Pricing · archiving for broker-dealers and RIAs

Global Relay pricing vs Smarsh and what Global Relay email archiving costs per user

Global Relay compliance email archiving starts at $15 per user a month, with a 10-user minimum and a one-time $995 setup fee. Smarsh starts higher for a small firm, because its cloud platform carries a $25,000 annual minimum before per-user charges. What decides your real Global Relay bill is the contract: it bills per account, renews for two years at a time and can rise with CPI every year.

$15 per user a month, compliance email 10 user minimum $995 setup per tenant

Rates and terms read on 6 October 2026. Run the scan to see which recordkeeping rules sit on your register.

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Broker-dealer, US · what a scan returns

§ 01 Supervisory system and WSPs FINRA 3110
§ 02 Annual CEO certification FINRA 3130
§ 03 Outside activities, Rule 3290 Changed
§ 04 Daily reserve computation Watching

§ 02

The rate card

Global Relay pricing per user, channel by channel

Global Relay itself prints no price list, and globalrelay.com/pricing returns a 404. The starting rates below are the ones an authorized Global Relay reseller publishes, which makes them the only list prices in public. Each channel is priced separately, so a firm archiving email, Slack and Zoom pays three line items per person.

Archive	Starting price	Per year
Compliance Email Archive	$15 per user a month	$180
Standard Email Archive	$10 per user a month	$120
Bloomberg	$20 per user a month	$240
Slack	$7 per user a month	$84
Zoom	from $7 per user a month	from $84
Social media	from $7 per account a month	from $84
Archive setup	$995 once, per tenant	year one only

Plans need at least 10 users, the user count is locked for 12 months, and licenses removed during the term are not refunded. Mobile text and voice capture are quoted separately. The reseller lists Compliance Email Archive apart from Standard, and a broker-dealer that needs supervision on top of retention should price the $15 line and confirm in the quote what each tier includes.

Global Relay a year at list, USD

10 users, compliance email $1,800 a year

25 users, email and Zoom $6,600 a year

Vendr median recorded contract $6,793 a year

20 traders, email and Bloomberg $8,400 a year

50 users, email, Slack and Zoom $17,400 a year

100 users, email, Slack and Zoom $34,800 a year

Vendr buyer guide average $85,879 a year

Recurring fees at the published starting rates, before the $995 setup, mobile capture and CPI increases. Vendr figures are reported buyer data, not quotes, read 6 October 2026.

§ 03 · Two datasets, one vendor

Why one Global Relay cost figure says $6,793 and another says $85,879

Vendr publishes two Global Relay pages and they describe different buyers. Quote the wrong one and your budget is off by more than ten times.

$6,793

Marketplace median, range $975 to $7,800

A tight band of small contracts. At the published rates, $6,793 buys about 37 users of compliance email, and the $7,800 top of the range is roughly 43. This is the independent RIA and the small broker-dealer.

$85,879

Buyer guide average, up to $400,000

An average pulled up by large firms archiving several channels for hundreds of people. At list it is roughly 250 users on email, Slack and Zoom. Vendr says it has no average savings figure for Global Relay.

Budget from the rate card multiplied by your account count, not from either headline. A median is a small-firm number and an average is a large-firm number, and neither one knows how many mailboxes, phone numbers and screen names you will be billed for.

§ 04

The billing unit

A Global Relay user is an account, and one person is often three

Global Relay's standard definitions bill per account and say an account "may be referred to as user, with the same meaning". The list of what counts is long: each mailbox, shared mailbox, resource mailbox, social media profile or company page, mobile phone number and messaging screen name.

A registered rep with a mailbox, a firm mobile number and a LinkedIn profile is three accounts.
The shared compliance inbox and the conference room calendar are one account each if they are mailboxes.
Departed staff whose mail you must keep stay in the archive, so ask how retained leavers are counted.

Count accounts, not heads, before you ask for a quote. Firms that send a headcount and receive an account-based invoice are the ones surprised at the first true-up, which the terms allow Global Relay to bill from its own systems or your directory within 10 business days of each billing cycle.

Operations analyst counting mailboxes, phone lines and chat accounts on a broker-dealer archiving inventory — The inventory that sets the bill: every mailbox, number and screen name, not every employee.

§ 05

What you sign

Global Relay contract terms that move the price after you sign

Global Relay publishes its master terms of service, and four clauses do more to your three-year cost than the per-user rate. We read them on 6 October 2026.

Chief compliance officer at a registered investment adviser reviewing an archiving contract renewal notice — The renewal notice window is 30 days wide and sits 90 to 120 days before the term ends.

