Ellty vs SecureDocs

Ellty and SecureDocs are often on the same shortlist for one reason: both show a price on their website. That alone separates them from most of the data room market, where every figure is a quote. SecureDocs, founded in 2012 in the United States and part of Onit since January 2022, built its name on a flat rate and a short setup for startups and smaller company sales. Ellty, founded in 2020 in Australia, is a full transaction room with structured Q&A and AI tools that sits in the same class as iDeals and Datasite. With pricing visible on both sides, the decision rests on scope: how much each room does once investors or buyers start asking questions.

The two rooms in one table

Prices are indicative; confirm with the provider.

Pillar scores

Deal features carry the widest gap, 2.5 points, and that one pillar explains most of the 0.9 difference in the overall rating. Ease of use is the closest: SecureDocs is a simple room, and its 8.7 is its strongest score in our model. The methodology page shows how the pillars are weighted.

The Q&A question

Both rooms list a Q&A feature, so questions from investors or buyers can stay inside the room on either side. SecureDocs, now part of Onit, presents Q&A alongside its dashboards, activity alerts and audit reporting.

Q&A matters as soon as more than one outside party is asking questions. A structured module routes each question to the right person on the sell side, keeps answers visible only to the group that asked, records who approved each reply and builds a searchable log that later supports the disclosure letter. With several bidders, depth matters: Ellty ties Q&A into its permission groups and adds AI help with drafting answers, which is where the 2.5-point gap in deal features comes from.

For a seed round with three angels, or a small asset sale to one known buyer, either room’s Q&A is enough. For a priced round with a lead and a syndicate, or a sale with several bidders, run the same question script in both trials and compare routing, approvals and reporting.

Security and assurance

The baseline is similar. Both list SOC 2: Ellty’s is SOC 2 Infrastructure, SecureDocs’ is SOC 2. Neither holds ISO 27001. Both include two-factor login, dynamic watermarking, document rights control and a full audit trail. The 1.6-point security gap in our scoring (9.4 against 7.8) is an editorial judgment on how the controls hold up across a full deal workflow, where Ellty’s permissions also govern Q&A groups.

Neither lists single sign-on or built-in redaction, so a counterparty that requires either will push the search toward other providers. When a venture fund or acquirer sends a security questionnaire, share it with both vendors during the trial rather than after signing, and ask each for its report so you can read the scope section. The AICPA’s SOC 2 overview explains what the report covers.

AI and automation: two different answers

Each room has one kind of automation the other lacks.

• Ellty includes AI features inside the room. For a founder answering the same revenue or cap table question for the fifth time, or a seller drafting replies across many bidders, that help sits where the work happens.
• SecureDocs offers a public API. A company that wants to create rooms or move files from its own systems by script can do so, which suits organizations that open rooms repeatedly and have developers on hand.

Most single-deal teams will feel the AI difference more often than the API difference. A fund administrator or a legal operations team with in-house tooling may weigh it the other way.

Pricing in practice

Both publish a starting price and both offer a free trial, which makes this one of the easiest pairings to price. Ellty starts at $149 per month and SecureDocs at $250 per month. Over a six-month fundraising or sale process, the published entry prices alone differ by $606. The cost estimator above lets you set your own timeline and seat count.

Entry prices are only the start. Ask each provider what is included at the starting tier, how storage and user limits work, and what happens if the process runs past the planned close. Our pricing guide covers the questions that keep quotes comparable.

Support

Ellty scores 9.2 and SecureDocs 8.3 for support. In a small process, support is mostly called on during setup and when an investor cannot open a file before a meeting. Ask both who answers outside US business hours if your investors or buyers are spread across time zones.

Choosing between them

Choose Ellty when outside parties will ask many questions that need routing and a record, you want AI help with documents and answers, and a lower published entry price and a 14-day free trial suit your budget and timetable. It fits fundraising, M&A and due diligence where the process needs a full deal room.

Choose SecureDocs when the process is small and contained, your team values the API for scripted room setup, and a simple flat-rate room is all the transaction requires.

Pick Ellty or SecureDocs: the deciding conditions

Pick Ellty if

1. 1Several investors or bidders will raise questions that need routing and a record
2. 2AI help with drafting answers and reviewing documents would save time
3. 3The published entry price of $149 a month fits the budget better
4. 4The deal needs a full room in the same class as iDeals or Datasite

Pick SecureDocs if

1. 1Questions will be few and a basic Q&A flow is enough
2. 2You want to create rooms or move files by script through an API
3. 3One flat published rate is the main purchasing criterion
4. 4The room is for a single known counterparty

Look elsewhere if you need ISO 27001, single sign-on, built-in redaction or a mobile app. Neither lists them in our records.

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Situations that decide it

A seed round with a handful of angels

Five or six individual investors, a short deck, a cap table and a few contracts. Either room works. Questions are few and both rooms can log them, and both offer e-signature for the subscription agreements. Price per month and how quickly the founder can set things up are the main factors, and both rooms are quick.

A Series A with a lead fund and a syndicate

The lead’s diligence list runs to dozens of questions, and the syndicate sees a narrower folder. Here the Q&A module carries real weight. Ellty can route the lead’s questions to the right person on the company side, keep answers within the group that asked, and give the company one record of what each investor was told, with AI help on repeat answers. SecureDocs’ Q&A covers the basics; test how far its routing and reporting go before the lead’s list arrives.

A founder-led sale to one strategic acquirer

A single buyer, a defined document list and lawyers on both sides. With one counterparty, SecureDocs’ scope is usually enough. Ellty’s Q&A and AI tools still help if the buyer’s list grows during diligence, which often happens once their specialists join.

A legal operations team opening rooms for many small matters

A company or firm that opens a new room every few weeks, with an internal tool that tracks each matter. SecureDocs’ API lets the team create rooms and add users from that tool. Ellty does not list a public API, so rooms would be set up in the interface; its fast setup keeps that manageable, but it is manual work.

Running a fair trial of both

Both offer a free trial, so test them side by side with the same script. Upload one sample folder, create two permission groups with different access, invite a colleague to act as an investor and send three questions as that investor. Run the questions through the Q&A feature in each room and compare routing, approvals and reporting. Finish by signing a dummy document in each and pulling the activity report. The exercise takes about an hour per room and shows more than any feature list.

Moving between them

If you are changing providers between rounds or deals, export the full archive first, including the activity log. Both support bulk upload, so documents move quickly. In either direction, export the Q&A log before the old room closes, since Q&A threads rarely import cleanly into a new platform.

Read the full profiles of Ellty and SecureDocs, or see how both rank for venture capital and fundraising. For SecureDocs against a content cloud, read Box vs SecureDocs.