise deals
Last updated October 2026
Trusted by Harvey
8,000+ customers in 60+ countries · $44.7B in client assets
Peony staff can't open your documents, your documents aren't used to train AI, and Peony has had no data breach since launch.
State of M&A Data Rooms (Q3 2026 edition, 733 M&A transactions from $1M to $500M): a sub-$50M room averages 1,206 files and 79 Q&A questions. The same report puts Peony's median time from sign-up to first uploaded document at 4 min 19 s. Read the research
What is Peony's legal data room, and who is it for?
Peony is a virtual data room that law firms and in-house legal teams use to share privileged matter files behind a signed NDA, give each party only the folders it should see, and keep a record of every view and signature. Rooms start at $30 per admin per month on Business (3 rooms per admin); Data Room, the most popular plan, is $52 with unlimited matter rooms and storage, billed yearly, and clients, co-counsel and opposing counsel never pay.
A legal data room is a permissioned online room where counsel shares matter files, diligence material, productions and closing documents with clients, counterparties, experts and regulators under NDA, with every view recorded. Peony is the data room built for law firms and legal teams: manage confidential case files, client materials, and contracts with enterprise-grade security and complete audit trails, and set up in under 5 minutes. Eight platforms are scored in our best data rooms for law firms guide.
- Share privileged files under NDA: a signed NDA before the first page, the reader's name, email and IP watermarked on every page, and downloads and screenshots blocked.
- Give each party its own access: a group for the client, co-counsel, each expert and the other side, with No access, View, Download or Upload set per folder and file.
- Keep the record: page-by-page views, downloads, NDA acceptances and e-signatures, with timestamps and IP addresses, in a per-visitor audit trail.
Peony at a glance
- Built for
- Transactional, litigation and regulatory practices at law firms of every size; in-house legal teams; outside and fractional general counsel; and counsel to clients in regulated industries such as cannabis, fintech and life sciences.
- Typical plan
- Data Room, $52 per admin per month billed yearly ($75 monthly): unlimited matter rooms, documents and storage, a signed NDA with audit record, dynamic watermarks, granular folder and file permissions per party, Visitor Q&A, a custom domain, the per-visitor audit trail and Index documents.
- Pricing
- Business $30, Data Room $52 and Deal Team $64 (minimum 4 admins) per admin per month billed yearly ($44, $75 and $89 monthly); Enterprise is custom. Free ($0) covers 50 documents and 500 MB as tracked single-file links; data rooms start on Business.
- Clients, co-counsel and opposing counsel
- Clients, co-counsel and opposing counsel are unlimited and free on every plan and don't need a Peony account. You pay per admin, not per viewer.
- Rooms and storage
- Unlimited data rooms, documents and storage on Data Room and above, and no per-file size cap on any plan. Business includes 3 data rooms per admin, 1,000 documents per admin and 100 GB of storage, with no per-file size cap.
- Legal files
- Contracts, briefs and pleadings (PDF, Word), schedules and damages models (Excel, CSV), scanned exhibits (PDF, TIFF, JPG, PNG) and deposition or interview recordings (video and audio uploads on Business and above) open in the browser with no download unless you allow one; productions upload as ZIP or RAR archives, with no per-file size cap on any plan.
- E-signatures
- Unlimited from Business (3 a month on Free): engagement letters, NDAs and closing documents are signed in Peony as standard e-signatures under the US ESIGN Act and EU eIDAS, with the signature, timestamp, IP address and a verification hash recorded and the signed PDF emailed to both sides.
- Audit record
- Page-level analytics on every plan; exportable session and analytics logs on every paid plan; the per-visitor audit trail (views, downloads, NDA acceptances, e-signatures, and link, permission and NDA changes) on Data Room. Logs are kept 1 year on Business, 2 years on Data Room and with no time limit on Deal Team and Enterprise.
- File management
- Upload new version keeps a file's place and link and keeps every earlier version; AI room generation drafts the folder structure, and Index documents numbers every file (Data Room plan). Export index downloads the numbered list for the closing checklist.
- Live models
- Peony renders .html files live with JavaScript running, so a Claude or ChatGPT artifact (a model, dashboard or calculator) stays interactive for the viewer, behind your NDA gate, permissions and analytics.
- Enterprise and IT review
- Deal Team (minimum 4 admins) adds advanced redaction, Advanced Q&A routing, room archive download, OAuth SSO, API access, priority support, a dedicated account manager and a standard DPA with SCCs, on request on Deal Team and Enterprise. Enterprise (custom) adds SAML SSO, BYOK, self-hosted or white-label deployment and custom data residency, including EU-region hosting. See the security overview.
- Security
- AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.2+ in transit. Peony staff can't open your documents, your documents aren't used to train AI, and Peony has had no data breach since launch. Peony's incident-response policy commits to telling affected customers within 72 hours of confirming an incident that affects customer data. SOC 2 Type II-ready and ISO 27001-ready, with both audits underway. Compliance and certifications
- Setup
- Median 4 min 19 s from sign-up to first uploaded document (State of M&A Data Rooms, Q3 2026 edition).
- Trial
- 7-day Data Room trial you start yourself: no credit card, and it never auto-charges. Rooms, files, links, analytics and NDA settings carry over when you upgrade. AI features switch on after you upgrade.
- Support
- 24/7 support, handled directly by the Peony team across Europe, US and Asia hours, with no outsourced tier. Everyone you speak to on Peony support has M&A experience at elite boutiques or bulge-bracket banks, VC experience, or has raised $1M+ themselves.
- Customers
- 8,000+ customers in 60+ countries, with $44.7B in client assets.
