by Dropbox, Inc.Cloud file storage and sharing
Team file storage with password and expiring links, 180-day file recovery and a HIPAA BAA from Standard at $15 per user billed yearly.
Team storage built for sharing with clients: link passwords, expiry dates, download blocking and 180-day recovery on the entry team plan.
Standard, at $15 per user a month billed yearly, gives a team one shared storage pool and every common link control a client-facing team needs: passwords, expiry dates, blocked downloads, viewer history and file request links that let anyone upload. Deleted files and old versions can be restored for 180 days, and Dropbox signs a HIPAA BAA with Standard customers, so a small practice or agency does not need an enterprise contract to share sensitive files. Single sign-on and detailed audit logs are on Advanced.
Against 3 other products we reviewed in Cloud file storage and sharing: what you pay for with each, the five access facts, the plan limits we recorded and each review's bottom line. The note under the table says how each one was checked.
| Metric | Dropbox | Microsoft OneDrive | Google Drive | Box |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Easy to adoptTeam storage built for sharing with clients: link passwords, expiry dates, download blocking and 180-day recovery on the entry team plan. | Worth the priceA terabyte per user with full link controls, file requests, audit logging and a HIPAA BAA for $5.40 per user, with business email and web Office apps. | Worth the priceTeam storage bundled with business email, meetings and documents in one seat, with SSO, Drive activity logs and a HIPAA BAA on every Business plan. | Saves engineering timeUnlimited storage with single sign-on, e-signatures and Box AI from the Business plan, and HIPAA and FedRAMP support on Enterprise. |
| Overall score | 7.6 | 9.2Best | 7.4 | 7.3 |
| Free option | Free plan | Free plan | Free plan | Free plan |
| Card to start | –Not measured | –Not measured | –Not measured | –Not measured |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $15/user/mo | $5.40/user/mo | $7/user/mo | $5/user/mo |
| Pricing model | Per seat | Per seat | Per seat | Per seat |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices |
| Billing unit | Per license per month; storage pooled for the team | Per user per month; 1 TB of OneDrive per user | Per user per month; storage pooled across the organization | Per user per month, 3 users minimum |
| Free option | Dropbox Basic, 2 GB; free trial of Standard and Advanced (30 days per the plans page) | Microsoft account, 5 GB; one-month business trial with a card | Google account, 15 GB; 14-day Workspace trial | Individual plan, 10 GB; 14-day trial of business plans |
| Reference scenario (10 users, 2 TB, annual) | $150/mo on Standard ($15 × 10), computed | $54/mo on Business Basic without Teams ($5.40 × 10), computed | $140/mo on Business Standard ($14 × 10), computed | $150/mo on Business ($15 × 10), computed |
| Month-to-month price | $18 per user on Standard ($18 / $30 for Standard and Advanced) | $6.48 per user without Teams, $8.40 with Teams | $16.80 per user on Business Standard flexible ($8.40 / $16.80 / $26.40) | $20 per user on Business ($7 / $20 / $33 / $47 from Business Starter to Enterprise) |
| Storage on the scenario plan | 3 TB plus 1 TB per additional active license, pooled (12 TB for 10) | 1 TB per user; SharePoint pool of 1 TB plus 10 GB per license | 2 TB per user, pooled (20 TB for 10) | Unlimited; Business Starter has 100 GB |
| Restore deleted files | 180 days on Standard, 1 year on Advanced | 93 days for work accounts; restore the whole OneDrive to any point in 30 days | 30 days in the trash; admins can restore 25 days more | 30 days by default, adjustable by admins; 50 file versions |
| Password and expiring links | Standard and up | Every business plan | No link passwords; access expiry for eligible work accounts | All paid plans |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | SOC 2 report and ISO 27001 certificate cover Standard and up | SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 (Office 365 in scope) | SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 (Workspace in scope) | SOC 1 and 2 Type II (under NDA); ISO 27001:2022 |
| HIPAA BAA | Standard and up; US admins sign it in the Admin Console | By default through Microsoft's data protection addendum | Accepted by admins in the Admin console | Enterprise and up ($35) |
| EU data storage | By support request: 10+ licenses, annual billing, billing address outside the current region | Follows the sign-up country or region | Data region policy from Business Standard | Box Zones add-on, no listed price; checked on Enterprise Plus |
| SSO | Advanced and up ($24) | Microsoft Entra ID (free version included) | Third-party identity provider on every Business plan | Business and up |
| Admin activity log | Audit logs with file event tracking on Advanced; Standard admins see 180 days of activity | Purview Audit (Standard) on Business Basic | Drive log events on every Business plan | Full user activity tracking from Business Plus ($25) |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, Dropbox Standard is a complete sharing plan for teams: link controls, file requests, 180-day recovery and a HIPAA BAA at $15 per user. SSO and audit logs need Advanced, and Enterprise and extra storage are priced outside the plans page. | From its public pages, OneDrive in Microsoft 365 Business Basic scores highest here: $5.40 per user with full link controls, 93-day recovery, audit logging and a BAA. Storage is per person, and shared team sites draw on a smaller organization pool. | From its public pages, Google Drive in Workspace ties with OneDrive for the top compliance and admin scores here, for $14 per user with email and documents included. Its sharing tools are simpler: no link passwords or file requests, and a 30-day trash. | From its public pages, Box Business gives unlimited storage, SSO, link controls and e-signatures for $15 per user. External collaborators, activity tracking and HIPAA move you up the plan ladder, and several add-ons have no listed price. |
Evidence: Dropbox: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Microsoft OneDrive: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Google Drive: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Box: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
Review from public pages
Written from Dropbox's public pages (pricing, security or privacy, and docs) as read on Oct 16, 2026. We did not sign up, and no hands-on run is published yet.
