How much should a data room cost for a $10m deal in Australia?

Short answer: for a $10 million Australian transaction, expect a data room to cost between about $1,500 and $6,000 in total on a capacity-based plan, and anywhere from $15,000 to $40,000 on a per-page platform if the process runs long. The spread is not about quality. It is about the pricing unit.

What a $10m deal actually looks like

A typical mid-market sale process at this size produces:

• 3,000 to 8,000 documents, or roughly 15,000 to 30,000 pages.
• 2 to 5 GB of data once financial models, contracts and technical material are in.
• Two to four bidder parties, each with 5 to 15 reviewers, plus your own advisers.
• Four to seven months from opening the room to completion, including one supplementary disclosure.

Nothing in that list is unusual. Budget for all of it.

The Linkro budget

Preparation is free with 10 GB while the room stays private, so the months you spend collecting documents cost nothing. Once the room opens, a 5 GB requirement on a 12-month term sits in the Pro range from $270 per month, so roughly $1,600 to $3,300 for the life of the deal, in AUD excluding GST. Users are unlimited, so inviting a fourth bidder or eight more reviewers does not change the number.

If the deal runs long and you exceed capacity, you move onto a new contract at standard rates. The number goes up in proportion, not as a multiple.

The same deal on a per-page platform

• 20,000 pages at 85 cents: $17,000.
• Supplementary disclosure of 10,000 pages: $8,500.
• 30 reviewers at $150 per month for four months: $18,000, if users are charged.

That is $43,500 for the same transaction, and the amount was decided by how much you disclosed and how many people you let read. Some providers do not charge per user, some cap pages, some discount heavily on the second room. The point is that you cannot know the total at signing.

What else belongs in the budget

• Someone's time to build the structure. This is the real cost, and it is bigger than the software.
• Redaction, if personal information or customer names must come out before disclosure.
• Nothing for training if the platform is decent, and something for training if it is not.

How to sanity check a quote

Divide the quote by the number of months you expect the room to be open, then ask what happens in month eight. If the answer involves a rate you have not seen in writing, the quote is not a quote.