Which legal teams use a data room, and for which matters?
Law firms and legal teams use Peony for seven kinds of work: M&A diligence and closings, litigation, regulatory investigations, outside general counsel engagements, in-house sharing, regulated industry filings, and IP and licensing.
M&A and transactional practices
Buyer's and seller's counsel run diligence and closings: corporate records, material contracts, disclosure schedules, the closing set and ancillary documents, with each counterparty in its own group. See the legal due diligence checklist.
Litigation and disputes
Share work product with co-counsel, experts and mediators, and hand a production set to opposing counsel under watermark and expiry, with every view logged. Peony is the sharing layer for documents your review platform has already produced.
Regulatory investigations
Produce documents to a regulator or government counsel from a controlled room: a link expiry that ends with the production window, redaction before release (Deal Team) and a record of every view.
Outside and fractional general counsel
One branded room per client for corporate records, board materials and transaction files, with no cross-client exposure and unlimited rooms on Data Room. See data room vs client portal.
In-house legal teams
Send contracts, board packs and diligence files to outside counsel, auditors and counterparties. Peony is the controlled sharing layer for the documents that leave your contract or document management system, so that system stays your record.
Regulated-industry counsel
Licensing applications, SOPs and regulatory submissions for cannabis, fintech and life sciences clients, watermarked per viewer. See best data rooms for cannabis law firms.
IP, licensing and trade secrets
Patent portfolios, licensing packages and trade-secret material behind a second, stricter signed NDA. See the trade secret data room and clean team data room guides.
What features should a law firm look for in a data room?
A law firm should look for NDA-gated access, dynamic watermarks, court-ready audit trails, granular matter-level permissions, and integrated e-signatures, and Peony's Data Room plan includes all five at $52/admin/month. NDA gating, audit logs, and e-signatures start on Peony Business at $30/admin/month; dynamic watermarks, granular matter-level permissions and the full audit trail come with Data Room.
Peony gives you NDA-gated access, complete audit trails, integrated e-signatures, and branded client portals — all at a fraction of legacy VDR pricing.
NDA gates, watermarks, 2FA, and screenshot blocking
Peony puts a signed NDA in front of the first page, stamps every page with the viewer's name, email and IP address, and blocks screenshots and downloads, so privileged material stays attributable to one reader.
Gate confidential documents behind NDA signatures. Add dynamic watermarks to every page, require two-factor authentication, and block screenshots — ensuring privileged materials stay protected at every step.
(Acknowledge-only NDA gate, email verification by one-time code, download blocking and desktop screenshot protection from Business ($30/admin/mo billed yearly); the signed NDA, dynamic watermarks and Screenshield mobile screenshot protection on Data Room ($52/admin/mo billed yearly).)
What it replaces: Privilege protection. Privileged communications shared via generic cloud tools risk inadvertent disclosure. Once privilege is waived, it cannot be restored.
NDA-gated access
Require opposing counsel, co-counsel, or clients to sign an NDA before viewing sensitive case materials. Integrated e-signatures make it seamless.
Dynamic watermarks
Every page stamped with the viewer's identity and timestamp. Deter unauthorized sharing of privileged documents and trace any leak to the source.
Two-factor authentication
Add an extra layer of identity verification before anyone accesses confidential case files, contracts, or discovery materials.
Track every view, download, and signature
Peony records who opened each document, which pages they read and for how long, and every download, NDA acceptance and e-signature, with timestamps and IP addresses.
Maintain a tamper-proof record of all document activity. Page-by-page analytics show exactly which sections reviewers focused on — critical for due diligence, discovery, and regulatory compliance.
(Page-level analytics on every plan; exportable session and analytics logs on every paid plan; the per-visitor Audit trail tab and room dashboard on Data Room ($52/admin/mo billed yearly).)
What it replaces: Audit trail gaps. Courts and compliance officers require proof of who accessed which documents and when. Most sharing tools lack the granularity legal work demands.
Page-by-page tracking
See which pages of contracts, briefs, or discovery documents reviewers spent the most time on. Understand exactly what matters to the other side.
Court-ready logs
Exportable session and analytics logs with timestamps, IP addresses, and device details on every paid plan, plus the per-visitor audit trail on Data Room. Demonstrate chain of custody and compliance when it matters.
Matter-level permissions
Give clients access to their matter folder, co-counsel access to shared work product, and experts access to specific exhibits — all from one data room (Data Room plan).
Sign contracts and share files under your brand
Peony sends engagement letters, NDAs and closing documents for e-signature and shares files through rooms that carry your firm's logo, cover image and, on Data Room, your own domain.
Get legally binding e-signatures with AI-powered field detection. Share documents through branded client portals with your firm's logo, colors and cover image — no more generic Dropbox or Google Drive links.
(Unlimited e-signatures, your logo, brand colors, cover image and welcome message from Business ($30/admin/mo billed yearly; 3 e-signatures a month on Free); your own domain on Data Room ($52/admin/mo billed yearly).)
What it replaces: Client-facing complexity. Clients, co-counsel, opposing parties, and courts each need different access levels. Managing permissions across matters is time-consuming and risky.
AI-powered e-signatures
Upload a Word (DOCX) contract and Peony turns its signature, date, and input placeholders into fields automatically. Send for legally binding signature in seconds, not minutes.
Attorney-drafted templates
Start from Peony's sample mutual NDA, or upload your firm's own NDA, engagement letter, or retainer once and save it as a reusable template. Reduce drafting time and ensure compliance from the first page.
Branded client portals
Share documents through portals featuring your firm's logo, colors, cover image, and custom URLs (brand colors from Business; custom domain on Data Room). Make every client interaction look professional and on-brand.
