If you are looking for an Imprima alternative, here is the short version. Imprima is one of the oldest names in the category, founded in London in 2001 and now with offices including Amsterdam and London, and its site shows reference clients of the JP Morgan, HSBC, KPMG and PwC sort. It sells an "AI-Powered Virtual Data Room and M&A Due Diligence Platform" built around a mature AI review suite. Yet its own security page states that all data is stored in EU locations, both primary and backup, and we found no UK-only hosting option on its site as of 1 September 2026. So a vendor with London roots stores a UK buyer's documents in the EU, while 99 Data Rooms, much the newer entrant, hosts in London with primary data resident in the UK and encrypted backups in an EU region (see our security page). If UK residency is on your checklist, that single line is most of the comparison.
The second difference is where the artificial intelligence points. Imprima's is aimed at reading large diligence sets: Smart Index, Smart Review, Smart Summaries, Smart Translation, Smart Redaction and Smart Q&A, a coherent suite it has been building since 2019 and which is genuinely deeper on the review side than anything we offer. Ours points at the other end of the same deal, the drafting and access end: an AI legal drafter that assembles vetted England and Wales clauses, Companies House-backed company lookups, and a public read-only Model Context Protocol server your own AI assistant can query directly. Same transaction, opposite ends of it.
An honest comparison
Imprima does not publish plan prices on its own site, so every Imprima cell below is either quoted from a primary Imprima page or marked "not published, sales-led - verify with Imprima". Where a capability simply did not appear in its public materials, we say we found no claim rather than asserting the product lacks it, because an unpublished feature is not an absent one.
| What matters | 99 Data Rooms | Imprima |
|---|---|---|
| Data residency | Primary data UK (London); encrypted backups in an EU region | EU locations, primary and backup, per its security page |
| Published pricing | Flat GBP, Pro £19, Business £49 a month | Not published, sales-led - verify with Imprima |
| Try before you buy | Free tier: 3 rooms, 25 active links, forever, no card | Sales-gated demo request on its site - verify trial terms with Imprima |
| Built-in e-signature | Yes, from Pro: 5 a month, unlimited from Business | No e-signature claim found on its site, 1 Sep 2026 - verify |
| Per-viewer watermarking | Yes, on Business | No watermarking claim found on its site, 1 Sep 2026 - verify |
| NDA gate before access | Yes, on Business, with acceptance receipts | Not published, sales-led - verify with Imprima |
| AI for reviewing documents | No equivalent review suite | Smart Index, Smart Review, Smart Summaries, Smart Redaction, Smart Q&A |
| AI for drafting documents | Yes, from Pro, 17 vetted E&W templates | Not published - verify with Imprima |
| Public MCP server for AI assistants | Yes, public and read-only | Not published - verify with Imprima |
| Certifications | None held by us; SOC 2 and ISO are held by our providers Supabase and Cloudflare | Imprima states ISO 27001:2022 across its whole business, audited half-yearly |
| Encryption | AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.2+ in transit | 256-bit AES and TLS 1.2, on Azure, per its security page |
| Track record | Newer platform, shorter track record | Founded in London in 2001 |
What Imprima does well
Fair credit, and quite a lot of it. Imprima states it holds ISO 27001:2022 covering the whole business, not just the data centre, with half-yearly independent audits and CREST-approved annual penetration testing. That company-wide scope is a genuinely strong position and a meaningful step above providers who certify only their infrastructure, and half-yearly audits are above the usual annual cycle. Its security page also describes bring-your-own-key encryption, so you hold the key that encrypts and decrypts your documents, and two-factor authentication driven by an authenticator app. As an observation of its public materials only, we found no Cyber Essentials claim on its site as of 1 September 2026, which matters solely because some UK public-sector and SME buyers ask for that specific scheme by name; it says nothing about what Imprima holds beyond what its site shows.
