A ShareFile alternative for firms whose problem is chasing, not sharing
ShareFile started as secure file sharing and has grown into a document workflow platform with e-signature built in. If what costs you the season is clients who have not sent things yet, a narrower tool may fit better.
No card and no sales call. Your portal carries your firm's name from the first client you add.
2025 individual return
5 of 8 received1 item overdue — FirmHello is chasing
- W-2 Received 4 Feb
- 1099-INT Received 4 Feb
- ! 1099-B from the brokerage Overdue
- Property tax statement Reminder Tuesday
- Engagement letter Approved 16 Jan
Hadley Voss's portal, as their client sees it.
We make a competing product, so read this as an interested party's comparison. ShareFile has been around since 2005, is now part of Progress Software and sold as Progress ShareFile, and is marketed hard to accounting firms: it has a plan built for tax engagements, and says it is the only file-sharing product in the AICPA's member discount program. It does a great deal: file sync and a mapped drive, Outlook and Google Workspace plug-ins, a client portal, request lists, forms, workflows and e-signature with identity checks. For a firm that wants all of that from one vendor, it is a serious option.
FirmHello is narrower on purpose. It is the portal: a request list per client that follows itself up, a vault, approvals on the record, and your firm's name and domain on all of it. There is no file sync, no e-signature, no messaging, no practice management and no tax software integration. Firms looking at ShareFile competitors usually want either more than ShareFile does or less of it; this page is for the second kind, and the table below is the honest version of that trade.
ShareFile and FirmHello, side by side
ShareFile's side is taken from its public pricing, accounting, client portal and e-signature pages. Where a feature depends on the plan, the plan is named.
| What you are comparing | ShareFile | FirmHello |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | ShareFile Secure file sharing and document workflow: sync and a mapped drive, client portal, request lists, forms, workflows, e-signature and a virtual data room. | FirmHello A client portal built around requests, approvals and a per-client vault. No file sync and no e-signature. |
| How it is priced | ShareFile Per user, with a three-user minimum: $16.50 (Advanced), $26.00 (Premium) or $41.66 (Industry Advantage) per user a month billed annually, or $18.15 to $45.83 billed monthly. Client users are unlimited. | FirmHello Per firm, by storage: from $79 USD a month, monthly or annual, with unlimited staff seats and client logins on every plan. |
| Storage | ShareFile 3 TB per account to start (1 TB per license, pooled), with 3 TB add-on packs. | FirmHello 250 GB, 2 TB or 10 TB by plan, with more at $20 USD per terabyte a month. |
| Document requests and reminders | ShareFile Request lists with automated reminders on Premium and above. The entry Advanced plan has file drop links but no request lists. | FirmHello Request lists with automatic chasing on your own schedule, on every plan. |
| Signatures | ShareFile Integrated e-signature on Premium and above, up to 100,000 documents a month per account, with knowledge-based authentication included. | FirmHello Approvals on the record: who agreed, to which version, when and from where. For e-signatures, bring the signing provider you already use. |
| Branding | ShareFile Your logo, colors and a subdomain, on every plan. | FirmHello Logo and colors on every plan; your own domain and sending address from the Firm plan. |
| Email and large files | ShareFile Outlook and Google Workspace plug-ins to send and request large attachments, plus encrypted email. | FirmHello None. Notifications link clients to the portal, and documents never travel as attachments. |
| Tax software | ShareFile Industry Advantage imports files from CCH Axcess Tax, Drake, Lacerte, ProSeries, UltraTax and others. | FirmHello None today. Your tax software stays where it is. |
| Messaging | ShareFile Comments on projects and tasks, and encrypted email. | FirmHello None. Notifications point clients to the portal. |
ShareFile details checked against sharefile.com/pricing, sharefile.com/industry/accounting and its client portal, e-signature and company history pages on 27 September 2026, using the dollar prices shown on sharefile.com. ShareFile is a trademark of its owner, Progress Software Corporation; this page is not affiliated with or endorsed by it. Prices and plans change — check theirs before you decide.
How to choose between them
Decide first whether you are buying a file platform for the whole office or a portal for what clients owe you. The price question follows from that.
When ShareFile is the better choice
ShareFile has twenty years behind it and a long track record with CPA firms. If you want e-signature in the same subscription, including identity checks on the signer, it has that and we do not. The same goes for moving large files: staff can send and request big attachments from inside Outlook or Gmail, and the office can work from a synced, mapped drive. On the Industry Advantage plan, files come in from the major tax packages.
On price, a small firm may find ShareFile cheaper. At the three-user minimum, Premium comes to $78 a month billed annually, which is less than our Firm plan at $149 a month. The per-user price only works against it as seats are added.