Structure matters the way you structure cases
Peony keeps each matter in its own room with nested folders, numbers every file so a reader can say "open 2.3", and answers questions across the room with the source page cited.
Organize documents into logical folder hierarchies by matter, client, or document type. AI can help generate folder structures and answer questions across your entire document library.
(AI document Q&A from Business ($30/admin/mo billed yearly), with 5x the usage on Data Room; AI room generation, Index documents and unlimited matter rooms on Data Room ($52/admin/mo billed yearly).)
What it replaces: Disorganized case files. Contracts, exhibits, discovery materials, and correspondence scattered across email, Dropbox, and local drives slow down every matter.
Matter-based folders
Organize by matter, client, or document type with nested folder hierarchies. Keep every case file exactly where your team expects it.
AI-powered Q&A
Ask questions across contracts, briefs, and exhibits in natural language. AI retrieves answers with exact source references from your document library.
Version control
Update shared documents without breaking links. Recipients always see the latest version while you maintain a full history of changes.
How do legal teams run their matters in Peony?
Legal teams run one Peony room per matter and one group per party; these four situations show the setup each one uses and the plan it needs.
Transactional partner: a $50M sale closing with 12 counterparties.
One room for the matter, one group each for buyer's counsel, lender's counsel, target management and the accountants, each behind its own signed NDA. Index documents numbers the closing set and Export index downloads the numbered list for the closing checklist, closing documents go out for e-signature from the same workspace, and page analytics show who has actually read the disclosure schedules before the signing call. At close, switch the groups off and download the room archive for the closing binder (Deal Team).
Data Room plan; room archive download on Deal Team
Litigation associate: work product for co-counsel and two experts, a production for the other side.
Co-counsel's group gets Download on the shared work product; each expert's group sees only the exhibits it needs, on View with a dynamic watermark. Opposing counsel's group gets the production folder with a link expiry set to the production window. If an expert withdraws, switching that group off stops its link at once and leaves the rest untouched.
Data Room plan
Fractional general counsel: twelve client companies, one small firm.
Each client gets its own branded room on your own domain for corporate records, board materials and contracts, with an Upload folder where the client's finance team drops documents from the browser with no account. AI document Q&A finds a notice deadline or an assignment clause in one client's library in seconds, and each room's audit trail shows who opened what during the engagement.
Data Room plan: unlimited rooms
In-house counsel: a vendor dispute with outside counsel and the other side's lawyers.
The contract file stays in your contract system; the documents that need to leave it go into one Peony room, with outside counsel on Download and the other side's lawyers on View behind an NDA and a watermark. Visitor Q&A keeps each side's questions in its own question team, so nobody sees the other's questions.
Data Room plan
How does a matter run in a Peony legal data room, from engagement to close?
A matter in Peony runs in six steps: sign the engagement, build the room, gate it, give each party its folders, work the matter, then close and cut access.
The first upload takes minutes: the median time on Peony from account creation to first uploaded document is 4 min 19 s (State of M&A Data Rooms, Q3 2026 edition).
Sign the engagement
Send the engagement letter or retainer for e-signature from the Home screen; the signed PDF and its audit log go to you and the client. E-signatures are unlimited from Business.
Build the matter room
Describe the matter in one line and AI room generation drafts the folders, or start from a template; drag in the file and its folder structure comes with it. Index documents numbers every file (Data Room).
Gate it
Put a signed NDA with an audit record in front of the first page (Data Room; an acknowledge-only NDA on Business), verify each viewer's email by one-time code, and turn on dynamic watermarks.
Give each party its folders
Create a group for the client, co-counsel, each expert and the other side, and set No access, View, Download or Upload per folder and file. Hide new content by default keeps new uploads private until you grant them (Data Room).
Work the matter
Questions run through Visitor Q&A with one question team per party (Data Room), AI document Q&A finds clauses with the page cited (Business and above), and Upload new version replaces a revised draft at the same link, with every earlier version kept.
Close and cut access
Switch off each outside group in one click; the audit trail keeps the record, logs are kept 2 years on Data Room and with no limit on Deal Team, and Deal Team downloads the room archive for the file.
Which legal files can clients and counsel open in Peony?
In Peony, clients and counsel open contracts and pleadings (PDF, Word), schedules and models (Excel, CSV), scanned exhibits, recordings and live HTML models in the browser, with no download unless you allow one.
| Legal files | Formats | What the reader sees |
|---|---|---|
| Contracts, briefs, pleadings, opinions and closing documents | PDF, Word (.doc, .docx) | In the browser, with the viewer's watermark on every page (Data Room); a downloaded PDF keeps its watermark. |
| Disclosure schedules, damages models and billing records | Excel (.xlsx, .xls), CSV | Every sheet in the browser, showing values without formulas; the viewer's watermark sits over the grid (Data Room). |
| Scanned exhibits, photographs and site images | PDF, JPG, PNG, TIFF | In the browser, page by page or image by image. |
| Deposition, interview and hearing recordings | MP4, MOV and other video; MP3, WAV, M4A and other audio (upload on Business and above) | Plays in the browser without a download; the watermark plays over video on Data Room. |
| Productions and bulk document sets | ZIP or RAR archive | Upload as-is with no per-file size cap on any plan; give Download on that folder only to the group receiving the set. |
| Damages calculators and deal timelines built in Claude or ChatGPT | HTML (.html, .htm) | Runs live with JavaScript, so the reader changes inputs and outputs recalculate, behind your NDA gate, permissions and analytics. |
Storage and file size are unlimited on Data Room ($52/admin/mo billed yearly); Business holds 100 GB with no per-file size limit. The full list is in supported file formats.
