If you have ever needed to send a large file in a hurry, you have probably reached for WeTransfer. It is quick, it is familiar, and it does one thing well: it moves big files from A to B without much fuss. But sending is not the same as controlling. The moment your document lands in someone's inbox, you lose sight of it. That is the gap a WeTransfer alternative for secure sharing needs to close, and it is exactly where 99 Data Rooms comes in: a UK-hosted, flat-priced way to send a document and actually know it was read, gate who sees it, and take it back if you need to. Try it free, watch the whole journey sit in one place, then keep 99 and cancel the tools you were bolting together.
If your real question is broader than one tool, our roundups of the best secure file sharing tools in the UK and the best ways to send a contract securely in the UK put 99 and its rivals side by side.
The short version
WeTransfer is a file-transfer tool, EU-based, built for frictionless sending of large files. It is not built to be control-first. Once a transfer is out, gating is limited, tracking is thin, revocation is not really the point, and there is no built-in e-signature or document drafting. For a holiday photo dump or a design mockup that is completely fine. For a contract, an investor pack, a due-diligence folder or anything with a confidentiality dimension, "sent and forgotten" is a risk, not a feature.
99 Data Rooms treats the send as one step in a longer journey. You can draft a document, gather it into a room, gate access with a verified email and a one-time code, share it as a tracked and revocable link, watch page-by-page who read what, watermark each viewer's copy on the Business tier, and collect a legally useful e-signature with an audit certificate. All of it UK-hosted in London, all of it on flat GBP pricing.
Feature comparison
| Capability | WeTransfer | 99 Data Rooms |
|---|---|---|
| Send a document you can take back | Limited; once delivered, control is minimal | One-click revocation, even mid-view |
| Page-by-page analytics | Basic delivery and download signals (check current plan) | Page-by-page viewer analytics, raw visit vs verified viewer |
| Verified-email and NDA gate | Not the core model | Verified email plus one-time code; NDA acceptance on Business |
| Per-viewer watermarking | Not a core feature | Per-viewer watermarking on Business |
| Built-in e-signature with audit certificate | No | Yes, from Pro; tamper-evident certificate with signer IP, intent to sign, timestamps and SHA-256 fingerprint |
| AI legal drafting | No | Yes; assembles vetted clauses, never invents |
| Data residency | EU-based (check current plan) | UK-hosted in London, data resident in the UK |
| Pricing model | Subscription with tiers (check current plan) | Flat GBP: free, Pro £19/mo, Business £49/mo, Enterprise £99.99/mo, no per-seat surcharge |
| Free tier | Free sending with limits (check current plan) | 3 rooms, 25 links, forever, no card |
What WeTransfer does well
Credit where it is due. WeTransfer is genuinely good at the thing it was built for: getting a large file from one person to another with almost no friction. No account is strictly required for the simplest sends, the interface is clean, and it handles big media files that email would choke on. If your only need is "get this 4GB video to a colleague by lunch", it is a sensible choice and always has been.
The point is not that WeTransfer is bad. It is that it is a transfer tool, and a document you care about needs more than transfer. It needs a gate on the way in, a record of what happened next, and a way to pull it back. Those are different jobs.
Where 99 Data Rooms wins
The whole journey in one place. With WeTransfer you send, and then you switch to another tool to track, another to sign, another to draft. With 99 the journey is continuous: draft with AI Legal Drafting (assembling vetted clauses from a maintained library, never inventing), gather into a room, gate with a verified email and one-time code, share a tracked and revocable link, read the page-by-page analytics that separate a raw visit from a verified viewer, watermark per viewer on Business, swap files with full version history, and sign with an audit certificate. One place, one workflow.
UK-hosted and UK-resident. 99 is UK-built and UK-hosted in London, with data resident in the UK, AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.2+ in transit and a DPA available on request. It is aligned with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. On security certifications we are straight with you: SOC 2 and ISO are held by our infrastructure providers Supabase and Cloudflare, and we run on their audited platforms rather than claiming those badges as our own. For a UK team that has to answer "where does the data live", "in London" is a clean answer.
