The one comparison where we cannot play the EU card

Published by Droplana, one of the products compared. Clustdoc's features, pricing and legal notice checked on its own site on September 23, 2026. The trial and screenshot below use fictional data and are not customer results.

Starting with what this page cannot claim

On many comparison pages here, part of the argument is jurisdiction: an EU company on EU infrastructure is a different proposition from a US company offering an EU region.

That argument does not work against Clustdoc. Its legal notice names a French company registered in Paris. Droplana is operated by a Croatian one. Both sit inside EU law. If you came here hoping for a reason to prefer us on GDPR grounds, there is no structural one, and pretending otherwise would be the kind of claim this site does not make.

Compare the specifics instead: where files are stored, which sub-processors are involved, what the DPA says. Droplana stores files, comments and metadata on Hetzner infrastructure in Germany, encrypted at rest with a key per file, and offers a DPA on every plan, including Free. Ask Clustdoc for its hosting region and DPA, and read both. Neither company's location on its own proves that a product meets your contracts.

So the decision is a product decision, which is a healthier place for it to be.

Droplana vs Clustdoc: process versus place

Clustdoc is an onboarding platform. The model is a pipeline: an applicant arrives, fills in forms, uploads documents, gets reviewed and approved, and comes out the other end onboarded. Its approval workflow overview describes rules and checkpoints. You design that pipeline, and the value is in the structure it imposes.

Droplana has no pipeline. There is a client, there is their portal, and it holds documents going both ways for as long as the relationship lasts. The checklist says what is outstanding. Files have a status and a comment thread. PDFs can be signed in the browser. That is the whole model.

The useful question is where your pain sits on the timeline.

If it sits at the start, with new clients, applications and a structured pack that must be checked before anyone can proceed, that is onboarding, and an onboarding platform will serve you better than a portal.

If intake is fairly simple but the traffic afterwards never stops, the pipeline finishes and leaves you where you started: emailing documents back and forth for the next four years. That is the part Droplana is built for. For how to evaluate a portal more widely, see the client portal guide.

Many firms have both problems. Be honest about which one costs you more hours.

Side by side

	Clustdoc	Droplana
Shape	Onboarding and application pipeline	One persistent portal per client
Strongest at	The start of a relationship	The years after it starts
Forms and structured data	Yes, a core feature	No; the checklist asks for documents
Approvals	Workflow rules and checkpoints; confirm by plan	Approved or Rejected file status, not routing
Identity checks	Ask which checks your plan includes	None beyond login
Two-way exchange	Intake-led	Both directions equally
Client access	Confirm applicant access for your workflow	No account; Strict verifies email on a new device
Chasing	Ask how reminders work on your plan	Inactivity reminders, on by default, and optional checklist due dates
In-browser PDF signing	Ask which signing your plan includes	Yes, with a public verification page per signature
Company and hosting	French company; confirm region and DPA	Croatian (EU) company; Hetzner in Germany
Entry price	PRO: 190 EUR/month, 3 seats, 50 applications/month, 25 GB	Practice: 49 EUR/month, 5 seats, unlimited clients, 250 GB

Clustdoc's plans and features change. Check its pricing page rather than trusting a comparison page.

Complexity is a cost, not only a capability

This is the argument that matters between these two, and it cuts both ways.

A workflow engine is worth its complexity when you have a process worth encoding: a repeatable intake with several steps, where someone reviews and approves, and where a missing check must block progress. Firms in that position are underserved by simple tools and should buy the platform.

A workflow engine is a burden when you do not. Someone has to design the process, maintain it as it changes and explain it to whoever joins next. If the real shape of your work is "I need these six documents from this client, and then I send three back", a pipeline is machinery around a task that did not need it.

Droplana is the second case. It sets up in minutes because there is little to configure. That follows directly from not having Clustdoc's features, which is a trade, not a win.

To test it, create a fictional client and request a bank statement, a payroll summary and an equipment receipt. The client uploads the first two, then photographs the receipt with their phone. Comment on the unclear receipt and send a draft report back through the same portal. Next month, go back to that same portal to request the new period's files. That return visit is what a pipeline does not give you.

Real product demonstration with fictional Ledger & Oak Accounting and Maple & Vine Bistro data. The desktop portal shows two supplied items and one missing receipt. Open the full-size screenshot.

