We make a competing product, so start with the obvious disclosure: we are not a neutral party. What follows is written to be useful anyway, because a comparison that pretends both of these are bad would be no use to anybody, and neither of them is bad.
Ziflow and Filestage are both mature online proofing platforms, both used by marketing teams and agencies, and both good at the job they were built for. They differ in shape rather than quality, and three questions decide it: what a plan actually lets you do, how much workflow you need, and who your reviewers are.
Figures below were checked on 13 August 2026 from the vendors' published pricing and the Capterra listings. Both companies change prices; check before you buy.
At a glance
| Ziflow | Filestage | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 2 users, 2 GB storage, unlimited proofs and reviewers | 1 active project, 5 new files a month, unlimited reviewers |
| Entry paid plan | ~$249/mo (Standard, up to 15 users, 1 TB) | €199/mo (Starter) |
| Next tier | ~$399/mo (Pro) | €329/mo (Business) |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom, per user |
| How it scales | Tiers bounded by user count | Tiers by feature set |
| Reviewers | Unlimited, no account needed to review | Unlimited, no account needed to review |
| Known for | Depth: automation, advanced markup, integrations | Simplicity: an interface external people get through |
| Trial | 14 days on paid tiers | Free plan, no time limit |
The free plans are not the same offer
This is the difference most comparisons skip, and it is the one that decides whether a small team can start at all.
Ziflow's free plan limits people and storage — two users and 2 GB — but not how much you review. Unlimited proofs, unlimited reviewers. If you are one or two people who send a lot of proofs and keep the files small, you can work in it indefinitely.
Filestage's free plan limits throughput — one active project and five new files a month — while leaving the rest of the product intact. If you run a handful of jobs a month and want the full reviewing experience on each, it fits; if you send twenty proofs a month, you will hit the ceiling in week one.
Neither is a trick. They are aimed at different shapes of team, and the shape of your month is what tells you which ceiling you hit first.
Paid pricing, and what "per seat" really means here
Ziflow's Standard plan is roughly $249 a month and covers up to 15 users, with 1 TB of storage; Pro is about $399. It is not per-seat in the sense of paying per person each month, but the tier you need is decided by how many people you have — which is the same thing from a budget's point of view once you outgrow a band. Reviewers, the external people who only comment and approve, are unlimited and do not count.
Filestage's Starter is €199 a month with unlimited active projects and files; Business is €329 and adds automations, project templates and more reviewer groups. The tiers are decided by features rather than headcount, with Enterprise moving to per-user pricing.
The practical read: if you are a growing team, Ziflow's cost steps when you add people, and Filestage's steps when you need a capability. Which is cheaper depends entirely on which of those you do first.
Where each one is stronger
Ziflow, if you need the workflow. Multi-stage routing, automation, advanced markup, a wider integration surface, and the enterprise controls that come with it. Reviewers on Capterra also name the cost of that depth: a "broad range of features can create a steeper learning curve", and it can be "complex or overwhelming for new or occasional users". On a big creative operation that is a fair trade. On a two-person shop it is a tool you spend a month learning and then use a tenth of.
Filestage, if the people reviewing are the problem. Its reputation is for an interface external stakeholders get through without help, which is exactly where most proofing tools fail. Reviewers rate it easier to set up and administer, and version comparison is included from the Starter plan rather than held for a higher tier. Its own recurring complaints are milder: clients occasionally unsure where the review or approve action is, "slow load times on occasion", and notifications that can arrive "quite a long time after comments were made".
Competitor quotes above are from Capterra reviews as recorded in our own competitor notes; we did not invent them, and we have not cherry-picked the worst review either vendor has.
How to choose in five minutes
- You route work through several approval stages, or need integrations with a wider stack → Ziflow.
- Your bottleneck is external people not understanding what to do → Filestage.
- You are budgeting for headcount growth → Filestage's feature-based tiers are more predictable.
- You are budgeting for capability growth → Ziflow's Standard band covers a lot of people for one price.
- You review video, audio or live web pages → both do it; Ziflow goes deeper.
- You send a few proofs a month and want to start free → Filestage's free plan gives you the whole product on a small number of jobs; Ziflow's gives two people unlimited jobs.
When neither is the answer
Both of these are platforms, priced accordingly, and both are aimed at teams whose main job is producing creative work. If you are a print shop, sign maker or wrap studio, your main job is production, and the proofing part is one step in it: send artwork, get a yes, keep evidence of which file the yes was about.
For that shape of business, a $249 or €199 monthly platform is not wrong so much as oversized — you would be buying stages, automations and modules to use one screen.
That gap is why we built Proofavo: one flat workspace price from $29.90/month, no per-seat charge, and a customer-side experience that is a single link with one Approve button and one Request changes button, with no account. Approval binds to the exact file and produces a downloadable record with a SHA-256 fingerprint of it.
We are deliberately narrower than both products on this page. There is no video review, no multi-stage routing, no integration marketplace, no AI review. If you need those, buy Ziflow or Filestage — that is a genuine recommendation, not a rhetorical one. If your whole problem is getting a clear yes on artwork and being able to prove it later, try the live demo; it needs no sign-up.