The best tools for hosting a media kit data room: what each one tracks and costs

What is a media kit data room?

A media kit data room is a private, access-controlled space where you keep your press and partner materials and share them through one link, with a record of who opened and downloaded each file.

A media kit, or press kit, gives journalists, partners and sponsors what they need to write about you or work with you, without having to ask. A typical kit holds:

• Logos in SVG and PNG, in colour and in white, with your colours and brand guidelines.
• Photos of the founders and the team, and product screenshots, at full resolution.
• A fact sheet with your founding year, founders, team size and the funding and customers you are happy to see in print.
• Your boilerplate paragraph and recent press releases.
• Video, such as a product demo or b-roll, in MP4.
• For partners and sponsors, the partnership deck, audience figures or a rate card.

Hosting the kit in a data room, rather than a shared folder or an email attachment, changes three things. Visitors say who they are, so you know who has your kit. You see which files each person opened and downloaded. And you can change a file, or take access away, without sending anything new.

This guide compares tools for hosting a kit and sharing it with control. If you are a creator putting together a sponsorship media kit around your audience numbers, you want a kit builder instead, and those are not ranked here.

Do you need a public press page or a gated room?

Most companies need both, for different files.

• A public press page holds the logo, the boilerplate, founder photos and your latest releases. Anyone can find and use them without asking, and search engines index the page. Your own website does this, or a newsroom tool such as Prezly.
• A gated room holds embargoed releases, unreleased product shots, a sponsor or partner deck with prices, or a rate card. You choose who sees it, you know who opened and downloaded which file, and you can take access back.

A gate costs one step: a visitor says who they are before they get the files. For a logo any journalist may use, that step only slows them down. For files you may want back, or a pitch you are following up, the gate is the point.

Which are the best tools for hosting a media kit data room?

For a gated kit you can track, the strongest tools are Pitchroom, DocSend and Papermark. Prezly suits a public newsroom, Brandfolder a large brand library, and Flipsnack a designed kit you send as one document. Google Drive and Dropbox share an open folder well. Below is what each is best for, what it costs and where it falls short, as each vendor publishes it. We build Pitchroom, so discount our ranking and check the reasoning.

Pitchroom: best for a gated kit where you see who took what

Pitchroom's data rooms, which we build, work for a press kit as well as for due diligence. Every visitor verifies their email with a six-digit code before they see anything, and each one becomes a contact in your account with a history of the files they opened and downloaded, and when. Files open in an in-browser viewer and videos play there. Visitors download the original files one by one, or, in a Classic room, tick files and folders and take them as one ZIP that keeps your folder structure. They can also ask the room questions, and AI answers from your documents.

• Best for: startups and companies that want a gated kit for press under embargo, partners or sponsors, and want to know which journalist took which file. If you already raise on Pitchroom, it is the same data room you use for investors.
• Price: data rooms are on the Startup plan at €25 a month, or €20 billed annually, flat for your whole team. A custom domain is on Scaleup, at €100 a month or €80 billed annually. The Free plan has no data rooms.
• Falls short: there is no open link, so every visitor verifies an email, and rooms are kept out of search engines. Pitchroom does not record time spent per file in data rooms. The email-code screen and invite emails carry Pitchroom's name, and replacing a file does not keep the old version.

DocSend: best for page-by-page analytics on a branded kit

DocSend, owned by Dropbox, tracks each visitor page by page. Its Standard plan shares several files behind one link in a branded viewer on your own subdomain, and links can require an email or a passcode, allow or block downloads, and expire. One of its customer stories is a PR agency that keeps its clients' media kits in Spaces, DocSend's data rooms, so journalists always get the current logo and boilerplate.

• Best for: PR teams and agencies that send kits to many journalists and want analytics for each visitor, page by page.
• Price: Standard costs $45 per user a month billed yearly, or $65 monthly. Advanced, at $150 a month billed yearly or $250 monthly for three users, adds lightweight data rooms (Spaces), verified visitor emails, dynamic watermarking and screenshot protection. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial.
• Falls short: Standard is priced per user, and verified emails and watermarking need Advanced.

Papermark: best for a free, tracked kit

Papermark is open-source document sharing with per-page analytics and data rooms. Even its free plan asks visitors for an email, sets a password and an expiry date, lets you block downloads and emails you when someone views a document.