What Droplana does not do

• No workflow builder, conditional logic or approval routing.
• No custom forms. Documents, not structured answers.
• No identity verification beyond the login itself.
• No native connectors. Documents stay in the portal until someone downloads them; an AI assistant connected through the MCP server works on metadata, not on the documents' contents.
• Logo only, not full branding. Your logo replaces ours in the portal header; no accent colour, no custom domain, and the footer keeps a small Droplana line.
• Fixed reminders, not workflow. Enabled inactivity reminders nudge the client after 7 days and escalate to you after 14. Optional due dates on checklist items show due and overdue; a due-date reminder is prepared two days before and on the date, and reaches the client with their next email, which can be later that day or the next day.
• Not a qualified e-signature. In-browser signing records who signed, when and from what IP, keeps the original next to the signed copy, and gives each signature a public verification page with a file-hash check. It is not certificate-based or qualified.
• Not an archive. Free keeps each file for up to 180 days after upload. A persistent portal address does not promise permanent file retention.

Who should pick which

Pick Clustdoc if your bottleneck is structured onboarding rather than ongoing exchange; you need forms, checks and staged approvals; different applicant types need different routes through the process; or you handle applications rather than long-running clients.

Pick Droplana if intake is simple but the document traffic afterwards is constant; you want one permanent place per client instead of a process that completes and closes; you want to be working the same afternoon; or your clients are the kind who drop anything that asks them to create an account.

Both are EU companies, so choose on the shape of the work rather than on the flag.

For the per-client structure in practice, see the accounting practices page, the legal page or the mortgage and credit brokers page.

Questions before you choose

What is the difference between Clustdoc and Droplana?

Clustdoc is an onboarding platform: forms, document collection and approval workflows arranged into a process you design. Droplana is a client document portal: one private, persistent portal per client for sending and receiving documents, with a checklist, per-file comments, file status and in-browser PDF signing. Clustdoc is strongest at the start of a relationship; Droplana is built for the exchange that continues after it.

Is Droplana more GDPR-friendly than Clustdoc?

Not structurally. Clustdoc is operated by a French company and Droplana by a Croatian one, so both are EU companies under EU law. Compare the specifics instead: where files are stored, which sub-processors are used and what the DPA says. Droplana stores files, comments and metadata on Hetzner infrastructure in Germany and offers a DPA on every plan, including Free. Ask Clustdoc for its hosting region and DPA, and read both.

Does Droplana have approval workflows or ID verification?

No. Droplana has no form builder, conditional routing, multi-stage approval or identity verification beyond login. A file can be marked Approved or Rejected by either side, with the reason as a comment, but that is a status, not a workflow. If an applicant must pass checks before progressing, evaluate that route in Clustdoc.

What does Clustdoc cost for a small firm, compared with Droplana?

Clustdoc's pricing page lists PRO at 190 EUR per month with 3 user seats, 50 applications per month and 25 GB storage; larger plans are quoted. Droplana Practice costs 49 EUR per month or 490 EUR per year plus tax, with 5 seats, unlimited clients and 250 GB. The two buy different things: Clustdoc prices onboarding automation, Droplana prices document exchange.

Plans and limits

Paid plans include unlimited clients: Solo EUR19/month or EUR190/year, Practice EUR49/month or EUR490/year, Studio EUR99/month or EUR990/year, plus tax. Free covers 3 clients, 2 GB and files up to 100 MB. Each paid storage add-on costs EUR15/month or EUR150/year plus tax, adds 500 GB and raises the file limit to 5 GB.

On Free, each file expires 180 days after upload. Your clients and their access stay active, so you can keep sharing new files. Active paid plans have no plan-imposed retention limit. Expiry settings, deletion and cancellation rules still apply; a persistent portal address does not guarantee permanent file availability. Team sizes include you. No setup fees or automatic overage charges. Prices exclude applicable tax.

Compare plan details

Plan limits and services. Team sizes include the owner.

Included	Free	Solo	Practice	Studio
Team size	Just you	Just you	5	Unlimited
Clients	3	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Storage	2 GB	50 GB	250 GB	1 TB
Maximum file size	100 MB	1 GB	2 GB	5 GB
File retention	180 days from upload	No limit	No limit	No limit
Your Droplana address	Includes a random suffix	Your chosen name	Your chosen name	Your chosen name
Data Processing Agreement	Standard	Standard	Countersigned available	Countersigned available
Support	Email	Email	Priority	Priority
Personal setup call	Not included	Not included	Not included	Included

Need more storage?

Add 500 GB for €15/month + tax, or €150/year + tax. Each storage add-on also raises your maximum file size to 5 GB.

Available on all paid plans from your billing page. Add more than one for another 500 GB each. Your team size stays the same.

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