Pick by what else the corporate secretary has to manage.
If the same team also runs subsidiaries, policies and compliance, a governance suite such as Diligent puts the board portal next to entity management and GRC tools.
If you need a board portal and nothing else, compare standalone portals such as OnBoard, Nasdaq Boardvantage and Convene. Ask for the AI features and the price of each tier.
If management meetings need the same discipline as board meetings, Sherpany covers executive and committee meetings as well, and is built for European companies.
Nonprofits, schools and associations should start with BoardEffect or Boardable. Their plans are sized for volunteer boards, and Boardable publishes its prices and offers a 14-day trial.
Why board portals matter
A board makes its largest decisions, from acquisitions to CEO succession, from what is in the board book. The portal decides whether directors read the current version, on time, in a secure place.
Without one, board packs travel as email attachments and printed binders. Three things go wrong. Late changes produce several versions, and directors arrive having read different ones. Confidential material, such as a pending deal, sits in personal inboxes outside the company's control. The record of what the board saw, asked and approved is scattered, which matters when a decision is later challenged.
A portal gives one current board book, controlled access, and an archive of agendas, minutes and approvals.
Who buys it
Corporate secretaries, general counsel, board chairs and executive assistants to the CEO buy board portals. Buyers range from listed companies and banks to private companies, nonprofits, schools and public bodies.
Triggers include an IPO, a new chair, a security incident involving board materials, a regulator's governance requirements, and a board that has grown committees faster than the corporate secretary's team.
Before you buy: what teams do without one
Smaller boards run on email, PDFs and a shared folder in SharePoint, Google Drive or Box, with e-signature for resolutions. Microsoft Teams channels serve some committees.
That works for a small private board with few committees. It breaks when a late change has to reach every director at once, when directors need to annotate privately, or when the board needs an archive of who saw what.
What good looks like
| Capability | What good looks like | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Board book builder | Agenda-driven assembly of the board book, with late changes pushed to every director automatically. | Assembling and reissuing board packs is a recurring task for the corporate secretary before every meeting. |
| Director apps and annotations | Tablet and phone apps with offline reading and private annotations. | Directors read on planes and between meetings. If the app is hard, they print. |
| Minutes, approvals and signatures | Minutes drafted in the portal, resolutions approved and signed electronically, with a record. | Decisions between meetings need a clean, auditable trail. |
| AI summaries and minutes | Summaries, cited answers from past board books, and draft minutes, with controls on what the model sees. | Saves preparation time if the AI keeps board material inside the vendor's controls. |
| Board evaluation tools | Board assessments, D&O questionnaires and skills tracking. | Annual evaluations and questionnaires otherwise run on paper and spreadsheets. |
| Security and retention | SOC 2 and ISO 27001, SSO, remote wipe of devices, and set retention rules for materials. | Board materials are among the most sensitive documents a company holds. |
| Subsidiary and committee structure | Linked accounts for subsidiaries and committees, with separate permissions. | Groups with many boards need one system without one shared view. |
How board portals are built, and who sells each kind
Vendors in this category can take a labeled Spotlight slot on this guide. How Spotlight works
Governance suites
A board portal sold as one module of a wider platform for entities, policies, risk and compliance. Example: Diligent Boards.
Fits: Large companies where one governance team runs the board, subsidiaries and compliance.
- DiligentGovernance teams that want the board portal alongside entity management, policy and GRC tools.
Standalone board portals
Products built for board and committee meetings, priced by tier and users. Examples: OnBoard, Nasdaq Boardvantage, Convene.
Fits: Corporate, bank and public-sector boards that want a dedicated portal.
- OnBoardBoards with many committees, which OnBoard includes at no extra cost on every plan.
- Nasdaq BoardvantageBoards that want a portal from a stock exchange operator, with messaging and e-signatures built in.
- ConveneOrganizations that want board meetings, AGMs and a portal inside Microsoft Teams from one supplier.
Board and executive meeting management
Software that runs executive and committee meetings as well as board meetings, on one system. Example: Sherpany.
Fits: Companies that want the same meeting discipline for executive committees and the board.
- SherpanyEuropean companies that run board, executive and committee meetings on one platform.
Nonprofit and education board tools
Board portals with plans sized for volunteer boards, some with published prices and free trials. Examples: BoardEffect, Boardable.
Fits: Nonprofits, associations, schools and healthcare foundations.
- BoardEffectNonprofit and higher education boards, from 1 board on the Pro plan to unlimited boards on Plus.
- BoardableNonprofits that want to try a board portal for 14 days and see per-user prices before buying.
How to choose
Scope beyond the board
Decide whether you need only a board portal, or entity management, compliance and executive meetings as well. Suites cost more and do more.
Director experience
Directors decide adoption. Test the tablet app, offline access and annotation with 2 real directors before choosing.
