Picture this: you’re planning a product launch for your ecommerce store. You need to send lots of new product images and videos to your retail partners. WeTransfer has been your go-to tool for this purpose, but it’s getting harder to track what assets have been sent to who. And you’re constantly fielding requests from retail partners who need you to resend brand assets and marketing materials.

It’s understandable that you’re looking for an alternative.

In this article, we’ll discuss seven file-sharing tools you can use instead of WeTransfer, including Dash. We’ll also cover some important considerations when choosing a file transfer service.

First, here's a quick refresher on WeTransfer and how it works.

What is WeTransfer?

WeTransfer is a free file-sharing service that allows people to send files to each other. It's commonly used for sending large files that are too big to attach to an email.

With WeTransfer, you can upload your files to their servers and send a download link to the recipient. Your recipient can then download the files from the link within a set timeframe (up to 7 days for free users).

WeTransfer also has pro and premium plans with more storage and higher file transfer limits.

What are some drawbacks of using WeTransfer?

If you’re sending the majority of your content via WeTransfer, you’re wasting a lot of time. Here's why:

It's hard to track what content you’ve shared: WeTransfer deletes your transfer history after a limited period of time, meaning you’ll lose the record of content you’ve sent. Let's say you're running a large campaign with multiple partner stores. You'll need to manually track what's been shared to ensure you haven't missed anyone, which can be time-consuming.

‍It's hard to track who's received what: Using WeTransfer's link-sharing option, you'll only be notified when the first person downloads your files. Any additional downloads by other recipients are not tracked or recorded. This makes it difficult to determine which collaborators or partners have accessed your files and which ones are still pending.

‍Links expire: WeTransfer links will eventually expire, even if you have a paid account. With a free account, you can save them for up to seven days, and as a paid user, you can save them for up to a year. If your retailer misses the download window (or loses your email), they’ll need to get in touch with you again.

‍It lacks digital asset management features: WeTransfer does the job of sending and receiving big files. But large file sharing is only a tiny part of your needs as an ecommerce business.

You need a permanent place to house all your visual content to share and reuse it whenever you want. You'll also need a way to quickly deploy these assets in different sizes and formats to your online store and marketing channels. WeTransfer isn’t built for this type of workflow. ❌

In short, if you're handling hundreds of assets from photographers or sending product shots to partners, managing that on WeTransfer will be tough. It’s time to consider alternatives.

What to look for in a WeTransfer alternative

When looking for a WeTransfer alternative, the key factor is finding a tool that improves your workflows and makes file sharing effortless. So when looking at a new software solution, here are a few questions to ask yourself:

‍What type of file am I trying to send? Say you're sending sales decks, contracts and other documents. You can use a file management system like Google Drive or Dropbox. However, a digital asset management (DAM) tool like Dash is better for sharing images and other visual assets.

‍How large is the file? Ensure the tool’s file size limit accommodates what you want to send. For example, Jumpshare's free plan doesn’t let you send files larger than 250 MB.

‍Do I need to store files permanently? WeTransfer is built for one-off sharing. But as an ecommerce store, your retailers will need continuous access to your assets to share and reuse them as you launch new campaigns. A DAM tool like Dash can be the permanent home for all your visual content. (We’ll delve into what a DAM does further on in this article.)

‍How do I plan to use the files? You’re not just sending content to your retailers. You’re also using product images for your online store and marketing channels. Maybe you want to crop or resize them for social media or use them in your WooCommerce or Shopify store. With a tool like Dash, you'll be able to share, receive, and deploy your visual content using the same tool.

Am I solely looking for a file sharing tool? If all you need is to send files from A to B, something simple like WeTransfer might do the job. But as a growing DTC brand, you’ll need a bit more than just sharing. Perhaps you want a tool that helps you organise and manage your creative assets, work together with your team, and easily connect with your ecommerce platforms. A more comprehensive solution could let you edit, share, and store your assets for future use across your online shop, social media, and marketing campaigns. If this rings true, it’s worth looking at a tool like Dash that can support all your brand’s needs in one place.

With these things in mind, let’s look at the top WeTransfer alternatives for growing ecommerce businesses.

The Top7 WeTransfer alternatives

Is WeTransfer not working for your DTC business? Here are seven different tools for transferring files:

1. Dash: for sharing visual assets

First on our list is Dash (yeah, that’s us 👋🏼). It’s an ecommerce digital asset management tool that lets you easily share and receive product images and videos from freelancers, resellers and PR teams.

To share media files in Dash, you can:

‍Send assets via quick share links. The recipient will be able to view and download the images and videos even if they don’t use Dash. This is ideal when you’re sending a handful of visual assets to a person or team you don’t collaborate with often — for example, sending images for a one-time article feature.

Dash also lets you set up permissions to control how the recipients access and use shared assets. For example, you can set shareable links to expire after a specific period or share visual files as view-only without download permissions.

Set up a public portal for your Dash account. Retail partners, freelancers and resellers can search for images and videos uploaded to the portal and download them in preset sizes.

