All four charge per person, but they sell different things: a shared team workspace (Dropbox), governed content storage with no total cap (Box), a pipe for sending very large files (WeTransfer), and a review room for video (Frame.io). The right choice depends less on the headline price than on your largest file, your seat count, and whether clients need paid seats to work with you.
Standard, billed annually ($18 billed monthly). Advanced is $24/user/mo billed annually.
Business, billed annually ($20 billed monthly), 3-user minimum. Business Plus is $25/user/mo billed annually.
Starter, billed annually ($10 billed monthly), single user. Ultimate is $19/mo billed annually; Teams is per-user.
Pro, billed monthly; about $13/mo on annual billing. Team is $25/member/mo billed monthly.
| Dropbox | Box | WeTransfer | Frame.io | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Teams that live in shared folders and send finished work out | Organisations that need controls, audit and no total storage cap | Sending large files to people outside your company, fast | Video teams collecting frame-accurate client feedback |
| Main job | Store, sync and share team files | Store and govern business content | Transfer files; light storage on the side | Review, comment on and approve media |
| Team pricing (annual billing) | Standard $15/user/mo; Advanced $24/user/mo | Business $15/user/mo; Business Plus $25/user/mo; Enterprise $35/user/mo | Teams about $19/user/mo (about $25 billed monthly) | Pro about $13/member/mo; Team about $22/member/mo (monthly billing: $15 / $25) |
| Minimum seats | Advanced: 3 users. Standard is sold for small teams — check the current minimum at checkout | 3 users on every business plan | Teams: 2 users. Starter and Ultimate are single-user only | No minimum, but hard caps: Pro stops at 5 members, Team at 15 |
| Storage model | Pooled: Standard starts at 3 TB for the team and adds 1 TB per extra active licence; Advanced starts at 15 TB (5 TB per active licence) | Unlimited total storage from Business up — but see the file-size row below | Transfer-first. Accounts carry a storage allowance (2 TB by default in current plan listings), not an archive you govern | Per-member blocks: Pro includes 2 TB plus 2 TB per additional member; Team 3 TB plus 2 TB per additional member |
| Largest single file / transfer | Files up to 2 TB via the desktop app (350 GB via web). Dropbox Transfer: 100 GB, or 250 GB with the Replay add-on / Enterprise | Per-file upload cap by tier: 2 GB (Starter), 5 GB (Business), 15 GB (Business Plus), 50 GB (Enterprise) | Free: 3 GB total per 30 days. Starter: 300 GB per 30 days. Ultimate and Teams: no transfer-size limit | Single assets up to 5 TB. Storage, not transfer size, is the constraint |
| External clients | Shared links and Transfer downloads need no Dropbox account. Editing in shared folders needs one | Link viewers need no account, but external collaborators with edit access consume paid seats on Business. Unlimited external collaborators start on Business Plus | Downloading needs no account — that is the point of the product | Reviewers who watch and comment via share links are free and do not count as members |
| Free option | Basic: free, 2 GB, 1 user | Individual: free, 10 GB, 250 MB per file | Free: 3 GB / 10 transfers per 30 days, links up to 3 days, personal non-commercial use only | Free: 2 members, 2 GB, 2 projects, Camera to Cloud included |
| Trade-off to know | Pooled storage is finite: one heavy user eats the whole team's pool | "Unlimited" describes the total, not the file: a 40 GB video does not fit until Enterprise | Starter and Ultimate cannot add teammates at all — a second person means the Teams plan | The 6th member forces Team pricing; the 16th forces an Enterprise quote |
Prices are USD, before tax, as published by the vendors in November 2026. Dropbox previously sold Standard with a flat 5 TB pool and a 3-user minimum (now called Standard Classic on older accounts); the figures above follow the current plans page, where the pool starts at 3 TB and grows per active licence. WeTransfer retired its old Pro and Premium plans in a late-2024 overhaul — many older articles still quote them. Plans change — always confirm the current price, minimums and limits on the vendor's site before you buy.
Per-user prices look identical across these products — $15 here, $15 there — until you multiply them out and check which limit actually binds. Three worked examples, all arithmetic on the published prices above:
A 10-person team, billed annually. Dropbox Standard and Box Business both land at $15 × 10 × 12 = $1,800 a year, but they buy opposite things: Dropbox gives you a 12 TB team pool (3 TB plus 1 TB for each of the other nine licences) and 100 GB transfers, while Box removes the total cap entirely and instead caps each file at 5 GB. Dropbox Advanced ($2,880/year) grows the pool to 50 TB. Box Business Plus ($3,000/year) keeps storage unlimited, raises the file cap to 15 GB and — often the real reason to upgrade — makes external collaborators unlimited. Frame.io Team on annual billing is $2,640/year for the same ten people, with 21 TB (3 TB plus 2 TB per extra member) and the review workflow included. WeTransfer Teams, at roughly $2,280/year, is not a like-for-like substitute: it buys transfer capacity, not a governed archive.
One 40 GB video file changes the answer. A five-person video team shuttling a 40 GB master back and forth cannot use Box Business at all — the 5 GB upload cap rejects the file — and Business Plus (15 GB) still is not enough. On Box, that workflow starts at Enterprise ($35/user/mo, 50 GB cap), or $2,100 a year for five people. The same file fits inside Dropbox Transfer's 100 GB (Standard for five people is $900 a year), inside WeTransfer's unlimited-size tiers, and inside Frame.io, where a single asset can be up to 5 TB and Pro for five members is $780 a year on annual billing — exactly at Pro's five-member ceiling.