On product, its Q&A workflow is built for high volumes of buyer and seller questions with topic mapping and auto-forwarding, permissions run down to individual documents, and its live dashboards and bidder heat-maps are aimed at reading buyer interest across a competitive process. Then there is the Smart suite. If your problem is thousands of contracts that somebody has to index, redact for personal data, review for red flags and summarise, that suite is real depth built over years, and we do not have an answer to it. Twenty-five years in the category and named enterprise reference clients are not marketing air either; on a nine-figure auction with ten bidders, that experience is worth paying for.
Where 99 Data Rooms wins
We win on three things: where the data sits, what the price is, and how much of the deal happens in one login. Take residency first, because it is the odd one. A London-founded vendor telling a UK buyer that documents live in EU locations is not a criticism of Imprima, it is simply a mismatch for anyone whose data-protection position, client engagement letter or procurement questionnaire calls for UK-based hosting. 99 Data Rooms is UK-built and hosted in London, with primary data resident in the UK and encrypted backups in an EU region, AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.2+ in transit, and a DPA on request (our trust page sets out the detail). On certifications we are careful and it cuts against us: 99 Data Rooms holds no first-party SOC 2 or ISO certification. The SOC 2 and ISO certifications behind our stack are held by our infrastructure providers, Supabase and Cloudflare. We run on their audited platforms and do not claim their audits as our own. Compared with Imprima's company-wide ISO 27001, that is a real gap, and if a certificate is the gating requirement you should say so to both of us.
Price is the second. Ours is on the page: Pro at £19 a month, Business at £49 a month, flat in pounds, never per seat, with a free tier that is a tier rather than a trial, three rooms and twenty-five active links, forever, no card (full pricing). Imprima's own pricing surfaces route to a demo request and a bespoke consultation instead, so we cannot tell you what it costs; third-party sites (TrustRadius among them) publish euro figures for an entry package and per-gigabyte storage, but those are third-party estimates, not Imprima's stated prices, and you should verify any number with Imprima directly. The structural point survives either way: one model is a published flat fee in your own currency, the other is a quote.
The third is journey length. One document travels the whole way with us without leaving the platform. Draft an agreement from vetted England and Wales clauses in the AI legal drafter, which assembles vetted clauses rather than inventing legal wording and is a starting point, not legal advice. Gather documents into a room. Gate it with a verified email, a one-time code and, on Business, NDA acceptance before anyone sees a page. Share a tracked, revocable link, watch page-by-page analytics, and stamp each viewer's copy with a per-viewer watermark on Business so a leak is traceable. Then sign it, built in from Pro at five a month and unlimited from Business, with an audit certificate carrying signer IP, intent-to-sign consent, timestamps and a SHA-256 fingerprint. Electronic signatures are admissible for most commercial documents in England and Wales; deeds, wills, land transfers and lasting powers of attorney carry extra requirements, and this is general information, not legal advice.
For larger teams there is an Enterprise company account with unlimited seats, where billing scales on storage and AI capacity rather than headcount, which is the opposite of how most of this category prices. And because we are built for a world where your side has AI too, we publish a public read-only MCP server that an AI assistant can query directly about the product, so the answers come from source rather than from a brochure.
Our honest recommendation
Choose on the shape of your deal, not on the table. If you are running a large, document-review-heavy process where the cost is measured in reviewer hours across thousands of contracts, Imprima's Smart suite has depth we cannot match, and its longevity and enterprise references are real. If your deal is UK-first, if you want to see the price before you talk to anyone, and if you want drafting, gating, tracking and signature in one login rather than four subscriptions, we are the better fit, and you can prove it on your own documents this afternoon without a sales call. Our wider roundup of the best virtual data room providers in the UK puts both of us in context, and our comparison with Drooms covers the other established European option.
One more thing on verifying claims, since a comparison page is exactly the kind of document that quietly drifts out of date. Every product claim on this page is pinned by automated tests that run in our continuous integration before anything merges, so a price or an allowance that changes in the product changes here or the build fails. And if you would rather ask than read, point your own AI assistant at our public MCP server and let it answer from source. We would rather be checked than believed.