"Peony is a standout for data rooms and gated file sharing — it gave us the control and visibility needed to close the deal with a great viewer experience."
Michael Hui
Managing Director at Piton Partners
Anthony Gale
Founder & CEO, PromoLens
Not often I make recommendations, but I started using Peony to share presentations etc with external people. It works so well & makes us look really organized. We looked at DocSend etc. but the cost & clunkiness just put us off.
Who supports a legal team on Peony?
Peony support runs 24/7, handled directly by the Peony team across Europe, US and Asia hours, with no outsourced tier. Everyone you speak to on Peony support has M&A experience at elite boutiques or bulge-bracket banks, VC experience, or has raised $1M+ themselves.
- Mark a closing-night blocker as urgent, such as opposing counsel locked out of the closing set before a signing, and the team typically answers within a few hours.
- Deal Team adds priority support and a dedicated account manager.
- 24/7 dedicated support for enterprise deals: enterprise support is available to firms who book a demo with our deal infrastructure team, and every plan includes in-app help, documentation, and email support.
- Peony staff can't open, move or edit the documents in your room. Peony has had no data breach since launch.
No credit card · 7-day Data Room trial that never auto-charges · clients, co-counsel and opposing counsel view free, no account
Can co-counsel, experts and opposing counsel see each other in a Peony room?
No. Peony never shows invitees who else is invited, and each party gets its own group, link, folder permissions and Q&A question team, so it sees only its own folders and questions.
- A folder or file set to No access is absent from that party's view of the room, file name included, so a document title can't leak (Data Room).
- Question teams are the privacy boundary in Visitor Q&A: parties in different teams can't see each other's questions, while your side sees every question with the team it came from (Data Room).
- Revoke one party by switching its group off; its link stops working and every other group is untouched (Business and above).
- Advanced redaction on Deal Team saves a new PDF with privileged text, PII or a client name removed, so one party sees the substance without the detail.
Is a legal data room secure enough for privileged documents?
Yes. Peony encrypts files with AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.2 or higher in transit, watermarks every page per viewer, blocks screenshots, revokes links instantly and keeps a tamper-evident audit trail of every view and download. Peony is SOC 2 Type II-ready and ISO 27001-ready, with both audits underway; customer data is stored in the United States on AWS (us-east-1), and Enterprise can scope custom data residency. Peony staff can't open, move or edit the documents in your room. Peony has had no data breach since launch.
- Your documents aren't used to train AI: Peony's LLM providers work under data-handling agreements that prohibit training on customer content.
- Viewers read documents in the browser; files never leave Peony unless you allow downloads on a link.
- Peony's incident-response policy commits to telling affected customers within 72 hours of confirming an incident that affects customer data.
- Admins sign in with an emailed one-time code or Google, with no password fallback.
- Deal Team adds OAuth SSO (Google and Microsoft) and a standard DPA with SCCs on request; Enterprise adds SAML SSO, BYOK and EU-region hosting.
Hosting, access control and audit logs are in the security overview, and the audit status in compliance and certifications.
How does Peony fit a lawyer's duty to protect client information?
ABA Model Rule 1.6(c) asks lawyers to make reasonable efforts to prevent unauthorized access to client information; Peony gives a firm the controls that assessment usually covers, from encryption to per-party access and logs.
Comment [18] to the rule and ABA Formal Opinion 477R (2017) weigh the sensitivity of the information, the likelihood of disclosure without more safeguards, and the cost and difficulty of adding them. Under Federal Rule of Evidence 502(b), an inadvertent disclosure in a federal proceeding does not waive privilege if the holder took reasonable steps to prevent it and promptly took reasonable steps to fix it. Your firm decides what is reasonable for each matter; Peony makes each control a setting on the party's link, and on Data Room the per-visitor audit trail records which files each party opened, and when.
| Risk | Peony control | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Someone other than the intended reader gets in | Email verification by one-time code, an NDA gate, link expiry and an allow list on each party's link; revoke a link instantly | Business and above |
| A party sees a file meant for someone else | A group per party with No access, View, Download or Upload per folder and file; No access hides the file name too, and Hide new content by default keeps new uploads private | Data Room |
| An authorized reader copies or forwards a document | Downloads off, desktop screenshot protection (Screenshield on iPhone, iPad and Android on Data Room) and a dynamic watermark with the reader's name, email and IP on every page | Business; watermark and Screenshield on Data Room |
| You need to show what happened | Page-level analytics, exportable session logs, the per-visitor audit trail and each signed NDA's audit log; the audit trail also records link, permission and NDA changes | Analytics on every plan; audit trail on Data Room |
| A document went to the wrong place | Set the file to No access for that group or switch the group off; access stops right away, though a page already open stays on screen until it reloads | Group switch-off on Business and above; per-file No access on Data Room |
| Data at rest and in transit | AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.2 or higher in transit. Peony staff can't open, move or edit the documents in your room. | Every plan |
Why do law firms need a dedicated data room instead of Dropbox?
Law firms need a dedicated data room because privileged communications require NDA gating, dynamic watermarks, and court-ready audit trails that generic cloud storage cannot provide.
Attorney-client privilege, confidential case files, and sensitive contracts demand more than email attachments and shared drives. One slip can mean waived privilege or malpractice claims.
- One room serves every party: each gets its own group and folder access, instead of a separate shared folder per recipient.
- Readers view in the browser; files leave Peony only where you allow downloads, and a downloaded PDF keeps the reader's watermark (Data Room).
- With email verification on, every view is tied to a verified email and a timestamp, so you can show which pages each party opened.
- Switching a group off ends that party's access at once, without touching anyone else's link.