Consolidation. This is the quiet win. Most teams end up paying for a send tool, a tracking tool, an e-signature tool and maybe a template subscription. 99 replaces that stack. You stop stitching tools together and stop paying four bills, and the flat GBP price means adding colleagues does not add per-seat surcharges.
Control by default. Verified access, revocation even mid-view, per-viewer watermarking and a tamper-evident audit certificate on signatures (signer IP, intent to sign, timestamps, SHA-256 fingerprint) mean you are not trusting the recipient to behave. You keep the reins.
A note on the e-signature: it is admissible for most commercial documents in England and Wales. Exceptions include deeds, wills, land transfers and lasting powers of attorney, which have their own formalities (see Sources below). That is general information, not legal advice, so check your specific situation.
99 is in beta and improving fast, so you are seeing the product get better week on week rather than a frozen, finished thing.
How to try it and what to compare
Start with the free tier: 3 rooms, 25 links, forever, no card. That is enough to run a real comparison rather than a demo.
1. Take a document you would normally WeTransfer, something with a confidentiality angle, and put it in a 99 room instead. 2. Share it with a verified-email gate and send yourself the link from another address. Notice the one-time code step. 3. Open it and watch the page-by-page analytics register a verified viewer, not just a raw visit. 4. Revoke the link mid-view and confirm access drops. 5. If you are on Pro or above, send something for e-signature and open the audit certificate.
Compare on the things that matter for a document you care about: can you gate it, can you see what happened, can you take it back, can you sign it, and where does the data live. Those are the questions a transfer tool was never designed to answer.
Try 99 free, then consolidate
Send a document you can actually control, and see the whole journey (draft, gate, share, track, sign, revoke) sit in one place. Start on the free tier: 3 rooms, 25 links, forever, no card. Once you have watched it work end to end, the sensible move is to keep 99 and cancel the other tools you were paying for.
The bottom line for UK teams
WeTransfer is a fine way to fling a big file across the internet when nothing about it is sensitive. The moment the file matters, though, sending is only half the job: you also want to know it reached the right person, see whether they opened it, and be able to pull it back. That is a different tool, and it is what 99 Data Rooms is built for. Keep WeTransfer for casual transfers if you like it, and try 99 Data Rooms free on the documents that need control. Most UK teams find that once a document is gated, tracked, signed and revocable in one UK-hosted place, the separate send-and-forget habit quietly falls away.
Sources
- WeTransfer, file transfer plans and limits (verify current hosting, pricing and plan-level capabilities): https://wetransfer.com/pricing and https://wetransfer.com/help-center/subscriptions/plan-limits
- Electronic signatures, admissibility and execution of deeds 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 99 Data Rooms a direct WeTransfer replacement?
For simple, non-sensitive large-file sends, WeTransfer is fine. If the file is a contract, an investor pack or anything confidential, 99 is the stronger fit because it adds gating, tracking, revocation and signature around the send. Our guide to the best ways to send a contract securely in the UK walks through the options.
Is 99 cheaper than WeTransfer?
99 is flat-priced in GBP: a free tier, then Pro £19/mo, Business £49/mo and Enterprise £99.99/mo with no per-seat surcharge. WeTransfer pricing varies by plan, so check their current plan. The bigger saving is usually consolidation: one flat bill instead of separate send, track and sign subscriptions.
Where is my data stored?
In the UK. 99 is UK-hosted in London with UK data residency, AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.2+ in transit, aligned with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. A DPA is available on request.
Can I see who actually read the document?
Yes. You get page-by-page analytics that distinguish a raw visit from a verified viewer, so you know not just that a link was opened but who engaged and how far they read.
Are the e-signatures legally valid?
They are admissible for most commercial documents in England and Wales and come with a tamper-evident audit certificate. Exceptions include deeds, wills, land transfers and lasting powers of attorney (see Sources). This is general information, not legal advice.
Is 99 finished?
It is in beta and improving fast. The core journey, drafting through signature, is live and usable today, and it keeps getting better.
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.