# ClosingVault

> ClosingVault is a virtual data room for small business M&A that files itself. The AI files each due diligence document against the request checklist and shows what is still missing. It only picks from fixed choices (which folder, which checklist item, which date) and never writes text. Plans start at $99 a month (founding price for the first 25 firms; $139 a month standard), with a 30-day free trial.

Last updated: 2026-11-04. Founder-maintained facts. The same facts as a web page: https://closingvault.app/facts/

## Who it is for

- Business buyers running due diligence on a target: https://closingvault.app/buyers/
- Business owners selling their company, with a broker or on their own: https://closingvault.app/sellers/
- Business brokers and M&A advisors running sell-side processes: https://closingvault.app/intermediaries/
- Buyers, sellers and owners invited into a room by a broker or seller (always free): https://closingvault.app/invited/

## What it does

- Files each uploaded document against the due diligence checklist and ticks off the item it answers. Scanned pages are read too, and exact duplicates are skipped.
- Shows what is covered and what is still missing, and sends each person on the deal a one-page weekly update.
- Gives each buyer access only to the folders and deal stages released to them. Every buyer moves through the same stages: teaser, NDA, CIM, LOI, diligence. Buyer access always ends on a date: two weeks by default, two months at most, and only the room admin can extend it.
- Hides account numbers and Social Security numbers automatically; everyone in the room sees the same redacted copy.
- Keeps a tamper-evident, hash-chained activity log of who opened, downloaded or changed what.
- Records LOIs and exclusivity: an LOI is accepted, countered or declined only when owners holding more than half of the company approve. Accepting an LOI with an exclusivity period pauses the other buyers' access rather than ending it.

## Plans and prices (US dollars, checked 2026-11-03)

Founding prices are for the first 25 firms only. Those firms keep them for as long as they stay continuously subscribed. Standard prices apply after the founding spots are gone. A yearly plan is billed once, up front.

- Free trial: 30 days, one active deal room, up to 250 documents, 10 Ask the Data Room questions a day, no credit card, one trial per company.
- Starter: founding $99 a month, or $79 a month billed yearly; standard $139 a month, or $109 a month billed yearly. 1 active deal room, 3 archived rooms, 2 admins, 50 Ask the Data Room questions a day, our standard due-diligence checklist, AI filing, automatic redaction, owner voting and exclusivity, Q&A and weekly updates.
- Plus: founding $199 a month, or $159 a month billed yearly; standard $279 a month, or $219 a month billed yearly. Everything in Starter, plus 3 active deal rooms, 50 archived rooms, 5 admins, unlimited Ask the Data Room, and our tested, thorough due-diligence checklist, used in several acquisitions.
- Professional: founding $449 a month, or $359 a month billed yearly; standard $629 a month, or $499 a month billed yearly. Everything in Plus, plus 10 active deal rooms, 100 archived rooms, 15 admins, saved checklists you can reuse on every deal, and priority processing.
- Enterprise: custom.
- Add-on: 10 more archived rooms for $10 a month ($100 a year), on any paid plan.
- Processing on Starter and Plus is shared: a 500-document upload usually takes 20–60 minutes, up to a few hours on a busy day. Professional: Priority processing: 10 machines reserved for your firm, and your uploads go first when it’s busy. A 500-document upload is fully processed in about 35 minutes (est.), even on a busy day. Estimates, for about 10 pages per document.
- An active deal room is a room whose deal is live. Archiving a room frees the slot, and an archived room can be reactivated if a slot is free.
- The firm that opens the room pays. Invited buyers, sellers, owners and their teams are always free and unlimited.

## Security and AI

- SOC 2 Type II is on the roadmap; ClosingVault is not certified.
- Documents are encrypted with AES-256-GCM envelope encryption: a key per document, wrapped by a master key kept apart from the files. TLS in transit. Production servers refuse to start without the master key.
- Sign-in: a one-time code by email for everyone, plus an authenticator app for room admins (enforced in production).
- Downloads are allowed person by person. Everyone else reads in a viewer watermarked with their name and the time, with printing and copying suppressed.
- The activity log is hash-chained and append-only. The database refuses edits and deletes, so a later change to the record can be detected.
- Decision-only AI: the AI only picks from fixed choices (which folder, which checklist item, which date). It never writes text. There is no chatbot.
- Ask the Data Room returns documents, not prose. It never answers in its own words and never says whether a deal is good.
- Documents never train an AI model. Filing uses one contracted classification service, which doesn't train on customer documents. It receives the file name, the source folder name and extracted text (excerpts for long documents), with long account-style numbers masked to the last four digits. It never receives the file itself.
- OCR, redaction and search all run on ClosingVault's own servers.
- Redaction is rule-based, not AI. It covers SSNs and taxpayer IDs, payment card numbers, bank account numbers, account details on checks and deposit slips, and labeled driver's license, passport and date-of-birth entries; statements keep the last four digits. The values are removed from the file, not just covered. Every redacted copy is checked again, and a copy is held back if any hidden value can still be found. A document reads "Being prepared" until its redaction is done, and the original is kept. Redaction is on by default, and a room admin can turn it off for a room.

