# Smarsh Software Pricing, Alternatives & More 2026 | Capterra > With the help of Capterra, learn about Smarsh Software - reviews, pricing plans, popular comparisons to other Compliance products and more. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/130954/Email-Archiving --- # Smarsh Software Review 2026: Features, Reviews, Integrations, Pros & Cons Last updated on March 13, 2026 Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. Independent research methodology Capterra’s researchers use a mix of verified reviews, independent research and objective methodologies to bring you selection and ranking information you can trust. While we may earn a referral fee when you visit a provider through our links or speak to an advisor, this has no influence on our research or methodology. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/resources/proprietary-data-research/) How Capterra verifies reviews Capterra carefully verified over 2.5 million+ reviews to bring you authentic software experiences from real users. Our human moderators verify that reviewers are real people and that reviews are authentic. They use leading tech to analyze text quality and to detect plagiarism and generative AI. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/resources/how-we-verify-reviews/) How Capterra ensures transparency Capterra lists all providers across its website—not just those that pay us—so that users can make informed purchase decisions. Capterra is free for users. Software providers pay us for sponsored profiles to receive web traffic and sales opportunities. Sponsored profiles include a link-out icon that takes users to the provider’s website. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/resources/how-we-ensure-transparency/) [Description](#description)[Use cases](#use-cases)[Alternatives](#alternatives)[Features](#features)[Pricing](#pricing)[Support](#support)[Reviews](#reviews) Smarsh ## What is Smarsh? The Professional Archive is a comprehensive and user-friendly compliance platform from Smarsh. Inclusive of capture, archive, supervision and data export capabilities across 100+ communication channels, the Professional Archive delivers unparalleled efficiency at your organization with a single pane of glass solution. Support for new channels is continually being added, so you can implement innovative communication and collaboration technologies and stay ahead of regulatory change. ## What is Smarsh used for? [Archiving](https://www.capterra.com/archiving-software/)[Email Archiving](https://www.capterra.com/email-archiving-software/)[Electronic Discovery](https://www.capterra.com/electronic-discovery-software/) Top alternative Featured Overall rating Based on 18 user reviews Reviews sentiment Positive \- Neutral \- Negative \- Starting price $75 Usage Based, Per Month Free trial not available Capterra Shortlist charts the highest-rated and most popular products... Our "Best of" badge program showcases products with the highest ratings... Our "Best of" badge program showcases products with the highest ratings... Do you work for Smarsh?[Manage this product listing](https://digitalmarkets.gartner.com/get-listed/claim-bx?url=http://www.smarsh.com&name=Smarsh) ## Compare with a popular alternative Capterra selects software alternatives based on relevant features, verified user reviews and user interactions. Placement may be influenced by client status. ### Smarsh 3.8 (18) VS. [5.0 (11)](https://www.capterra.com/p/10003893/MessageWatcher/reviews/) Starting Price $75 Usage Based, Per Month Starting Price $50 Per User, Per Month Free Trial Free Version Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version Ease Of Use 3.8 (18) Ease Of Use 4.9 (11) Value For Money 3.8 (18) Value For Money 4.9 (11) Customer Service 3.7 (18) Customer Service 5.0 (11) ## Smarsh alternatives [4.7 (240)](https://www.capterra.com/p/163343/Backup-and-Recovery/reviews/) Starting price Contact vendor for pricing Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 96% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [WinRAR](https://www.capterra.com/p/207190/WinRAR/) [4.8 (359)](https://www.capterra.com/p/207190/WinRAR/reviews/) Starting price Contact vendor for pricing Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 97% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/207190/WinRAR/) [Rubrik](https://www.capterra.com/p/148206/Rubrik/) [4.8 (74)](https://www.capterra.com/p/148206/Rubrik/reviews/) Starting price Contact vendor for pricing Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 99% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/148206/Rubrik/) [NAKIVO Backup & Replication](https://www.capterra.com/p/161328/NAKIVO/) [4.8 (457)](https://www.capterra.com/p/161328/NAKIVO/reviews/) Starting price $99.00 Per User, Per Month Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 99% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/161328/NAKIVO/) [View all alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/130954/Email-Archiving/alternatives/) ## Features Features with the highest