• Best for: a small kit on a budget, shared by one person.
• Price: free for one user and 50 documents. Pro costs €24 a month billed yearly, or €29 monthly, and adds your logo, colours and video. Business, at €59 a month billed yearly or €79 monthly for three team members, adds ZIP files, verified emails and a custom domain for documents. Watermarking needs the Data Rooms plan, at €99 a month billed yearly or €149 monthly.
• Falls short: the free plan takes PDFs, images and spreadsheets but not video or ZIP files, and keeps 30 days of analytics and the last 20 views. Plans are priced by team member.

Prezly: best for a public newsroom

Prezly is PR software built around an online newsroom: a public site where you publish press releases, stories and media kits that journalists can download. It adds subscribe forms for journalists, email campaigns, a contact list and analytics on what journalists read and download, and some newsrooms can be invite-only.

• Best for: companies that publish news often and want an open, searchable press page.
• Price: Essential costs €100 a month billed annually, or €150 monthly, for one user and one site, with Prezly's branding. Standard, at €250 a month billed annually or €300 monthly, adds a second user, a custom domain and white-label sites. There is a 14-day free trial.
• Falls short: it is a newsroom rather than a gated room, and a custom domain needs Standard.

Brandfolder: best for a large brand-asset library

Brandfolder, from Smartsheet, is digital asset management software: a searchable library of logos, photos, video and brand guidelines, with public and private share links, custom branding and version history. Premium adds asset analytics and automatic publish and expiry dates, and Enterprise adds a vanity URL.

• Best for: marketing teams with a large brand library that many people draw from, inside and outside the company.
• Price: on request. You book a demo for a quote.
• Falls short: it is more than a startup's press kit needs, and asset analytics start on Premium.

Flipsnack: best for a designed, interactive media kit

Flipsnack turns a PDF into an interactive flipbook and markets it for media kits. Sponsors, agencies and journalists page through your offer, and you see opens, page visits, clicks and time spent. Kits can be unlisted or password-protected, and lead forms capture who reads them.

• Best for: publishers and event teams sending a designed rate card or sponsorship kit.
• Price: free for five flipbooks of up to 15 pages, with Flipsnack's branding. Pro costs $38 a month billed annually ($456 a year) and adds full statistics, password-protected sharing and lead forms. Business, at $85 a month billed annually, adds a custom domain, full branding, and private sharing with named people and expiring access.
• Falls short: a flipbook is one document, so your logo files and full-resolution photos still need somewhere to live.

Google Drive and Dropbox: fine for an open folder

• Google Drive is free with a Google account, and Google Workspace Business Starter costs €6.80 per user a month on a one-year commitment, before introductory offers. You can stop viewers downloading, printing and copying a file, but not a whole folder. The activity dashboard covers Google Docs, Sheets and Slides only, for people with edit access, so it will not show who downloaded your logo or opened an uploaded PDF.
• Dropbox Standard, at €12 per user a month billed yearly or €14.50 monthly, adds password-protected and expiring links, disabled downloads, watermarking and viewer history. People who open a link without signing in to Dropbox appear as Guest, with no name or email. Plus, at €9.99 a month billed yearly, has none of these link controls.

Both are a good home for files anyone may use. Neither tells you which journalist took your press photos, which is the job of the tools above.

How do the media kit tools compare?

The table compares the tools on what matters for a kit you share with control. Every entry comes from the vendor's own site, checked on 12 November 2026. A dash means the vendor does not list the feature on the pages we checked. Prices are each tool's entry plan for a kit, in the currency the vendor shows.

What should you check before you choose one?

Run these checks on any tool before you send your kit out with it, ours included.

1. Open it as a journalist would. On a phone, on deadline, through the gate you set. Count the steps between your link and a logo file.
2. Download the originals. Logos in SVG and PNG, photos at full resolution. A preview is not a file a designer can use.
3. Take everything at once. One ZIP that keeps your folders saves a journalist ten clicks.
4. Change a file and check the link. The link you sent last month should show today's logo.
5. Decide what you need to know. Page views in total, or the name of each person who downloaded each file. Only a tool that knows who each visitor is can tell you which journalist took the photos.
6. Keep watermarks off logos. A watermark makes a logo or press photo unusable. Save it for embargoed releases and rate cards.
7. Price your real team. Per user or flat makes a difference once your PR lead and an agency join. Check the billing period too, because many tools show the annual price first.

How do you host a media kit on Pitchroom?