Portals save you from missing or broken links, which is common with WeTransfer. You don't need to share a new link when sending new assets. Simply add them to your portal to give collaborators immediate access — pretty smooth! You can add password protection to your portal to limit access to authorised partners.

Send a guest upload link to partners. This allows external users to submit visual assets directly to your Dash. It's a quick and easy way to receive assets from your customers for user-generated content campaigns or images from photographers. You'll be able to review and approve these images and videos before they're added to your Dash account.

Create and share asset collections. You can group all the images and videos for a specific campaign and share them as a Dash collection. This is ideal when you’re working with different teams and external collaborators on a project (like a PR campaign) and don’t want to keep sending them assets separately.
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Pricing

“These are pretty cool features, but how much does Dash cost, Faith?” Glad you asked! For £79/$109 per month, you can access all of Dash’s features for unlimited users, including: cropping and resizing visual assets for your marketing channels; reusing images and videos in Canva and quickly dropping content into Shopify and WooCommerce.

View our full list of digital asset management features.

‍Is Dash secure?

‍Yes, Dash is a secure way to send and receive images and videos from collaborators.

First, when your data is being sent from one place to another, we use encryption to make it unreadable to anyone who might try to access or steal it. Secondly, once your data reaches our cloud storage, it stays safe because we encrypt it there, too.

Not to forget Dash’s account security features that let you control who accesses your creative assets, for how long, and what they can do with it. For example, you can set up link expiration dates to automatically revoke asset access after a specific period.

Finally, we’re ISO/IEC 27001 accredited, which is the world's best-known standard for information security management systems.

2. Google Drive: for document sharing

Google Drive is billed as an all-in-one file-sharing and management tool. However, the reality is quite different. While Drive works well for sharing documents of all sizes, it falls short when it comes to visual asset management.

Sure, you can upload large images and video files to your drive and share the link with others. However, you’ll quickly discover that it's hard to organise visual content in Google Drive for several reasons:

1. Its storage system is very confusing. Important images or videos can easily get mixed up in the wrong folder or buried under heaps of sub-folders. Dash, on the other hand, uses an intuitive folder structure that makes it easy to find saved images and videos.

2. You need to manually rename all assets uploaded to your Drive. Otherwise, you'll end up with file names like IMG_1235645.34PNG, making it harder to find and share the right assets.

Dash, on the other hand, scans and auto-tags uploaded content with relevant keywords. For example, an image containing a chair will be tagged as “chair,” among other product-related keywords. When you search for “chair,” all assets with that tag will appear, meaning you can find images without bothering with their file names.

In summary, if you’re looking for a way to share documents like case studies, sales documents, and pitch decks, Google Drive is a good choice. But if you want to send or receive images and other types of creative assets, you’re better off with a tool actually built for that, like Dash. Pricing Google Drive is free for all Google Workspace users. However, you can upgrade to a paid subscription plan for more storage, from $6 per user/month.Is Google Drive secure? Google Drive is generally considered secure. It encrypts your files and uses advanced security features, such as two-step verification and secure file-sharing options, to help protect your files and documents.

3. Dropbox: also for document sharing

Dropbox is good for the same thing as Google Drive: general file sharing and storage. The main difference is that Dropbox isn’t part of a suite of business tools, unlike Drive, which comes with Google Workspace.

Most of Google Drive’s limitations apply to Dropbox. It has outdated file naming conventions, a non-intuitive interface, and little or no features for visual asset management. That’s why Brook Taverner, a top clothing store in the U.K., ditched Dropbox for Dash to manage its creative assets.

‍“We needed a way to mix and match different items of clothing on screen. So we might have a pair of chinos from one collection and a jacket from another, which our distributors could then use to create an outfit. Dropbox just didn’t do the job. We basically needed an online photo gallery that was searchable and filterable.”

‍Dash helped them achieve this with an aesthetically pleasing content library 👇

This doesn't mean Dropbox has no place in your DTC business. You can use it to send and receive pitch desks, signed contracts, and other documents.

Pricing

Dropbox offers a free plan that lets you store and share up to 2 GB of files. If you require more storage, you can upgrade to a paid plan, starting at $9.99 per month.

Is Dropbox secure?

‍Dropbox is a secure file-sharing tool. It uses multiple encryption layers to protect your data when it’s transmitted and stored. It also provides advanced key management, two-factor verification, and end-to-end encryption

4. OneDrive: for cloud storage

OneDrive is a cloud storage system for Microsoft Office users. It lets you send and receive files, organise them, and collaborate with your team in real-time.

You can share links to your files and set permissions to control whether recipients can view or edit the file. You can also share files and folders with specific people by entering their email addresses or creating public share links. This allows you to collaborate with people who don’t have a OneDrive account.

However, some people have reported file syncing and sharing issues. For example, this user struggled with sharing folders, and this one said that documents didn't sync in real time, making it harder for multiple people to work on the same file. OneDrive also lacks a user-friendly interface, using boring thumbnails instead of beautiful image previews.