number of reviews are displayed first. Those that have no reviews appear next, sorted alphabetically. Access Controls/Permissions 2.5 (2) 50.00% of 2 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Define levels of authorization for access to specific files or systems Archiving & Retention 3.0 (2) 50.00% of 2 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Moving and separately storing data that is not actively used or continuous storage of data for compliance purposes Document Storage 3.0 (2) 100.00% of 2 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Store and organize documents in a centralized system Compliance Management 1.0 (1) 0.00% of 1 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Track and manage adherence to policies for any service, product, process, or supplier Data Import/Export 1.0 (1) 100.00% of 1 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Import and export data to and from software applications eDiscovery 4.0 (1) 100.00% of 1 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Finding, identifying and collecting information for legal proceedings Smarsh 16 features Define levels of authorization for access to specific files or systems Moving and separately storing data that is not actively used or continuous storage of data for compliance purposes Leave comments and notes on documents for others to view Track and manage adherence to policies for any service, product, process, or supplier Import and export data to and from software applications Ability to restore deleted, hidden, or lost data from an email server/system Manage/customize policies to organize data and determine where data should be stored or archived and for how long. Assign categories, labels, tags, or attributes to documents for organization, search and storage Store and organize documents in a centralized system Finding, identifying and collecting information for legal proceedings Convert data into a code for security Pull information from scanning entire documents Identify specific keywords in documents Retrieval of embedded metadata that is present within a file Identify topics to prioritize document research Gathering, storing and preserving data found on the World Wide Web Get Advice We can help you find the software with the features you need. Features 4.0 (18) 4.0 Based on 18 reviews ## Pricing Value for money 3.8 (18) Basic $75.00 Usage Based,Per Month Value for money 3.8 (18) 3.8 Based on 18 reviews Connect with a Capterra advisor for a free 15-minute consultation Get a personalized software list aligned to your business needs with guidance from our expert advisors. Our team has helped 1 million+ businesses like yours find options that fit their needs. ## Support, customer service and training options Customer Service 3.7 (18) Support - Email/Help Desk - FAQs/Forum - Knowledge Base - Phone Support - 24/7 (Live rep) - Chat Training - In Person - Live Online - Webinars - Documentation - Videos Deployment - Web - Android - iPhone/iPad Typical users - Freelancers - Small businesses - Mid size businesses - Enterprises Customer Service 3.7 (18) 3.7 Based on 18 reviews ## User reviews Overall rating 3.8 Based on 18 reviews Filter by rating 5(10) 4(3) 3(0) 2(2) 1(3) Mentioned topic Sorted by most recent KG Katrina G. Executive Assistant Executive Office ### "Don't waste your money" 1.0 Overall Rating 1.0 1.0 Ease of Use 1.0 1.0 Features 1.0 1.0 Customer Service 1.0 1.0 Likelihood to Recommend 0/10 August 13, 2025 Unreliable from the start; forced to keep paying for a service my company couldn’t even use. When I brought our issues to customer service they apologized and offered nothing in return. Pros The archive function worked, but we didn't have much to archive since their texting service rarely worked. Cons Obligated to pay due to contractual terms, even though the service proved unreliable and my company was unable to continue using it. Alternatives considered [RelayThat](https://www.capterra.com/p/172915/RelayThat/) Reasons for choosing Smarsh Smarsh sales rep. was more responsive and I regret choosing them for that reason. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. DB Donald B. Wealth Manager Financial Services ### "Smash Email and Archiving" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 3.0 3.0 Likelihood to Recommend 8/10 December 2, 2024 Solid product, easy to use and setup. Archiving works well also. They don't yet offer some products like email recall, and customer service is difficult to navigate via email or their internal sites. Pros Email hosting and archiving is easy to set up and utilize. Searching for archived emails works well through their internal sites Cons Customer service is difficult to work with via email. Also, searching for an email via the main hosting site is difficult and inaccurate at times. Alternatives considered [Gmail](https://www.capterra.com/p/202338/Gmail/) Reasons for choosing Smarsh Security and safety was top priority. Archiving also is critical to my work. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. LT Lavanderia T. Application Developer Information Technology and Services ### "My Experience With Smarsh" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 9/10 February 1, 2024 Pros I like that data archiving is easy as well as retrieval It comes with best enterprise search features It comes with social media monitoring and cyber protection Cons With Smarsh, everything has just worked and no dislikes yet. Switched from [Drata](https://www.capterra.com/p/218441/Drata/) [Vanta](https://www.capterra.com/p/211459/Vanta/) [Scrut Automation](https://www.capterra.com/p/10012083/Scrut/) [Sprinto](https://www.capterra.com/p/238326/Sprinto/) Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. AU Anonymous User Engineer Information Technology and Services ### "Borderline Scam Do not select this product." 2.0 Overall Rating 2.0 2.0 Ease of Use 1.0 1.0 Features 3.0 3.0 Customer Service 1.0 1.0 Likelihood to Recommend 0/10 October 29, 2020 I could not urge you to stay as far away as you can from this platform. What others say is true. They will hold your data hostage if you try to leave. They've designed their platform to keep you trapped in contract hell and will also personally ensure to delay contract negotiations until access is shut off and you are forced to pay the renewal. Overall their solution is a borderline scam. If they returned to monthly contracts updated to clear billing practices and updated their platform to remove the separate portals. It would be night and day. Pros It does what it says. It archive platforms that you need archived. Their service department is prompt in providing technical assistance although we have needed little. Cons Contracts and Renewals: They have done away with monthly renewals. You are locked into a year long agreement. You must renew 2months prior. So 3months. And their invoices don't give you any clue as to what you are paying for. Between the adjustments and impossible to follow invoices. They have designed their billing system to be as confusing as possible trapping you into a contract that is 3x the cost of the competition. And that isn't an exaggeration. 3x compared to other platforms. Service: Their service team for negotiations over-promises and never delivers. Stringing things out until you are forced to renew. Pricing: You pay per platform. Which has a zero correlation to your invoice. So if you wanted to archive 3 different platforms for 30 users. Instead of having clear delineation, it's a single line item that is 90 users. And typically this number is 10% bigger than it should be. Which is impossible to figure out why. You end up having artificially inflated pricing just by headcount alone. Platform: The management interface has two separate locations for management. Making it completely confusing to request support. If you aren't an admin in one location. Good luck they won't help you. You have to be a support admin in another place. It makes zero sense and is quite cumbersome to deal with. Switched from [Global Relay Archive](https://www.capterra.com/p/85993/Global-Relay-Archive/) Global Relay although inexpensive has a poor user interface experience. Alternatives considered [Onna](https://www.capterra.com/p/151741/Onna/) Reasons for choosing Smarsh Onna was still in the early stages at the time. And due to pending renewals from Smarsh. And the inability to move data quickly enough. We were forced to renew. Trapping us yet again for another year. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. AU Anonymous User Assistant City Attorney Government Administration ### "Don't waste your money and sanity" 1.0 Overall Rating 1.0 1.0 Ease of Use 1.0 1.0 Features 1.0 1.0 Customer Service 1.0 1.0 Likelihood to Recommend 0/10 June 21, 2019 My organization (a governmental entity) purchased Smarsh to help manager our email archive and to allow us to easily search and compile email for public records requests and litigation. Using Smarsh has been an exercise in constant frustration. You will get a slick sales presentation, but be prepared for almost constant error messages when trying to complete the simplest tasks, such as searching for email, moving email into a "case", and exporting. Not just once and awhile... maybe 25% of the time on a good day, 90% of the time on a bad day. And Smarsh has a lot of bad days. Customer service is a joke. A nice person answers and tells you to try again later. But I have not found a time of day (and I've tried early morning and late at night) when the Smarsh works noticeably better than at other times. Smarsh has at least a half dozen different error screens and popups, which is very telling. You will become familiar with them all. Pros The archiving function appears to work reliably. The user interface is intuitive and well-designed. Cons Searching, sorting, and exporting email from the archive is extremely unreliable, glitchy, and buggy. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. JB Justin B. Owner Media Production ### "I find the interface visually appealing, but integration was weak and support was very slow." 2.0 Overall Rating 2.0 2.0 Ease of Use 2.0 2.