A media kit room takes a few minutes to set up. Data rooms are on the Startup plan, at €25 a month, or €20 billed annually, for your whole team.

1. 1

   Step 1: Create a room for the kit

   Choose a Classic room for a folder list that visitors can download as one ZIP, or a Presentation room for a grid of cover images. Name it, and add a line about what is inside.

2. 2

   Step 2: Upload the kit, folders and all

   Drag in files or a whole folder, and the folder structure comes with it: logos, photos, releases, the fact sheet and video. PDFs, Office files and images open in the in-browser viewer and videos play there. Fonts, ZIP files and design files are offered as downloads.

3. 3

   Step 3: Choose who gets in

   Validated Email lets anyone with the link in once they verify their email, which suits a kit you send to many journalists. Pre-approved lets people ask for access and waits for you to approve them, which suits embargoed news or a partner kit. You can also invite people by email, limit a file or folder to specific contacts, set an access expiry date and take the room offline at any time.

4. 4

   Step 4: Switch downloads on, and keep logos clean

   Set downloads to All Files and the viewer to Online Viewer, so journalists get your original files with no watermark. The watermarked viewer stamps each visitor's email across documents and images, which suits a confidential rate card but not a logo, and downloads are never watermarked.

5. 5

   Step 5: Brand it and share one link

   Add your logo, accent colour and a custom link name, and use the room's QR code on printed material or at an event. A custom domain is on Scaleup. The link stays the same when you replace a file, so the kit you sent last month shows today's logo.

6. 6

   Step 6: Hear when the right file is opened

   Set an alert on any file or folder, such as the embargoed release, and the teammates you pick get an email when someone opens or downloads it. Each visitor's history shows what they opened and downloaded, and when. When you add a new release, email an update to the people in the room.

When is Pitchroom the right choice, and when is it not?

We build Pitchroom, so discount this section and check the reasoning.

It fits best when you want to know who took your kit: press under embargo, a partner or sponsor kit, or a launch you pitch to a short list of journalists. Every visitor is a named contact with a history, alerts tell you when the release is opened, and if you also raise on Pitchroom, it is the same data room you use for investors, on the same plan.

It is not the best fit in these cases:

• You want an open press page that search engines index. Rooms are kept out of search engines, so publish the basics on your website or in a newsroom such as Prezly, and keep the rest in a room.
• Journalists must get in without an email code. Pitchroom has no open link. A shared Google Drive or Dropbox folder has no gate at all.
• You run a large brand library with version history. A digital asset management tool such as Brandfolder keeps versions. Pitchroom replaces a file without keeping the old one.
• You want reading time, page by page. Pitchroom's data rooms record which files each visitor opened and downloaded, not how long they spent. DocSend and Papermark track time page by page.
• Your own name must be on every screen. Pitchroom's email-code screen and invite emails carry Pitchroom's name.
• You are a creator with a sponsorship kit. A kit builder that shows your audience numbers will serve you better.

Your decks, if you share them on Pitchroom, do show time per slide. Our guide to pitch deck analytics explains what each signal means.

Sources

Prices and features as each vendor publishes them, checked on 12 November 2026 on the rendered pages, plan by plan. Papermark, Prezly, Dropbox and Google showed euro prices to a visitor in Europe, and DocSend and Flipsnack showed US dollars. DocSend's prices match our September 2026 check of docsend.com.

• DocSend: pricingdocsend.com/pricing
• DocSend: 104 West customer storydocsend.com/customers/104-west-agency-tracks-media-relations
• DocSend: link settings in Spaceshelp.docsend.com/hc/en-us/articles/206344298
• Papermark: pricingpapermark.com/pricing
• Prezly: pricingprezly.com/pricing
• Prezly: online newsroomprezly.com/feature/online-newsroom-software
• Brandfolder: pricingbrandfolder.com/pricing
• Flipsnack: pricingflipsnack.com/pricing
• Flipsnack: media kitsflipsnack.com/lp-media-kit
• Google Workspace: pricingworkspace.google.com/pricing
• Google Workspace Admin Help: file activityknowledge.workspace.google.com/admin/drive/let-users-see-file-activity
• Google Drive Help: stop, limit or change sharingsupport.google.com/drive/answer/2494893
• Dropbox: plansdropbox.com/plans
• Dropbox Help: viewer infohelp.dropbox.com/share/viewer-information

Frequently asked questions