Tools law firms compare are reviewed in secure file sharing tools and ShareFile alternatives; side by side: Peony vs Dropbox, Peony vs Box and Peony vs ShareFile.
How does Peony compare with Ideals, Firmex and ShareFile for law firms?
Peony prices per admin with unlimited matter rooms on Data Room, sets up in minutes and includes NDA gating, per-viewer watermarks and court-ready audit logs, while Ideals and Firmex price per matter.
Side-by-side capabilities, pricing, and setup time across the data room providers law firms evaluate most often.
| Feature | Peony | Ideals | Firmex | ShareFile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free $0; from $30/admin/month | $5,000–$25,000 per matter | $5,000–$25,000 per matter | Per-user storage plans |
| NDA gating | Clickthrough NDA per room | Add-on | Add-on | Not built-in |
| Dynamic watermarks | Viewer identity on every page | Yes | Yes | Limited |
| Audit trail | Court-ready, exportable | Yes | Yes | Basic |
| Setup time | Under 5 minutes | Days, onboarding required | Days, onboarding required | Hours |
| Matter rooms | Unlimited on Data Room | Per-matter pricing | Per-matter pricing | Not matter-based |
Peony figures from Peony's plans and pricing docs: Free ($0) covers tracked single-file links and data rooms start on Business; the clickthrough NDA starts on Business and the signed NDA, dynamic watermarks and per-visitor audit trail are on Data Room. Session and analytics logs export as CSV on every paid plan, and a copy of a visitor's full audit trail is available on request. Setup: the median from sign-up to first uploaded document is 4 min 19 s (State of M&A Data Rooms, Q3 2026 edition). Side-by-side pages: Peony vs iDeals, Peony vs Firmex and Peony vs ShareFile.
What does a legal data room cost on Peony?
A Peony legal data room costs $30 per admin per month on Business (3 rooms per admin) or $52 on Data Room with unlimited matter rooms; clients, co-counsel and opposing counsel view free. Prices are billed yearly ($44 and $75 monthly), and Data Room adds unlimited storage, the signed NDA, dynamic watermarks and per-party permissions.
A two-admin firm on Data Room pays $1,248 a year whether it runs five matters or fifty, with no per-matter, per-page or per-viewer fees.
Legacy VDRs like Ideals overcharge law firms for privilege protection, and Ideals and Firmex charge $5,000–$25,000 per matter. Peony gives you screenshot blocking, AI-powered Q&A and page-level analytics with a 5-minute setup, at a fraction of legacy VDR pricing.
Business
$30/admin/mo
3 data rooms per admin, 100 GB storage, no per-file size limit
Clickthrough NDA, screenshot protection, unlimited e-signatures and AI document Q&A
Data Room · Most popular
$52/admin/mo
Unlimited matter rooms and storage
Signed NDA, dynamic watermarks, per-party permissions and the full audit trail
Try Data Room
7 days free
No credit card, never auto-charges
Put a live matter room behind an NDA gate, dynamic watermarks and page-level analytics.
Prices per admin per month, billed yearly. Deal Team ($64, minimum 4 admins) adds advanced redaction, Advanced Q&A routing, room archive download, OAuth SSO, API access, priority support and a standard DPA with SCCs on request; Enterprise is custom. Free ($0) covers 50 documents and 500 MB as tracked single-file links; data rooms start on Business. Clients, co-counsel and opposing counsel are free and unlimited on every plan.
Which Peony guide covers your legal matter?
Peony publishes guides for the matters legal teams run in a data room, from legal due diligence and clickthrough NDAs to redaction, client document collection and trade-secret rooms.
Related solutions: M&A data rooms, due diligence data rooms and private equity data rooms.
Frequently asked questions
What is Peony, and is it a good fit for law firms and legal teams?
Yes. Peony is a virtual data room that law firms and in-house legal teams use to share matter files behind an NDA, give each party its own folder access and keep a record of every view. Data Room, the most popular plan, is $52 per admin per month billed yearly ($75 monthly), with unlimited rooms and storage; inviting clients and opposing counsel is free and unlimited.
Can I try Peony before I pay?
Yes. Peony's Data Room plan has a 7-day free trial you start yourself, with no credit card, and it never converts to paid on its own. Rooms, files, links, analytics and NDA settings carry over when you upgrade. AI features, such as AI document Q&A and AI room generation, switch on once you're on a paid plan.
What is a legal data room?
A legal data room is a secure online room a law firm or in-house team uses to share privileged or confidential documents with clients, opposing counsel, regulators, or bidders under controlled, logged access. On Peony each matter gets its own room with granular permissions, view-only access, per-viewer dynamic watermarks, and a full audit trail; the Data Room plan is $52 per admin per month, and every viewer is free. Eight platforms are scored side by side in our best data rooms for law firms guide.
What is the best data room for law firms?
Peony is the modern data room built for legal professionals: NDA-gated access, screenshot blocking and AI document Q&A start on Business ($30/admin/month), and dynamic watermarks and the full audit trail on Data Room ($52/admin/month). Unlike legacy VDRs like Ideals and Firmex that overcharge for basic privilege protection, Peony includes court-ready audit trails at a per-admin price: page-level analytics on every plan, including the free plan ($0), exportable session and analytics logs on every paid plan, and the per-visitor audit trail on Data Room. Free covers tracked single-file links; data rooms start on Business. Clients, co-counsel and opposing counsel view free, with no account. Eight platforms are scored in our best data rooms for law firms guide.
What is the best data room for a law firm managing client documents?