"Unlimited storage" has fine print everywhere. Box's unlimited tier limits you by file size (above), by fair-use bandwidth — Box's own community guidance puts it at about 1 TB of bandwidth per user per month — and by API allowances that scale with tier. It means "stop worrying about the total", not "put anything of any size in". Dropbox states the opposite trade plainly: a finite, published pool, but individual files can run to 2 TB through the desktop app. Neither is better in the abstract; which constraint you hit first depends on whether your work is many medium files or a few enormous ones.
Dropbox is the generalist: team folders, sync, shared links, e-signature basics and Dropbox Transfer for one-way deliveries. For business, Standard ($15/user/mo billed annually, $18 monthly) starts the team pool at 3 TB and adds 1 TB per additional active licence, with 180-day file history. Advanced ($24/user/mo billed annually, $30 monthly, 3+ users) starts at 15 TB — 5 TB per active licence — and extends history to a year, with stronger admin and security controls. Transfers run to 100 GB on both, or 250 GB with the Replay add-on. Individuals start at Plus ($9.99/mo billed annually) with 2 TB for one person.
Box sells content management to organisations: permissions, classifications, audit trails, retention and a long integration list, with storage as the substrate. Business ($15/user/mo billed annually, $20 monthly, 3-user minimum) is the first tier with unlimited total storage, and it caps uploads at 5 GB per file. Business Plus ($25/user/mo billed annually, $33 monthly) raises that cap to 15 GB and adds unlimited external collaborators. Enterprise ($35/user/mo billed annually, $47 monthly) raises it to 50 GB and adds the heavier compliance tooling. A free Individual plan (10 GB, 250 MB per file) and Business Starter ($5/user/mo billed annually, 100 GB, 2 GB uploads, 3–10 users) sit below.
WeTransfer does one job: get a file to someone who may have no account, no shared folder and no patience. Its current line-up is not the Pro/Premium pair older articles describe. Free ($0) allows 3 GB across 10 transfers per rolling 30 days, with links live up to 3 days, and is licensed for personal, non-commercial use only. Starter ($7/mo billed annually, $10 billed monthly) raises the allowance to 300 GB per 30 days but keeps the 10-transfer count and 3-day links — and is still single-user. Ultimate ($19/mo billed annually, $25 billed monthly) removes the transfer-size limit, the transfer count and the expiry. Only Teams (about $19/user/mo billed annually, about $25 billed monthly, 2–50 users) adds colleagues, shared management and centralised billing.
Frame.io, Adobe's media collaboration platform, is organised around review: time-coded comments pinned to frames, version stacks, approval states, share pages for clients, and Camera to Cloud uploads straight from set. Pro ($15/member/mo billed monthly, about $13/mo billed annually) covers up to 5 members with 2 TB included plus 2 TB per additional member. Team ($25/member/mo billed monthly, about $22/mo billed annually) covers up to 15 members with 3 TB plus 2 TB per additional member, and adds internal-only comments and restricted projects. Enterprise is custom. The free plan (2 members, 2 GB, 2 projects) is enough to test the review flow with a real client.
Write down the biggest file you send in a normal month. Under 5 GB, all four work. At 40 GB, Box needs its Enterprise tier, Dropbox needs Transfer or desktop sync, and WeTransfer needs Ultimate or Teams. This one number eliminates more options than any feature list.
Seats are billed for people who upload and edit — plus, on Box Business, external collaborators with edit access. Viewers and reviewers are free on Frame.io, and link recipients are free on Dropbox and WeTransfer. Estimate seats from who touches files, not from your org chart.
Per-user monthly prices hide the minimums: Box starts at 3 users, WeTransfer Teams at 2, Frame.io's caps push you between tiers. Price a full year at your real seat count, including the tier your largest file forces, before comparing headline rates.
If your company already runs a suite that bundles storage, or a Creative Cloud plan that bundles a limited Frame.io, an extra subscription may duplicate it. Confirm the bundled allowances first — this guide compares the standalone products.
On published annual prices, Dropbox Standard and Box Business tie at $15/user/mo — but they ration different things (a pooled total vs a per-file cap), so "cheaper" depends on which limit you would hit. WeTransfer Teams (about $19/user/mo billed annually) costs more per user and buys transfers, not a workspace. Frame.io is priced per member for review, not as a Dropbox replacement.
Several published routes fit: Dropbox Transfer allows 100 GB on Standard and Advanced; WeTransfer's Ultimate and Teams tiers have no transfer-size limit; Frame.io accepts single assets up to 5 TB and adds review comments. Box is the exception to plan around: a 50 GB file needs the Enterprise tier's 50 GB upload cap — it does not fit on Business (5 GB) or Business Plus (15 GB) despite their unlimited total storage.
The total has no published cap on Business and above. The practical limits sit elsewhere: a per-file upload cap that rises by tier (5 GB / 15 GB / 50 GB), fair-use bandwidth of about 1 TB per user per month per Box's own community guidance, and API allowances. Read "unlimited" as "no total to manage", not as "any file, any volume, no questions".
They were retired in WeTransfer's late-2024 plan overhaul. The current plans are Free, Starter, Ultimate and Teams, with different limits — notably a 30-day rolling allowance on Free and Starter, and links that expire after up to 3 days on those tiers. Older articles quoting Pro at around $12 with 200 GB transfers describe a plan you can no longer buy.
Generally no for viewing: Dropbox link and Transfer recipients, WeTransfer downloaders and Frame.io reviewers all participate without a paid seat. Seats appear when outsiders need to edit inside your workspace — most sharply on Box Business, where external collaborators consume licences until Business Plus makes them unlimited.
Because this guide is compiled from the vendors' published specifications and pricing, not from hands-on testing. Judgments like "Starter keeps Free's most annoying limits" are readings of the published plan terms, shown next to the numbers so you can check them yourself on the vendor's pricing page.