Pricing

‍OneDrive comes with Microsoft 365. You can get started with a free plan and upgrade for more storage for $19.99 per year. It also offers a free trial across all paid plans.
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Is OneDrive secure?

‍OneDrive offers solid and reliable data security. It has popular security features, such as two-factor authentication, mobile encryption, and end-to-end encryption for backups, uploads, and downloads.

5. Jumpshare: for simple file sharing

Jumpshare is a cloud-based file sharing and collaboration platform that allows users to share files quickly through links. It also offers features such as screen capture, recording, and video editing, making it a versatile platform for creative teams.

However, some users say that Jumpshare’s layout can be confusing due to its numerous features. Also, its sharing speed can be inconsistent, especially for larger files.

‍Pricing

‍Jumpshare offers a free plan with 2 GB of total storage. You can upgrade to a paid plan for higher storage limits, starting at $8.25 per user/month.

‍Is Jumpshare secure?

‍Yes, Jumpshare offers secure file transfer. You can add passwords to shared files for extra protection or send them as private media.

6. ShareDrop: open-source file-sharing application

ShareDrop removes the need for servers in file sharing. It is a web-based application that lets you send files directly to devices without uploading them to any servers first.

ShareDrop is pretty straightforward. You visit the website, wait for the other device to appear on your screen, and click to share. The file transfer starts as soon as the recipient accepts your sharing request.

While there's no file size limit, ShareDrop can be pretty slow when sending larger files (like 8 GB of data at once). Also, you can only send and receive files to devices connected to the same local network or public IP address, limiting your reach.

‍Pricing

‍ShareDrop is free to use. Anyone can visit the website and share files without paying subscription fees.

‍Is ShareDrop secure?

‍Yes, ShareDrop is secure. It uses a secure peer-to-peer connection to directly send details about the file (like its name and size) and the actual file data.

7. JotForm: online form tool for large file sharing

JotForm is primarily an online form builder, but you can also use it to send or receive files from your retail partners and collaborators. Its file upload feature lets you collect individual files (up to 1 GB) directly through forms and save them in your preferred cloud storage system, including Google Drive and Dropbox.

We’ve already discussed the limitations of these cloud storage systems, so I won’t go into more detail. What you need to remember is that systems like Dropbox and Drive only work for general document sharing and management. They can’t handle your visual assets well.

‍Pricing

‍JotForm offers a free plan that lets you receive and store up to 100 MB of data. If you need more storage, you’ll have to upgrade to a paid plan, starting at $34 per month.

‍Is JotForm secure?

‍JotForm is a secure platform for creating online forms and collecting data. It takes security seriously, offering features like SSL encryption, compliance with general data protection regulations (GDPR), and secure data storage.

Which WeTransfer alternative should you choose?

So what’s the best WeTransfer alternative for your business? That depends on your needs.

Want a tool to simply send over PDFs to your sales team? Opt for Google Drive.

Only need to get content from your photographers? Follow the herd and go with Dropbox.

But having lots of different tools doing lots of different jobs will leave you in content chaos. And that's a trap growing DTC brands can't afford to fall into. Most ecommerce companies need to create content, get those assets ready for their marketing campaigns, and share them with their retail partners and ad agencies. So why not pick a tool that can do everything, all in one place? With Dash you can:
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Guest uploads - to help you receive content from influencers and user-generated content from customers
‍Approval workflows - so you can give feedback on creative assets
‍Crop and resize assets - so you can transform assets for different marketing channels
‍Share assets by link or email - to level-up your team’s collaboration
‍Create public portals - to give retail partners access to relevant product assets
Integrate with Shopify and WooCommerce - to quickly drop content into your product listings

Our pricing plans are affordable, too. You can get all of Dash’s digital asset management features for unlimited users for $109 per month. Want to take Dash for a spin? Try it for free for 14 days.

WeTransfer alternatives FAQs

Find answers to frequently asked questions about choosing a WeTransfer alternative for your ecommerce store.

1. Is there a free alternative to WeTransfer?
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‍There are plenty of alternatives to WeTransfer that offer free file transfer services. Popular options include cloud storage solutions like Zoho WorkDrive and open-source sharing software like ShareDrop. If you’re looking for an all-in-one file transfer tool for sharing and organising your visual content, you should use Dash.

‍2. Is Dropbox safer than WeTransfer?

‍WeTransfer and Dropbox have comparable security features. They both offer password protection, encryption and link expiration for shared content.

‍3. Does Google have something like WeTransfer?

‍Google has a file-sharing service called Google Drive, which allows you to easily send and receive files with others. It's a decent alternative to WeTransfer for document sharing. However, it doesn’t do well with sharing and organising visual content like images and videos.

4. What are the disadvantages of WeTransfer?

‍Potential disadvantages of using WeTransfer include file size limits for free accounts, limited storage duration for files, and a lack of advanced digital asset management features, like auto-tagging and the ability to crop and resize images.

Faith Uzuegbu

Faith Uzuegbu is a content marketer and freelance writer for B2B SaaS and tech...

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