For a firm running several matters at once, the practical pick is Peony Data Room: a per-admin plan with unlimited matter rooms, so you are not paying per case. Peony Data Room ($52 per admin per month, billed annually) includes unlimited rooms, granular permissions, Advanced NDA gating, dynamic watermarks, and page-level analytics; clients and opposing counsel view for free, and Deal Team ($64 per admin per month, minimum 4 admins) adds OAuth SSO and Advanced Redaction.
What is the best data room for legal due diligence?
Peony Data Room is built for legal due diligence: one room per deal, a signed NDA and folder permissions per counterparty, in-room Q&A and cited AI search, at $52 per admin per month billed yearly. Buyer's counsel works through corporate records, material contracts, IP, employment, litigation and regulatory files in numbered folders, and AI document Q&A finds a change-of-control or assignment clause across every contract and cites the document and page (Business and above, with 5x the usage on Data Room). Visitor Q&A keeps each counterparty's questions in its own question team (Data Room); Deal Team ($64, minimum 4 admins) routes each question to an expert and an approver and adds advanced redaction. Buyers, sellers and their counsel view free. The workstream-by-workstream list is in our legal due diligence checklist, and AI data rooms for diligence are compared in best AI data rooms for M&A due diligence.
What features should a law firm require in a data room for M&A transaction closings?
Peony gives law firms what an M&A closing needs: NDA gating before any document is visible, granular permissions per party, page-level analytics, chain-of-custody audit trails and folders that mirror the closing checklist. Page-level analytics confirm counterparty review, the audit trail records each person's views, downloads and signatures, and granular permissions keep each party to its own closing set (Data Room, $52/admin/month). AI room generation drafts the closing-set folders from a one-line description of the deal and Index documents numbers every file, so the room mirrors the closing checklist and nothing slips through before signing. AI document Q&A on the Business plan ($30/admin/month) lets associates search across purchase agreements, disclosure schedules, and ancillary documents in natural language — eliminating hours of manual cross-referencing during time-pressured closings. For parallel M&A closings that need Advanced Redaction, an Advanced Q&A module, and data-room archive download for the closing binder, the Deal Team plan ($64/admin/month) adds those.
How do law firms protect attorney-client privilege in a data room?
Peony protects privileged communications with NDA-gated access that requires signatures before viewing, screenshot blocking to prevent unauthorized duplication, dynamic watermarks with viewer identity on every page, and two-factor authentication. Peony also offers Advanced Redaction (Deal Team plan) to permanently black out financial figures, PII, or privileged terms before sharing documents with opposing counsel or third parties: it saves a new PDF with the text under each box removed, not just covered. Granular matter-level permissions ensure only authorized parties access confidential case files, and a folder set to No access is hidden from that party, file names included. The signed NDA, dynamic watermarks and granular permissions are on Data Room ($52/admin/month); the acknowledge-only NDA and desktop screenshot protection start on Business. Peony is SOC 2 Type II-ready and ISO 27001-ready, with both audits underway, and its infrastructure is GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA compliant.
Can a data room provide court-ready audit trails?
Yes. Peony maintains tamper-proof audit trails with timestamps, IP addresses, and device details for every document view, download, and signature. Page-level analytics run on every plan, session and analytics logs export as CSV on every paid plan, and the per-visitor Audit trail tab, with views, downloads, NDA acceptances and e-signature events, is on Data Room ($52/admin/month). These exportable logs demonstrate chain of custody and compliance — critical for litigation, discovery, and regulatory matters where proving who accessed what and when is essential. Logs are kept 1 year on Business, 2 years on Data Room and with no time limit on Deal Team and Enterprise. Each signed NDA also produces an audit log with the signer's viewing time, the signing time and a hash of the signed document, emailed to you and the signer, and a copy of a visitor's full audit trail is available on request after a matter closes.
How do law firms execute and store NDAs electronically in an M&A process?
In Peony, set the NDA gate to Advanced: each counterparty fills in its fields and e-signs before any file loads, and the signed PDF and audit log are stored and emailed to both sides. Upload your own attorney-drafted NDA as a Word (DOCX) file and Peony turns its placeholders (party name, title, date) into fields the signer completes. The gate is set per group, so strategic buyers, sponsors and lenders can each sign a different agreement in the same room, and a second, stricter agreement can sit in front of trade secrets or clean-team material. Every signed NDA lands in the Signatures view with the signer's email, the timestamp, the IP address and its status, and the audit log records how long the signer viewed the agreement, when they signed and a hash of the signed document. Signatures are standard e-signatures under the US ESIGN Act and EU eIDAS. The Advanced (signed) NDA is on Data Room ($52/admin/month); the Standard NDA on Business records email, name, timestamp and IP on one acknowledgment click. See the clickthrough NDA guide for M&A data rooms.
Can law firms collect signatures on NDAs and closing documents directly inside Peony?
Yes. Peony includes legally binding e-signatures with AI-powered field detection: upload a Word (DOCX) agreement and Peony turns its signature, date and input placeholders into fillable fields. Law firms can send NDAs for execution before counterparties view a single page of the data room, then route closing documents — purchase agreements, officer certificates, and ancillary exhibits — for signature without leaving Peony. On a PDF, drag the signature, initial and text fields onto the page yourself. No separate DocuSign or Adobe Sign subscription required, and every signed document is logged in the audit trail alongside viewing activity for a complete chain of custody. Signatures are standard e-signatures under the US ESIGN Act and EU eIDAS, with the signature, timestamp, IP address and a verification hash recorded; e-signatures are unlimited from Business ($30/admin/month), with 3 a month on Free.
How can a law firm securely collect client documents and signed contracts without using email?