We read Dropbox's US plans page with both billing options and its plan comparison table, the business plan comparison page, help center articles on Dropbox Standard and Advanced, licenses and storage, free trials, file requests and where data is stored, the trust center's certifications page and the branding guidelines on Oct 16, 2026; we did not sign up, start a trial or call the API for this review.
The plans page is clear on the team plans: Standard at $15 and Advanced at $24 per user a month billed yearly, $18 and $30 billed monthly, with a table that marks what each plan includes. The current Standard starts at one user, with 3 TB for the first license and 1 TB for each additional actively used license; most teams that bought Standard before June 30, 2026 are on Standard Classic (5 TB, three members minimum).
A few points need a question to Dropbox. Enterprise has no published price, and the price of extra storage, which admins buy in the admin console, is not on the plans page. The trial length appears in the plans page title (30 days), not in the trial help article, which asks for billing information at sign-up. The Standard help article says admins can see activity logs for 180 days, while the plan table lists audit logs with file event tracking on Advanced only.
Standard includes password-protected links, custom expiration dates, disabled downloads, advanced link settings and viewer history, and every plan has file requests.
Compared: Google Workspace lists no password-protected links for Drive; pCloud's help center lists link passwords and expiry dates for Premium users.
Standard keeps version history and deleted files for 180 days; Advanced keeps them for 1 year.
vs Google Drive: Box keeps trash for 30 days by default, and Google Drive for 30 days before admins get 25 more.
Dropbox signs BAAs with Standard and higher customers, and US-based admins can sign it electronically in the Admin Console.
vs Box: Box signs BAAs from Enterprise ($35 per user billed annually).
Storage is shared across the team rather than fixed per person: 12 TB once 10 licenses are in use, and admins can buy more up to 1,000 TB.
vs Microsoft OneDrive: Microsoft OneDrive gives each person 1 TB, with shared SharePoint sites drawing on a smaller organization pool.
The plan table lists remote device wipe, multi-factor authentication and 256-bit AES encryption on every plan, Plus included.
The plan table lists single sign-on, audit logs with file event tracking, tiered admin roles and ransomware detection on Advanced ($24 per user billed yearly), which needs three users.
Workaround: Standard admins get the admin console, team sharing controls and groups, and the help center says they can see 180 days of activity logs.
Teams can move file data to EU, UK, Australian or Japanese servers by support request if they have at least 10 licenses, annual billing and a billing address outside the current storage region. The move cannot be undone.
Workaround: Dropbox support reviews each request and confirms eligibility.
The trial help article asks for billing information to start a trial of Standard or Advanced; it does not say the trial runs without a card.
Workaround: Dropbox Basic is a free plan with 2 GB for trying the apps.
The extra 1 TB per license on Standard counts actively used licenses, meaning a person who logs in and uses Dropbox.
Workaround: Admins can buy more storage in the admin console, up to 1,000 TB on Standard.
Dropbox bills each license per month; billing yearly is about 17% below monthly. For our scenario, 10 users on Standard cost 10 × $15 = $150 a month billed yearly, or $180 billed monthly (computed), before tax, with 12 TB of shared storage once all 10 licenses are in use. That covers link controls, file requests, 180-day recovery, an admin console and a HIPAA BAA. Costs rise with Advanced ($240 a month for 10 users, computed) for SSO, audit logs, ransomware recovery and end-to-end encryption; with extra storage, whose price is shown only in the admin console; and with Enterprise, which is priced by sales. Plus, Standard and Advanced each include 3 signature requests a month.
Files sync to computers through the desktop app on every plan, and the Dropbox API is documented, so a team can copy its files out without a special export. Standard includes an account transfer tool for moving a departing member's files to another member. Moving a team between storage regions is a one-way support request.
From its public pages, Dropbox Standard is a complete sharing plan for teams: link controls, file requests, 180-day recovery and a HIPAA BAA at $15 per user. SSO and audit logs need Advanced, and Enterprise and extra storage are priced outside the plans page.
| Limit | As recorded |
|---|---|
| Billing unit | Per license per month; storage pooled for the team |
| Free option | Dropbox Basic, 2 GB; free trial of Standard and Advanced (30 days per the plans page) |
| Reference scenario (10 users, 2 TB, annual) | $150/mo on Standard ($15 × 10), computed |
| Month-to-month price | $18 per user on Standard ($18 / $30 for Standard and Advanced) |
| Storage on the scenario plan | 3 TB plus 1 TB per additional active license, pooled (12 TB for 10) |
| Restore deleted files | 180 days on Standard, 1 year on Advanced |
| Password and expiring links | Standard and up |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | SOC 2 report and ISO 27001 certificate cover Standard and up |
| HIPAA BAA | Standard and up; US admins sign it in the Admin Console |
| EU data storage | By support request: 10+ licenses, annual billing, billing address outside the current region |
| SSO | Advanced and up ($24) |
| Admin activity log | Audit logs with file event tracking on Advanced; Standard admins see 180 days of activity |
Read from the vendor's public pages on Oct 16, 2026. No hands-on run is published yet. How we check
We have not published a sign-up run for Dropbox yet. The access facts above were read from its sign-up and pricing pages on Oct 16, 2026.
We have not published API calls for Dropbox yet.
Dropbox lists 4 plans. The cheapest paid plan, Standard (billed yearly), costs $15/user/mo.
Prices as listed, USD, excluding tax; observed 2026-10-16.
Source: dropbox.com pricing page. Prices change; the observed date above is when our agent read them.
We read the pricing, trust, legal and help center pages of three team file storage services on the same day and scored them on the same six indicators. What 10 users with 2 TB cost, which plan has link passwords, SSO and a HIPAA BAA, and who should pick which.