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 1.0 1.0 Likelihood to Recommend 3/10 August 21, 2018 Had trouble installing the software and was passed around from agent to agent with no solution. I feel that the support service was pretty weak for such a high ticket item. Pros Nice visual design Has good archiving features Cons Service is slow and I went back and forth between multiple agents. Installation process is complicated. Interface seems laggy Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. AU Anonymous User Solution ### "Excellent offering easy to use and function rich ! Highly recommended" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 10/10 April 6, 2018 Pros Simplicity of use yet very rich in functionality to make life easier. The quality control aspects are excellent. Great value . Cons For our use we have not yet ran into anything I would change. I'm sure future versions will keep adding quality functionality before I realize we need it. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. GS Gretchen S. Office Manager ### "I have always had excellent customer service with any questions I have had." 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 10/10 April 5, 2018 Pros The software is extremely user friendly. The support staff is very knowledgeable and always of service. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. AB Andrew B. Call Center manager ### "Amazing call recording software. So easy to to install and really cost effective" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 10/10 April 5, 2018 Cost effective solution and better than the other products I have tried. Pros Cost effected and scaled with my business. Also a simple interface and easy to use. I can easily evaluate my agents performance. Cons No complaints yet and we've been using the software for around 10 months. We're looking forward to the new version going live in a week. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. AB Alan B. CEO Investment Management ### "My experience will CallCabinet and its technology was fantastic." 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 10/10 April 4, 2018 Fully access to our recording and the ability to start understand some facts of our business Pros The CallCabinet software was fantastic.The system delivered on every promise.The cost of the system was significantly less than any other product in the market and yet its delivery and functionality was far a head of anything we have seen and demonstrated. Cons There is nothing negative that we found about the CallCabinet systems,in fact it is so far a head of the rest of the market. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. RG Richard G. Business Development ### "Using the quality control module on to our voice recording has improved our overall quality " 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 0/10 April 3, 2018 Pros The fact that it supports legacy, SIP and Skype calls means we can have one systems for all workers independent of where they are and what current telephone system they may have. Add to this the quality control module it has improved both the quality and performance of both outbound telesales as well as inbound customer services Cons Whilst for Skype and some SIP systems just require a software download for some of the legacy systems it took some time to get the integration right. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. RG Renthea G. Deputy Operations Manager ### "I find the software easy to use. Whenever I have an issue the helpdesk is quick to respond" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 9/10 March 28, 2018 Pros The software is quite easy to understand and use. When I train new staff to use the software they have no difficulty in using the application. Cons At times I feel that the options to filter on when you search for calls are a bit limited and with more filter options it might take less time to trace calls. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. ZM Zvina M. Product Manager ### "Very happy with the pre-sales and integrations support. About to go LIVE! Yay" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 3.0 3.0 Likelihood to Recommend 0/10 March 23, 2018 Pros Easy to follow and understand, very logical flow of the interface. We've had multiple custom integration requests but were well accommodated. Cons None so far - we are not yet LIVE. Interested in seeing the ease of third-party API integration but based on current experience, confident this too won't be a challenge. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. AU Anonymous User Director of Operations ### "Very happy with the product." 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 10/10 March 22, 2018 Pros Seamless integration with our phone system. Does everything we need it to. Wonderful customer support. Great experience! Cons None I can think of. This product is fantastic. Very happy customer. Kudos to the product designers and the team that supports it! Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. GH Glen H. Owner Marketing and Advertising ### "Awesome service. Cust support rep has been great to work with!" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 10/10 March 20, 2018 Pros Easy to use and lot's of features. The customer support is fantastic. I highly recommend using Call Cabinet. Cons I really don't have any complains yet. I'm new to using the software and the customer support has been great with walking me through everything. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. George B. Manager Business Development ### "Simply Amazing" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 10/10 February 27, 2018 Pros The software is VERY easy to use and never misses a beat when connected through skype. The quality of the recording is superior to any other software that I've used over the past years. I've really been enjoying using the call auditing aspect of the software and it's gone a great way towards training others! Cons There is very little, if anything, that I dislike about CallCabinet. It provides every aspect of what our Business Development Team needs to continually improve and can be scaled to meet a one person team up to several hundreds. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. LS Larry S. IT Manager ### "Atmos has been fantastic for our legal business" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 0/10 September 27, 2017 Pros We have been using Atmos for a few months, I am amazed at what we get for our money, we pay less for a top-notch call recording solution, we were quoted more by everyone else we spoke to. Cons I really dont have any cons for this product, if anything I would like to see some text to speech analytics . Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. Response from Vendor January 31, 2018 Thank you Larry! DL David L. Partner ### "Worst experience of any vendor" 1.0 Overall Rating 1.0 1.0 Ease of Use 1.0 1.0 Features 1.0 1.0 Customer Service 1.0 1.0 Likelihood to Recommend 0/10 May 3, 2017 Learning to never use them in any capacity again. Their product is so bad, I want to ensure that others learn from our experience. Cons We signed up for Smarsh email archiving services for a small price per month per user. This is considered expensive, but we wanted a good service. We had about 26 users, so Smarsh should have been charging us monthly. It started fine and we were charged this amount, but slowly, after the first few months, Smarsh started charging for other services. These services were NOT agreed to at any time and they were not in our contract. The monthly amount ballooned to nearly triple the original price. Note that we never requested any change, any additional services. Smarsh on their own, and despite the contract started charging more. At the original monthly rate, Smarsh was already one of the most expensive options for archiving, but at three times the original rate per month, it was like charging an incredible amount for an ice cream cone. We terminated our agreement and started with another provider. Smarsh at that time still had our archived emails. They were only willing to give them to us for a ransom payment. There was nothing in our contract about a fee to receive our own emails back once our relationship with Smarsh ended. We could have downloaded those emails from them via FTP at no cost to them (which is the way most firms in this space do it). Even mailing them to us on an external drive would have cost no more than a few hundred $. Other problems as well, but I cannot discourage you enough from using Smarsh. Avoid at all costs unless you want to overpay for poor service, support, and having your content held at ransom. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. Independent research methodology Capterra's researchers use a mix of verified reviews, independent research and objective methodologies to bring you selection and ranking information you can trust. While we may earn a referral fee when you visit a provider through our links or speak to an advisor, this has no influence on our research or methodology. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/resources/proprietary-data-research/) How Capterra verifies reviews Capterra carefully verified over 2.5 million+ reviews to bring you authentic software experiences from real users. Our human moderators verify that reviewers are real people and that reviews are authentic. They use leading tech to analyze text quality and to detect plagiarism and generative AI. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/resources/how-we-verify-reviews/) How Capterra ensures transparency Capterra lists all providers across its website—not just those that pay us—so that users can make informed purchase decisions. Capterra is free for users. Software providers pay us for sponsored profiles to receive web traffic and sales opportunities. Sponsored profiles include a link-out icon that takes users to the provider's website. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/resources/how-we-ensure-transparency/)