Give each client its own Peony room with an Upload folder: the client drops documents in from the browser with no account, and you send engagement letters and contracts for e-signature from the same workspace. The Upload permission is set per folder for each group (Data Room, $52/admin/month), and a group that can upload into a folder can also read it, so give each client its own room or folder. Turn on Hide new content by default so the files your team adds stay hidden until you grant them, and require email verification by one-time code so only the client's inbox gets in (Business and above). Engagement letters and retainers go out for e-signature from the Home screen, and the signed PDFs land in the Signatures view. The full workflow is in how to collect documents from clients securely, and the feature is on file collection.
Can I create branded client portals for my law firm?
Yes. Peony lets you share documents through branded portals featuring your firm's logo, brand colors, cover image and custom domain. Your logo, brand colors, cover image, a light or dark theme and a welcome message per group come with Business ($30/admin/month), with Peony branding removed; your own subdomain, such as files.yourfirm.com, comes with Data Room ($52/admin/month). Every client interaction looks professional and on-brand — replacing generic Dropbox or Google Drive links with a secure, white-labeled experience that reflects your firm's identity. Whether a portal or a data room fits a given client is covered in data room vs client portal.
How do law firms share litigation documents with co-counsel, experts and opposing counsel?
Run a Peony room per matter with a group each for co-counsel, every expert and opposing counsel: each sees only its folders, under its own watermark, with every view logged. Co-counsel can get View or Download on the shared work product, each expert sees only the exhibits you release, and opposing counsel's group holds the production set on View or Download with a link expiry that matches the production window (permissions and watermarks on Data Room, $52/admin/month). When an expert is disqualified or co-counsel withdraws, switch that group off and its link stops working at once, with every other group untouched. Advanced redaction on Deal Team saves a new PDF with privileged text removed before a document goes out. Peony is the controlled sharing layer for documents your review platform has already produced, so that platform stays your record of review and privilege calls.
How does AI help legal teams manage case documents?
Peony's AI-powered Q&A lets legal teams ask questions across contracts, briefs, exhibits, and discovery materials in natural language and get instant, sourced answers with exact references. Each answer cites the source document and page, and a click jumps to that page. Peony extracts the text of every upload so the room is searchable, and Index documents numbers every folder and file (1, 1.1, 1.2) so you and a reader can say "open 2.3" instead of describing a file by name (Data Room plan). Search your entire document library without remembering file names — AI document Q&A is available on the Business plan ($30/admin/month), not an enterprise add-on, with 5x the usage on Data Room. Scope a chat to one file and it answers from that file alone, with no fallback to pre-trained knowledge or the web. AI features, such as AI document Q&A and AI room generation, switch on once you're on a paid plan. Your documents aren't used to train AI: Peony's LLM providers work under data-handling agreements that prohibit training on customer content.
What support does Peony provide law firms managing client transactions?
Peony support runs 24/7, handled directly by the Peony team across Europe, US and Asia hours, with no outsourced tier. Everyone you speak to on Peony support has M&A experience at elite boutiques or bulge-bracket banks, VC experience, or has raised $1M+ themselves. Peony provides 24/7 dedicated support for enterprise clients — because when opposing counsel cannot access closing documents at 2 AM before a signing, the deal team needs immediate resolution, not a ticket queue. Mark a closing-night blocker as urgent and the team typically answers within a few hours; Deal Team adds priority support and a dedicated account manager. Enterprise support is available to firms who book a demo with our deal infrastructure team. Every plan includes in-app help, documentation, and email support. For law firms whose reputation depends on flawless execution, Peony ensures external parties never hit a dead end.
How do outside general counsel use a data room to manage multiple client engagements?
Outside and fractional general counsel run one Peony room per client, so each client's corporate records, board materials and contracts sit under their own permissions, NDA and audit trail. For fractional and outside general counsel firms advising 5-15 clients simultaneously, Peony lets you run separate, permission-controlled data rooms per engagement — each with its own branded cover image, folder structure, and sharing links — so a five-attorney firm can organize corporate records, board materials, and transaction documents without any cross-client exposure. Data Room ($52/admin/month) has unlimited rooms; Business covers 3 rooms per admin. Peony's AI document Q&A (Business, $30/admin/month) lets counsel search across a single client's entire document library in natural language, surfacing specific clauses or filing deadlines in seconds instead of manually scanning folders. Audit trails log every view per client room, giving outside counsel a defensible record of who accessed what during each engagement — replacing the spreadsheet-based tracking that most small firms rely on.
Can law firms in regulated industries use Peony for compliance document sharing?
Yes. Peony fits counsel to cannabis, fintech and biotech clients: licensing files, SOPs and regulatory submissions are shared behind NDA gates, per-viewer watermarks and exportable audit logs. For law firms advising cannabis operators on DCC licensing, fintech startups on state money-transmitter applications, or biotech companies on FDA submissions, Peony's dynamic watermarks (Data Room plan, $52/admin/month) embed the viewer's identity on every page of proprietary SOPs and trade secrets — so if a cultivation procedure or formulation document leaks, counsel can trace it to the exact recipient. NDA-gated access requires signatures before any compliance filing is visible, and exportable audit trails with timestamps and IP addresses satisfy regulators who demand proof of who accessed seed-to-sale records or clinical trial data. Advanced Redaction (Deal Team plan) lets counsel permanently black out privileged terms or PII before producing documents to third parties — a workflow that costs $150-250/hour in paralegal time on legacy platforms. For cannabis practices specifically, see best data rooms for cannabis law firms.
How does Peony compare to ShareFile or Dropbox for law firm document sharing?
