Ellty vs DealRoom: deal room or deal project tool

These two rarely meet in a bank-run auction. They meet inside companies. DealRoom grew up around the idea that an acquisition is a project: a pipeline of targets, a request list for each, tasks assigned to colleagues and a document store that hangs off those tasks. Ellty approaches the same buyer from the data room side, with the controls an M&A process needs and a self-serve setup that lets a small team open a room the same afternoon. A corporate development lead weighing the two is really asking whether the project framing or the room framing suits the way the team already works.

Our scores come from six weighted criteria built from vendor documentation, published pricing, security attestations and a twelve-item feature checklist. They are editorial judgements, not timings from a live transaction. Both vendors list a free trial, so the checks near the end of this page can be run on real files.

Security posture

Ellty 9.4, DealRoom 8.7. On paper DealRoom carries the more familiar certificate set, with SOC 2 and ISO 27001, against Ellty’s SOC 2 (infrastructure). The gap in the score comes from the controls a reviewer meets once inside. Both apply dynamic watermarks, both offer document rights control so files can be view-only, both require two-factor login if configured, and both keep a full audit trail. Neither lists single sign-on or native redaction, so for an IT department that insists on routing every login through the company identity provider, the answer is the same for both.

What differs is depth around those controls. Our security criterion weighs how granular permissions are and how readable the activity record is when someone asks who saw a file. Ellty scores higher there. If your procurement questionnaire simply asks for ISO 27001, though, DealRoom answers it without an exception, and that may decide the matter regardless of scores.

Deal workflow

Ellty 9.5, DealRoom 8.8. This is where the two philosophies show. DealRoom’s request lists and task tracking are built in, and for a team that runs diligence as a checklist of hundreds of items assigned to colleagues, that structure is the reason to buy it. Both have structured Q&A, bulk upload and permission groups.

Ellty’s lead comes from two features DealRoom does not list. AI features help an analyst summarise a long supply agreement or find the change-of-control clauses across a contracts folder. Native e-signature means the confidentiality agreement at the start and signature pages at the end can live in the same workspace as the diligence file. For a buy-side team reviewing a seller’s documents, the AI point matters most; for a sell-side carve-out, the signing point does.

Everyday usability

Ellty 9.8, DealRoom 7.6. This is the largest gap in the matchup. Our usability criterion looks at whether setup is self-serve, whether a trial lets you judge the interface first, how simple the guest view is and how much onboarding the vendor expects. DealRoom’s project features add screens and settings that a dedicated corporate development team learns once and uses daily, but that occasional users, such as a finance colleague answering five questions, find heavier. Ellty’s guest view is deliberately plain, which matters most when the people logging in are outside advisers or a target’s management who have never seen either tool.

Pricing

Ellty is listed from $149 a month, so a four-month acquisition comes to about $596 at the entry rate, with a 14-day free trial first. DealRoom quotes on request and lists a free trial. Our pricing clarity criterion gives Ellty 9.7 and DealRoom 7.8. The difference is visibility rather than a claim that DealRoom is expensive: a team cannot know DealRoom’s figure until it talks to sales, and corporate buyers often negotiate an annual arrangement that covers several deals. If you expect five or more transactions a year, ask DealRoom for that kind of quote and set it against Ellty’s monthly rate multiplied by your expected room-months. The pricing guide walks through the arithmetic.

Service and support

Ellty 9.2, DealRoom 8.4. Both describe support suited to transaction work. The score difference reflects the service model each vendor publishes and the onboarding included in the offer. A corporate team that adopts DealRoom as its long-term deal platform should ask what onboarding is included, since a well-trained team narrows the gap in practice. Ask both vendors how support is reached on a weekend before a signing deadline and whether a named contact is assigned.

Project tool or deal room in practice

Picture a mid-sized industrial group with a corporate development team of four. In a year it screens thirty targets, signs letters of intent on six and closes three. In DealRoom, each target becomes a project with a request list copied from a template, tasks assigned to legal, tax and HR, and a document area where the seller’s files and the team’s own notes sit together. The value is in keeping every target’s requests, tasks and files inside one project structure.

In Ellty, each live deal gets a room with permission groups for the seller, the team’s advisers and internal experts, Q&A routed to the right person, and AI features used to triage the seller’s uploads. The value is in how quickly a room opens and how easily outsiders work in it. Pipeline tracking happens elsewhere, often in a CRM or spreadsheet the team already keeps.

Neither approach is wrong. A team whose main pain is coordinating many colleagues across many deals may prefer DealRoom’s structure. A team whose main pain is getting outside parties to use the room well, and controlling what they can do with documents, will lean towards Ellty.

What to check during the trials

Open both trials with the same sample folder. In DealRoom, import a request list, assign three items to colleagues, and see how answered requests link to documents. In Ellty, upload the folder in bulk, set a viewer group to view-only, and ask the AI features to summarise one long contract; judge whether the summary is useful enough to change how an analyst reads. In both, raise a question as a guest, route and approve the answer, then export the audit trail and check that it names each viewer and timestamp.

Switching between them later

Corporate teams rarely choose a tool for one deal, so it is worth asking how hard it would be to leave. Before signing with either vendor, ask how a closed room is exported: files in their folder structure, the index, the Q&A log and the audit trail. A structured export makes it possible to change tools without losing the record of past deals, which matters if an earn-out or warranty claim surfaces two years after closing. Ask too how request lists and templates can be exported, since those are the part of a corporate team’s work that improves with every deal.

Which one for which team

For the full shortlist of rooms aimed at in-house teams, see best data rooms for corporate development.