Dropbox and Google Drive are excellent tools. They’re fast, reliable, and deeply integrated into most people’s workflows. But they weren’t designed to be client portals, and the gap between “this works for my team” and “this works for my clients” is wider than most people expect.
Here’s the friction that tends to emerge.
The shared folder problem
When you share a Dropbox or Google Drive folder with a client, you’re sharing your storage infrastructure with them. They need a Dropbox or Google account. They get emails every time you add a file. If they want to access it on mobile, they need the app. If they haven’t used Dropbox before, they’re doing onboarding for your document.
None of this is a dealbreaker for colleagues or long-term partners. For a client who just wants to download their tax return, it’s too much.
Permissions are the wrong shape
Cloud storage permission models are designed around team collaboration: edit, comment, view. They’re not designed around the asymmetric relationship you have with a client — where you upload, they download, and you want to see everything they do.
With Dropbox, you can’t easily:
- See exactly who opened a file and when
- Prevent a shared link from being forwarded
- Require someone to acknowledge terms before accessing documents
- Revoke one person’s access without revoking everyone’s
You can approximate some of these with careful configuration, but you’re fighting the tool rather than using it.
The branding gap
When your client opens a shared Dropbox link, they see Dropbox. Your logo isn’t there. Their experience is Dropbox’s experience, not yours. For a freelancer sharing holiday photos, this doesn’t matter. For a firm building a premium brand, it does.
A client portal should feel like yours. Your name, your colours, your domain if you want it.
What a purpose-built portal does differently
Sharedocs is designed around a specific scenario: you have documents, your client needs them, and you want to control the experience.
The key differences:
No account required for your clients (Personal tier and above). They receive an invitation email. They click the link. They’re in. No Dropbox account, no Google account, no new password to remember. The link is unique to them and expires when you revoke their access.
You see everything. Every document view and download is logged with a timestamp and IP address. You know whether your client has actually read the contract you sent them.
It looks like yours. Upload your logo, set your brand colours, remove the Sharedocs footer. On Business, use your own domain.
Access is granular. You can have multiple libraries — one per client, or one per project — each with their own collaborator list. Inviting someone to one library doesn’t give them access to anything else.
When Dropbox is still the right tool
There are scenarios where shared cloud storage is the right answer:
- Internal team collaboration where everyone is already in the ecosystem
- Co-editing documents in real time
- Long-lived, frequently updated shared resources between partners who are both heavy Dropbox/Drive users
For those use cases, use what works. This post isn’t about replacing your internal tooling — it’s about recognising that client-facing document delivery deserves a different approach.
The cost comparison
Dropbox Business is £12–£18/user/month. If you’re a consultant with three clients, that’s £12–£18/month whether you use it for internal collaboration or external delivery.
Sharedocs Personal is £2.99/month for one library and 15 collaborators. Professional is £6.99/month for three libraries. Business is £19.99/month for unlimited libraries.
Only the library owner pays. Your clients access for free.
For document delivery to clients specifically, the economics are quite different from general-purpose cloud storage.
Try it
If you’re currently using a shared folder to deliver documents to clients and you’ve ever had a client say “I can’t find the link”, “which version is the latest?”, or “do I need to make a Dropbox account?”, it’s worth trying Sharedocs.
The Free tier is permanently free — one library, five documents, no credit card required. Set up your first client library in the next ten minutes and see if it’s a better fit.