Peony gives law firms NDA-gated access, screenshot blocking, per-viewer watermarks, page-level analytics and built-in e-signatures in one per-admin plan, with no per-viewer fees. For litigation teams and transactional lawyers sharing privileged materials with co-counsel or counterparties, ShareFile and Dropbox lack the security features courts and clients expect. Peony provides NDA-gated access that requires signed agreements before any document is visible, screenshot blocking that prevents unauthorized duplication of privileged materials, dynamic watermarks with viewer identity on every page, and page-level analytics showing exactly which sections opposing counsel reviewed — all capabilities that generic cloud storage cannot match. Peony also includes built-in e-signatures (Business, $30/admin/month) so law firms can route NDAs and closing documents for execution without a separate DocuSign subscription. Setup takes under 5 minutes, pricing starts at $0, and there are no per-viewer or per-page limits — so a firm managing dozens of concurrent matters pays a fraction of what a single Firmex room would cost. Side by side: Peony vs ShareFile and Peony vs Dropbox.
I run a 12-attorney transactional practice and we open 30-40 new client matters a year — can I spin up a separate client diligence room per matter with clickthrough NDA on each, without per-matter or per-counterparty fees?
Yes. On Peony Data Room at $52/admin/month, your firm runs unlimited matter rooms on one subscription, each with its own clickthrough NDA, permission scheme and audit trail. Each new $5M-$200M closing, carve-out, or contested transaction gets its own dedicated room. Upload the NDA your counsel drafted for that specific matter (or use a firm-wide template) and Peony gates every folder behind it (NDA gates) — counterparties click-accept before seeing a single privileged document, with timestamp, IP, email, and exact NDA version logged. Different matters can run completely different NDAs simultaneously: one matter under New York governing law, another under Delaware, a third under English law. Visitor groups segment counterparties within each room — opposing counsel, co-counsel, lender's counsel, target management — each with its own permission set. When a matter closes, revoke access kills every external link instantly with a defensible chain-of-custody log preserved. For 30-40 matters a year on Data Room, your firm pays $624/year per attorney admin flat — no per-matter, per-counterparty, or per-page surcharges. Ideals and Firmex charge $5,000-$25,000 per matter for comparable per-room security, which means a 12-attorney practice with two admins runs roughly $1,248/year on Peony versus $150,000-$1M+ on legacy VDRs across the same 30-40 matters.
For a client who has never used a data room before — say, a founder reviewing acquisition diligence or a corporate counsel in their first carve-out — how does Peony's reader experience compare to Ideals or Firmex?
Peony is simpler for a first-time counterparty: they click your link, accept your NDA and read the documents in the browser, with no account, password or onboarding flow. For a first-time counterparty, the difference is significant. Peony loads at your firm's custom domain (files.yourfirm.com, Data Room plan at $52/admin/month) with your logo, brand colors, cover image, and a welcome message addressed to the client by name. They click your link, click-accept your NDA (NDA gates), and are reading the closing-set documents seconds later — no account creation, no password set, no MFA enrollment, no platform onboarding flow. Ideals and Firmex typically require first-time viewers to create an account, set a password, accept platform terms, and complete an onboarding sequence before reaching documents. For a $50M sell-side closing with 12-15 counterparties — opposing counsel, lender's counsel, target management, accountants, regulatory counsel — each onboarding hour saved is an hour your closing process moves faster. Peony's median customer hits first uploaded document in 4 minutes 19 seconds and platform uptime since launch is 99.96%, so your associates are not on the phone walking opposing counsel through a login flow at 11 PM before a signing.
How much does a legal data room cost for a mid-size law firm managing client transactions?
On Peony, a mid-size firm pays per admin, not per matter: Data Room is $52 per admin per month billed yearly ($75 monthly) with unlimited matter rooms, and every client and counterparty views free. Legacy VDR providers like Ideals and Firmex charge thousands per matter for basic file hosting — costs that add up quickly for a mid-size firm running multiple transactions simultaneously. Peony offers a free plan ($0) for tracked single-file links, scales to $30/admin/month (Business, $44 monthly, 3 rooms per admin) with e-signatures, exportable session logs, Simple NDA gating, screenshot protection, and AI document Q&A, and $52/admin/month (Data Room, unlimited rooms and storage) with Advanced NDA, granular permissions and the court-ready per-visitor audit trail. Peony has no per-viewer, per-page, or per-link limits, so costs stay predictable whether a single matter has five parties or fifty. A mid-size firm managing a dozen concurrent transactions pays a fraction of what a single Ideals room would cost. The per-provider math is in our virtual data room cost guide.
How do I set up a legal data room in Peony?
In Peony, create a room per matter, upload the files and give each party a group with its own NDA, watermark and folder permissions; median sign-up to first upload is 4 min 19 s. 1. Create a data room from a template, or describe the matter in one line and AI room generation drafts the folders (Data Room plan, once you've upgraded). 2. Drag in the matter file: folder upload keeps its nested structure, and Index documents numbers every file. 3. Create a group for each party (client, co-counsel, each expert, opposing counsel), with an NDA, email verification and a dynamic watermark (Data Room plan, or the 7-day Data Room trial). 4. Set each group's folder permissions to No access, View, Download or Upload, and turn on Hide new content by default. 5. Send each group its link and watch page analytics and the audit trail. The median comes from Peony's State of M&A Data Rooms report (Q3 2026 edition).
Can Peony staff see our client documents?
No. Peony staff can't open, move or edit the documents in your room. Your documents aren't used to train AI: Peony's LLM providers work under data-handling agreements that prohibit training on customer content. Viewers read documents in the browser; files never leave Peony unless you allow downloads on a link. Peony has had no data breach since launch.
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Last updated October 2026