The short answer
Pick SendNow if
You send important documents outside your company and want to know who opened them, which pages they read, and control who can open them.
Pick Google Drive if
You need everyday storage, live co-editing in Docs and Sheets, and sharing with your own team.
Price, plan by plan
Each row matches a need with the cheapest plan that covers it on each side. Bars show the cost of one year.
Share files with people outside
SendNow costs $9 less a yearWorkspace Business Starter includes 30 GB per user and Gmail, Meet and Docs.
Protected sharing with NDA
Google Drive gives prices on requestGoogle Workspace prices are the flexible monthly rate from workspace.google.com/pricing. Google is running a promotion at half these rates until 3 Feb 2027. SendNow prices are per month, billed yearly.
Drive can't tell you who read page 7. SendNow can.
Upload the file, share the link, and see each reader's time on every page. From $6.25/mo.
Feature table
A dot marks the side that is clearly ahead. Out of 10 rows, SendNow leads on 7, Google Drive leads on 1, and the rest are even.
Watch SendNow in action
A short video from our YouTube channel. It shows the real product, not a mock-up.
Google Drive vs Virtual Data Room: What's the Difference?
Google Drive is built for everyday storage and collaboration. A virtual data room is built for confidential sharing. Here is when to use each.
Where each one wins
Where SendNow is better
You see who read it
SendNow shows each viewer, their time on each page, and when they came back. Drive doesn't give you page-level reading data for people outside your organisation.
Controls for confidential files
Email gates, NDAs, dynamic watermarks with the viewer's details, and screenshot blocking.
Looks professional
A branded viewer or data room instead of a Drive folder link.
Where Google Drive is better
Storage and teamwork
Drive stores everything and lets your team co-edit Docs, Sheets and Slides live.
You already pay for it
If your company uses Google Workspace, Drive is included.
Is Google Drive good enough for a data room?
For a handful of non-sensitive files, it can work. For a fundraise or a sale, most teams want to know who looked at what and to stop documents from spreading. Drive doesn't give you page-level reading data, NDA gates or watermarks, which is why a data room exists.
Can I use SendNow with Google Drive?
Yes. Keep working in Drive. When a document is ready to go out, export it to PDF or keep it as Excel or PowerPoint, upload it to SendNow and share the tracked link.
Who should pick which
Choose SendNow when
- You share decks, proposals or deal files outside
- You need to know who actually read them
- You need NDAs, watermarks or screenshot blocking
Choose Google Drive when
- You need storage and live co-editing
- You share mostly inside your own team
How to switch from Google Drive
- 01
Start the free trial
Sign up for SendNow. The trial lasts 24 hours and needs no card, so you can test it on a real document first.
- 02
Upload your files
Upload the documents you currently share through Google Drive. PDF, Word, Excel, CSV, PowerPoint, images and MP4 video all work.
- 03
Set the protection you need
Turn on an email gate, password, NDA, screenshot blocker, expiry date or watermark, link by link.
- 04
Share and watch
Send the new links and watch opens arrive page by page. Keep your Google Drive setup running until open conversations finish.
Questions people ask
Can Google Drive show who viewed my file?
Drive's activity dashboard covers people in your own organisation. It doesn't show page-by-page reading for outside viewers. SendNow does.
Can I stop someone from screenshotting a Google Drive file?
No. SendNow's screenshot blocker, on Pro and up, is designed for that.
Is SendNow a replacement for Google Drive?
No. Use Drive to store and edit, and SendNow to send and track the files that matter.
Written by
Rifana Hameem
Founder of SendNow
Rifana is the founder of SendNow. She leads the team in building secure, compliant, and analytics-rich document sharing tools for finance and professional teams worldwide.
Connect on LinkedInHow we checked
Prices were read on each vendor's own pricing page on 21 Oct 2026 and are re-checked every month. SendNow features come from the plan settings the app itself uses. SendNow wrote this page, so we list where Google Drive is better too. Spot something out of date? Write to contact@sendnow.live.