Smarsh is the 800-pound gorilla of compliance archiving — and priced accordingly. If website archiving is what you need, VaultShot delivers compliance-grade results without the six-figure annual commitment.
No credit card required. Free plan available.
Smarsh pricing starts at $1,000+/mo for their full platform
Primarily designed for email and communications archiving — website archiving is a secondary feature
Implementation timelines measured in months, not minutes
Requires dedicated compliance operations staff to manage
Smarsh is a comprehensive compliance platform covering email, social media, and communications. If your compliance gap is specifically website archiving, VaultShot provides a focused solution with the same cryptographic integrity standards — SHA-256 hashing and immutable storage — at a fraction of the cost and complexity.
Smarsh dominates the enterprise compliance archiving market with a platform that captures email, instant messaging, social media, voice, and — as almost an afterthought — websites. Their client list reads like a who's who of global banking: JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley. If you're operating at that scale, Smarsh is a reasonable choice. But if you're a 50-person RIA, a regional bank, or a compliance-conscious fintech, Smarsh's $1,000+/month platform is wildly disproportionate to your actual need. You don't have a Bloomberg terminal to archive. You don't need voice capture. You need your website archived with tamper-proof integrity — and that's exactly what VaultShot delivers for $19/month.
The implementation gap between Smarsh and VaultShot tells you everything about their respective target markets. Smarsh implementations involve project managers, data migration specialists, API integrations with your existing tech stack, and training sessions for your compliance team. The timeline is measured in months. VaultShot's setup takes under five minutes: create an account, add your URLs, choose a capture frequency, and you're building your archive. Both products produce SHA-256 hashed screenshots with timestamps. Both generate compliance documentation. The difference is that one requires a six-figure annual commitment and a three-month implementation, while the other costs less than a Netflix subscription and starts working immediately.
There's an uncomfortable truth in the compliance archiving industry: most firms paying $12,000 to $24,000 per year for Smarsh are only using a fraction of the platform's capabilities. Their compliance teams log in to pull website archives and PDF certificates — the exact same deliverables VaultShot produces. The social media monitoring goes unused because their firm doesn't use social media for client communication. The voice capture sits idle because they're not a trading desk. The email archiving is handled by a separate vendor. What remains is website archiving at 50x the price. VaultShot exists specifically for these firms: the ones who need one thing done well, not everything done expensively.
Every feature is designed to produce evidence that regulators accept.
Every screenshot is cryptographically hashed at capture time. Any modification — even a single pixel — produces a different hash, proving the file is original.
Screenshots are stored on AWS S3 with WORM-grade immutability. Files cannot be deleted or overwritten — meeting FINRA 17a-4 and SEC requirements.
Set it and forget it. VaultShot captures your website on your schedule — hourly, daily, or weekly — ensuring no gaps in your compliance timeline.
Each capture generates a professional PDF with hash, timestamp, metadata, and screenshot preview — ready to hand directly to auditors or regulators.
Anyone can verify a screenshot's authenticity by uploading it or pasting its hash. Provides instant, independent proof that the file is untampered.
VaultShot automatically detects and dismisses cookie consent banners before capture — ensuring clean, unobstructed screenshots every time.
Same SHA-256 hashing standard. Fraction of the cost.
| Feature | VaultShot — $19/mo | Smarsh — $1,000+/mo |
|---|---|---|
| SHA-256 Hashing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Automated Captures | ✓ | ✓ |
| PDF Certificates | ✓ | ✓ |
| Self-Service Signup | ✓ | ✗ |
| Month-to-Month Billing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Setup in Minutes | ✓ | ✗ |
| Monthly Price | $19/mo | $1,000+/mo |
Try the free snapshot tool — no account needed. Or go Pro for $19/mo with daily automated captures, hash verification, and PDF certificates.
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