AI and data handling
AI summaries and minutes now appear in most products, often as add-ons. Ask where the model runs and whether board material trains it.
Tier boundaries
Minutes, e-signatures, assessments, D&O questionnaires and SSO often sit in higher tiers or add-ons. Price the tier you need.
Structure
Groups with subsidiaries and many committees need linked accounts and separate permissions. Check what each extra board costs.
Ownership
Several portals now belong to larger groups: BoardEffect to Diligent, Sherpany to Datasite. Ask what is on the committed roadmap.
How pricing works
Board portals are sold on annual subscriptions. Most corporate portals do not publish prices and quote after a demo.
The price is driven by tier and users. OnBoard says its price depends on plan tier and number of users, and does not charge extra for committees. BoardEffect's Pro plan covers 1 board, while its Plus plan covers unlimited boards. Boardable publishes per-user prices billed annually, with lower rates for more users.
AI features are increasingly sold as add-ons. Ask for the price of the AI bundle separately.
| Model | How it works | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Tiered subscription by users | An annual fee set by plan tier and number of users, with governance tools unlocked in higher tiers. | Features such as minutes, e-signatures or SSO that need the next tier. |
| Per board | Plans that include a set number of boards, with unlimited boards in higher tiers. | The cost of adding committees, subsidiaries or advisory boards. |
| Published per-user pricing | A listed price per user per month, billed annually, with volume discounts. | Whether administrators, staff and guests count as users. |
| Suite license | A board portal priced as part of a governance or GRC platform. | Paying for modules you do not use, and the cost of leaving one module later. |
Implementation
- Map boards and permissionsList every board, committee and subsidiary, with who may see what. Build the permission model before loading documents.
- Migrate the archiveLoad past board books, minutes and policies the board will need, and set retention rules.
- Onboard directorsSet up devices, SSO and app access with each director individually. Their first experience decides adoption.
- Run one meeting in parallelIssue one board book in the portal and the old way, then switch fully at the next meeting.
Confirm before you sign
- Tier needed for minutes, approvals, e-signatures, assessments and SSO, and its price.
- The cost of extra boards, committees and subsidiaries.
- Who counts as a user: directors, administrators, executives, guests.
- Offline access, private annotations and remote wipe on directors' devices.
- SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 reports, and the hosting region.
- Where AI features process board material, and whether it trains any model.
- Price of AI features if sold as an add-on.
- Retention and deletion rules for board books and annotations.
- Export of the full archive of books, minutes and approvals if you leave.
- Support hours for directors in other time zones.
Questions to ask in a demo
- Change one page of a 200-page board book 1 hour before the meeting. What does each director see, and on which devices?
- Show a director's private annotations. Who else can see them, and what happens to them after the meeting?
- Draft the minutes from our last agenda. Which features need a higher tier or an AI add-on?
- Where does the AI process our board material, and is any of it used to train models?
- Set up 3 subsidiaries and 4 committees with separate permissions. What does each extra board cost?
- A director loses an iPad. Show the remote wipe.
- What is the price for 12 directors and 6 staff users, on the tier with minutes and e-signatures?
- If we leave in 3 years, what does the archive export contain?
Frequently asked questions
What is a board portal?
A board portal is secure software for preparing and distributing board materials, running meetings and keeping the board's records. It replaces emailed PDFs and printed binders with one current board book, private director annotations, minutes, approvals and e-signatures, and an archive of what the board saw and decided.
How much does a board portal cost?
Most corporate board portals quote after a demo, on annual subscriptions priced by tier and number of users. Some tools aimed at nonprofits publish prices: Boardable lists per-user prices billed annually, with volume discounts. Ask whether committees and subsidiaries cost extra, and whether AI features are an add-on.
What are the alternatives to Diligent?
OnBoard, Nasdaq Boardvantage and Convene are standalone board portals. Sherpany covers board and executive meetings and is owned by Datasite. For nonprofits and schools, BoardEffect and Boardable offer plans sized for volunteer boards; BoardEffect is itself a Diligent product. Choose a suite only if you also need entity management or compliance tools.
Can we use Microsoft Teams or SharePoint as a board portal?
Some small boards do. The gaps are a controlled board book that updates for every director at once, private annotations, offline tablet reading, remote wipe, and a clean archive of approvals. Several portals now integrate with Teams or Microsoft 365, so directors can join meetings without leaving the portal.
Who owns BoardEffect and Sherpany?
BoardEffect is a Diligent product; Diligent lists it among its products for nonprofits and higher education. Datasite, the M&A software company, announced its acquisition of Zurich-based Sherpany on February 22, 2024. Ask either vendor what the parent's ownership means for the roadmap and for data handling.
Sources
Written by Stratrix editors from public sources and checked claim by claim by a second AI model against those sources. Vendors named in the editorial sections did not pay to be included. Spotlight listings are paid and labeled. Methodology and corrections