Try the UK-hosted alternative free
You can compare us against Imprima on your own documents for nothing: three rooms, twenty-five active links, forever, no card required. Start for free, draft an agreement, gate a room, track who read what and sign it end to end, all on our London-hosted platform. If your process turns out to need a heavyweight AI review suite, you will know that quickly too, and we would rather you found out for free than after a quote.
Sources
- Imprima positioning, AI suite and reference clients: https://www.imprima.com (fetched 1 September 2026) and https://www.imprima.com/virtual-data-room (fetched 1 September 2026).
- Imprima security, ISO 27001:2022 scope and audit cadence, CREST-approved penetration testing, EU data residency, encryption, bring-your-own-key and two-factor authentication: https://www.imprima.com/virtual-data-room/security (fetched 1 September 2026).
- Imprima history, London founding in 2001 and company background: https://www.imprima.com/about/meet-imprima/ (fetched 1 September 2026).
- Imprima offices, including Amsterdam and London: https://www.imprima.com/contact (fetched 1 September 2026).
- Imprima pricing surface, which returned sales-contact and demo-request copy rather than plan prices: https://www.imprima.com/pricing (fetched 1 September 2026).
- Imprima machine-readable summary file for AI assistants: https://www.imprima.com/llms.txt returned HTTP 404 when fetched on 1 September 2026.
- Electronic signature admissibility in England and Wales: Law Commission, Electronic execution of documents (2019), https://lawcom.gov.uk/project/electronic-execution-of-documents/ ; HM Land Registry Practice Guide 82, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/electronic-signatures-accepted-by-hm-land-registry-pg82
Is Imprima UK-hosted?
Not on the evidence of its own site. Imprima's security page states that all data is stored in EU locations, both primary and backup, and we found no UK-only hosting option published there as of 1 September 2026, despite the company being founded in London in 2001 and still listing a London office. Verify your specific residency requirement with Imprima. 99 Data Rooms hosts in London with primary data resident in the UK and encrypted backups in an EU region.
How much does Imprima cost?
Imprima does not publish plan prices. Its pricing page routes to a demo request and a bespoke consultation, so pricing is sales-led and you will need a quote. Third-party sites publish euro figures for an entry package and per-gigabyte storage, but those are third-party estimates rather than Imprima's stated prices, so verify with Imprima. 99 Data Rooms publishes flat GBP pricing: Pro £19 and Business £49 a month.
Does Imprima include e-signature and watermarking?
We found no e-signature or watermarking claim on its site as of 1 September 2026, which is an observation about its published materials rather than a statement that the features are absent, so check directly with Imprima. On our side both are built in: e-signature from Pro at five a month and unlimited from Business, and per-viewer watermarking on Business.
Which has better AI, Imprima or 99 Data Rooms?
They point at different ends of a deal. Imprima's Smart Index, Smart Review, Smart Summaries, Smart Redaction and Smart Q&A are aimed at reviewing large diligence sets, and that suite is deeper on review than anything we offer. Ours is aimed at drafting and access: an AI legal drafter working from vetted England and Wales clauses, Companies House-backed lookups, and a public MCP server your AI assistant can query.
Is 99 Data Rooms ISO 27001 certified?
No. 99 Data Rooms holds no first-party ISO or SOC 2 certification, and we will not imply otherwise. The SOC 2 and ISO certifications behind our stack are held by our infrastructure providers, Supabase and Cloudflare, and we run on their audited platforms. Imprima states it holds ISO 27001:2022 across its whole business with half-yearly independent audits, which is a genuine advantage if a certificate is your gating requirement.
Can I try 99 Data Rooms before committing?
Yes, and without a sales call. The free tier is a permanent tier rather than a trial: three rooms and twenty-five active links, forever, with no card required. You can draft an agreement, gate a room behind a verified email, share a tracked link and watch page-by-page analytics before you spend anything. Imprima's site offers a sales-gated demo instead.
Comparison details are checked against public vendor pages at the date shown in the article and may have changed since. Names and trademarks belong to their owners.