- You need e-signature, with identity checks, in the same system.
- Your staff live in Outlook and send large files from it every day.
- You want the office's file storage and the client portal in one.
- You want files to move between the portal and your tax software.
When a portal-only ShareFile alternative fits better
If the files are not the problem and the chasing is, a platform built for sharing gives you a great deal you will not use to get the one thing you need. In FirmHello the request list is the product: each client sees what is still outstanding, the portal follows it up from your address until it arrives, and the reminders stop when it does.
Seasonal staff are the other reason. Every employee user on ShareFile is a paid license. FirmHello charges the firm by storage, so the preparer who joins for February and March costs nothing extra, and on the Firm plan their access is granted one client at a time. How that access is scoped, logged and revoked is on the secure client portal for accountants page.
- Most of your season goes on chasing clients for missing items.
- You add and remove staff through the year and do not want to count seats.
- You want every approval recorded against the version the client saw.
- You already have a signing provider and practice management you intend to keep.
What to check before you switch either way
Moving portals means moving years of client documents, and in ShareFile's case often the firm's internal files as well. Whichever you choose, ask how you get everything out again, per client and with the folder structure intact, before you put anything in.
- Can you export every client's documents yourself, without support?
- Where do your internal files go if the portal no longer holds them?
- What happens to client access the day you stop paying?
- Does the price change when you add staff in your busy season?
What the request-first alternative does
Every featureRequest lists
A named checklist per client: files, typed answers, confirmations and approvals, reusable next year, on every plan.
Automatic chasing
Reminders on your schedule, from your firm's address, until each item arrives.
Approvals on the record
Who approved which version, when and from where, recorded rather than signed.
Your brand, your domain
Clients log in at your own domain and never see our name.
Client documents are the most sensitive thing a firm holds
So the portal is built to hold them properly: encrypted, access granted one client at a time, and every action recorded. Nothing travels as an email attachment.
How FirmHello is built- Encrypted in transit and at rest
- TLS 1.3 on every connection and AES-256 encryption for stored documents, with keys managed separately from the data they protect.
- Access is per client, not per firm
- A client can only ever load their own space. Staff access is granted per client, so a junior can be given three files and nothing else.
- No documents in email
- Notifications tell a client that something is waiting and link them to the portal. The material itself never leaves it as an attachment.
- Complete audit trail
- Views, uploads, downloads, approvals and permission changes are all recorded with actor, time and IP, and the log is exportable.
- Retention you control
- Set how long documents live per client or per matter, and hold or purge on request, so the portal matches the retention policy you already have.
- Hosted in your region
- Choose United States, Canada, the EU or the United Kingdom, and your firm's data stays in that region.
Questions about ShareFile alternatives
Is FirmHello a full ShareFile replacement?
No. FirmHello replaces the client portal and document requests. It has no file sync or mapped drive, no Outlook plug-in, no e-signature, no client messaging, no practice management and no tax software integration. If your firm uses ShareFile as its internal file storage as well, you would need somewhere else for those files.
Can clients sign documents in FirmHello?
No — FirmHello handles approvals. A client approves an engagement letter or a set of accounts as an item on their list, and the record captures who approved it, the wording they agreed to, when, from where, and a fingerprint of the exact version they saw. An approval is not an electronic signature. For anything that legally needs one, keep using your signing provider alongside the portal.
How does the pricing compare?
ShareFile charges per employee user with a three-user minimum, and client users are free. FirmHello charges per firm by storage, with unlimited staff seats and client logins on every plan. For a firm of three, ShareFile Premium can cost less; the more staff need access, the more the per-firm price favors FirmHello.
Do my clients need an account?
Not with FirmHello. They open the link you send and land on their list. You can require a password or a one-time code for clients who want the extra step.
What are the main ShareFile competitors for accounting firms?
It depends which part of ShareFile you are replacing. For practice management with a portal inside it, firms look at TaxDome. For document management tied to tax software, SmartVault. For client messaging, Liscio. We have written up each of those comparisons, linked below, and a guide to choosing a client portal that covers the field.
Should we have someone review the move before we switch?
Yes, if the portal holds records you are required to keep. Check your retention obligations and your written information security plan against whatever you move to, and plan the export before the old subscription ends.
Related
Where to go next
Every page on the site, grouped by the question it answers.
- TaxDome alternative
- SmartVault alternative
- Liscio alternative
- ShareFile alternative — you are here
Ready when you are
Send one client's request list from your own domain and see how much of it comes back without a chase.
No card and no sales call. If you would rather tell us about your firm first, use the longer form.