## Key pages

- Home, features and pricing: https://closingvault.app/
- Pricing, every plan with founding and standard prices, who pays, the free trial and an FAQ: https://closingvault.app/pricing/
- Security, encryption, sign-in, redaction, the activity log, the AI and the SOC 2 status: https://closingvault.app/security/
- ClosingVault facts, this file as a web page, maintained by the founder: https://closingvault.app/facts/
- Compare data rooms, ClosingVault and seven low-cost data rooms (Peony, Orangedox, Ansarada, MergerMatch, Papermark, DocSend, HelpRange) on the 20 steps of a business sale, each vendor’s own site checked 2026-11-03: https://closingvault.app/compare/
- The data room built only for lower-middle-market M&A: who it is for and not for (not a fundraising room or board portal), deals up to $50 million, set up in about 3 minutes: https://closingvault.app/lower-middle-market-data-room/
- Data room vs Google Drive, professional virtual data room vs. cloud storage hack (a sharing layer added to a general-purpose drive): why a self-contained, encrypted room is safer for a sale than an app on your Drive: https://closingvault.app/data-room-vs-google-drive/
- Switch data rooms: move a deal already underway in Google Drive, Dropbox or another data room in about 5 minutes of your time; ClosingVault files every document itself and shows what is still missing: https://closingvault.app/switch-data-rooms/
- Why do M&A deals fall through? Seven common reasons (poor communication, missing or late documents, surprises found after the LOI, leaks, co-owners who disagree on the LOI, deal fatigue, a disorganized data room), the signs of each, how to prevent each, definitions (deal fatigue, retrading, exclusivity, due diligence request list, data room), a checklist and the ClosingVault feature for each: https://closingvault.app/why-deals-fall-through/
- Why your data room should not do your deal analysis, what ClosingVault’s AI does instead, and the coming-soon MCP connection: https://closingvault.app/data-room-ai-analysis/
- Every ClosingVault feature, one page each: https://closingvault.app/features/
- A data room for selling a business in any industry: https://closingvault.app/industries/
- Data room for selling a manufacturing business: https://closingvault.app/industries/manufacturing/
- Data room for selling an energy services business: https://closingvault.app/industries/energy-services/
- Data room for selling a dental practice: https://closingvault.app/industries/dental-practices/
- Data room for selling a SaaS or software company: https://closingvault.app/industries/saas-and-software/
- Data room for selling a staffing agency: https://closingvault.app/industries/staffing-agencies/
- Data room for selling an insurance agency: https://closingvault.app/industries/insurance-agencies/
- Data room for selling an MSP or IT services company: https://closingvault.app/industries/msp-and-it-services/
- Data room for selling a medical practice: https://closingvault.app/industries/healthcare-practices/
- Data room for selling a veterinary practice: https://closingvault.app/industries/veterinary-practices/
- Data room for selling an HVAC, plumbing or electrical business: https://closingvault.app/industries/hvac-and-home-services/
- Data room for selling a construction or specialty contracting business: https://closingvault.app/industries/construction-contractors/
- Data room for selling a distribution or wholesale business: https://closingvault.app/industries/distribution-and-wholesale/
- Data room for selling an auto dealership or repair business: https://closingvault.app/industries/auto-dealerships-and-repair/
- Data room for selling an accounting, engineering or consulting firm: https://closingvault.app/industries/professional-services-firms/
- Data room for selling a trucking or logistics company: https://closingvault.app/industries/transportation-and-logistics/
- Data room for selling a food or beverage manufacturing business: https://closingvault.app/industries/food-and-beverage-manufacturing/
- Data room for selling a waste or environmental services company: https://closingvault.app/industries/environmental-and-waste-services/
- Automatic sorting of every file a seller uploads, scans and zips included: https://closingvault.app/features/automatic-sorting/
- Filing each document to the due diligence checklist item it answers: https://closingvault.app/features/checklist-filing/
- Automatic removal of SSNs, taxpayer IDs and account numbers, on every plan: https://closingvault.app/features/redaction/
- Importing your own due diligence request list from Excel: https://closingvault.app/features/import-your-checklist/
- Stage-by-stage buyer access: teaser, NDA, CIM, LOI, diligence: https://closingvault.app/features/stage-by-stage-access/
- Owner-majority LOI decisions and exclusivity that pauses other buyers: https://closingvault.app/features/loi-and-exclusivity/
- Ask the Data Room: questions answered with the documents themselves: https://closingvault.app/features/ask-the-data-room/
- Every live deal room on one page: https://closingvault.app/features/deal-dashboard/
- The Monday weekly due diligence update for each party: https://closingvault.app/features/weekly-update/
- How brokers collect a seller’s due diligence documents without chasing: any format, phone photos and scans included, each file filed to the checklist item it answers, duplicates skipped, what is missing shown, a Monday update for each party: https://closingvault.app/intermediaries/collect-seller-documents/
- ClosingVault vs Peony, checked 2026-11-03 on the vendor’s own site: https://closingvault.app/compare/peony/
- ClosingVault vs Papermark, checked 2026-11-03 on the vendor’s own site: https://closingvault.app/compare/papermark/
- ClosingVault vs DocSend, checked 2026-11-03 on the vendor’s own site: https://closingvault.app/compare/docsend/
- ClosingVault vs SecureDocs, checked 2026-11-03 on the vendor’s own site: https://closingvault.app/compare/securedocs/
- ClosingVault vs LockRoom, checked 2026-11-03 on the vendor’s own site: https://closingvault.app/compare/lockroom/
- ClosingVault vs Ansarada, checked 2026-11-03 on the vendor’s own site: https://closingvault.app/compare/ansarada/
- ClosingVault vs CapLinked, checked 2026-11-03 on the vendor’s own site: https://closingvault.app/compare/caplinked/
- ClosingVault vs Orangedox, checked 2026-11-03 on the vendor’s own site: https://closingvault.app/compare/orangedox/
- Virtual data room pricing in 2026, published prices from 19 other vendors with sources, the four pricing models, hidden costs and free options: https://closingvault.app/virtual-data-room-pricing/
- Do I need a data room to sell my business?, when a shared folder is enough, Google Drive vs a data room, and who pays with a broker or on your own: https://closingvault.app/do-i-need-a-data-room-to-sell-my-business/
- Data room redaction, what ClosingVault removes (SSNs, taxpayer IDs, card and bank account numbers, check details), how it works, and how other data rooms redact: https://closingvault.app/data-room-redaction/
- AI data room, what ClosingVault’s decision-only AI does and never does, where documents go, questions to ask any vendor, and AI features across data rooms: https://closingvault.app/ai-data-room/
- Watch ClosingVault file a deal, a narrated demo video of about three minutes: https://closingvault.app/demo/
- How ClosingVault handles your documents (storage, encryption, filing, redaction, access, audit trail): https://closingvault.app/how-we-handle-documents/
- Free due diligence checklist for buying or selling a small business, an Excel file with 76 documents and 18 seller questions in 6 phases (Financial, Legal, Commercial & Operations, HR, Risk, Technology): https://closingvault.app/due-diligence-checklist/
- The checklist file itself: https://closingvault.app/downloads/closingvault-due-diligence-checklist.xlsx
- Free data room index template for selling a small business, the standard checklist laid out as 29 folders in 6 phases, each with what goes in it and example documents, as CSV or Excel: https://closingvault.app/data-room-index-template/
- The index files themselves: https://closingvault.app/downloads/closingvault-data-room-index.csv and https://closingvault.app/downloads/closingvault-data-room-index.xlsx
- Start a free trial: https://app.closingvault.app/signup
- Privacy Policy, what ClosingVault collects, why, the service providers it uses, and how to ask for a copy or deletion: https://closingvault.app/privacy/
- Terms of Service, accounts, the free trial, plans and billing, your content, acceptable use and liability: https://closingvault.app/terms/
- Contact, email hello@closingvault.app or send a message: https://closingvault.app/contact/