1. A floor that only rises. Section 9.4 makes the minimum billable commitment the higher of the order form account count or the last 12 months' average. Hire for a year and the floor stays raised after people leave.
2. Two-year auto-renewal. Section 13.1 renews for additional two-year terms unless you give written notice at least 90 and no more than 120 days before expiry. Early notice does not count either.
3. Yearly CPI increases. Section 9.7 allows a fee increase each year equal to the change in CPI-U. Billing is quarterly in advance, with a 1.5 percent monthly late fee.
4. A 120-day exit clock. After termination you must pay for an export (PST or EML) or a static archive. Do neither within 120 days and Section 13.3 allows deletion, which is a books and records problem for any broker-dealer.

§ 06

The competitors

Global Relay vs Smarsh and the other archiving vendors on price and terms

Public figures only, read between 30 September and 6 October 2026. Where a vendor prints nothing, the table says so. Proofpoint and Mimecast are left out because their recorded contracts are dominated by email security purchases and say little about an archive-only deal.

Vendor	Public price	Recorded contracts	Renewal terms	Best for
Global Relay	$15 per user a month for compliance email, 10-user minimum, $995 setup	Median $6,793 (range $975 to $7,800)	Two-year auto-renewal, 90 to 120 days notice, CPI-U yearly	Small and mid-size firms that want per-user pricing and one vendor for email, chat and Bloomberg
Smarsh	AWS listing sets a $25,000 annual platform minimum for Cloud Capture, plus a per-user fee for each content type	Median $22,759 (range $3,288 to $131,276)	12-month auto-renewal, cancel or reduce 60 days before end, renewal uplift up to 10%	Larger broker-dealers and banks with many channels and in-house supervision teams
Theta Lake	AWS listing $15,000 a year for up to 999 users, $50,000 for 1,000 or more, plus content fees	No recorded data	Non-cancellable, non-refundable on the AWS listing	Firms whose risk sits in Zoom, Teams and Webex video and chat
ComplianceOfficer	$149 a month, $298 for up to three people	Published prices, no quote	Month to month	Not an archive. Watches the recordkeeping and supervision rules your archive has to satisfy and flags policy gaps when they change

The honest read: at 10 to 40 users Global Relay is the cheaper paper by a wide margin, because Smarsh's platform minimum alone exceeds what a small firm pays Global Relay in total. Smarsh's shorter renewal and 60-day exit window are friendlier than a two-year rollover, though. Line-item detail for Smarsh is in our Smarsh pricing breakdown, and the wider field is in Smarsh competitors compared.

§ 07

Before you renew

How to cut a Global Relay renewal without breaking a books and records rule

An archive is bought to satisfy rules, and the rules change. FINRA Rule 3290 on outside activities was approved on 15 September 2026, and Regulation S-P's incident notice duties reached smaller firms in June 2026. Each change can add a channel to capture or a review to document. Settle what the rules require first, then buy exactly that.

Map the rules

Run the scan at the top of this page for a broker-dealer or adviser. It lists the recordkeeping, supervision and privacy rules on your register.

Count accounts

List every mailbox, number and screen name per person. Drop channels your policies prohibit instead of paying to archive them.

Diary the window

Put the 120-day and 90-day dates in the calendar. Notice outside that band does not stop a two-year renewal.

Ask in writing

A cap on the CPI increase, a one-year renewal term, a reset of the 12-month average floor and a fixed export price.

Get started for $149 a month Broker-dealer compliance software RIA compliance software

§ 08

Questions buyers ask

How much does Global Relay cost?

Global Relay's published starting prices, shown by an authorized reseller, are $15 per user a month for Compliance Email Archive, $10 for Standard Email Archive, $7 for Slack, $20 for Bloomberg, and from $7 for each social media account or Zoom user. Every plan has a 10-user minimum and a one-time $995 setup fee per tenant. A 10-user email archive is $1,800 a year plus setup.

Does Global Relay have a minimum?

Yes, two of them. Plans start at 10 users. Then the master terms make your minimum billable commitment the higher of the account count on your order form or your average over the last 12 months. A busy year raises the floor for the years after it, and user counts cannot be reduced until renewal.

Is Global Relay cheaper than Smarsh?

For small firms, usually yes. Smarsh's AWS Marketplace listing sets a $25,000 annual minimum platform fee for Cloud Capture before any per-user content charges, while 10 Global Relay email users list at $1,800 a year. Recorded contracts agree: Vendr shows a $6,793 Global Relay median against $22,759 for Smarsh. Large deals are negotiated on both sides.

How long is a Global Relay contract?

The initial term is set on the order form, and the master terms then renew it automatically for additional two-year terms. To stop a renewal you must give written notice at least 90 days and no more than 120 days before the term ends. Miss that 30-day window and you are committed for two more years.

Can Global Relay raise prices during the contract?

Yes. Section 9.7 of the master terms lets Global Relay raise fees once a year by the percentage change in the CPI-U, and prices can also be reset at renewal on notice. Fees are billed quarterly in advance, and overdue amounts carry a late fee of 1.5 percent a month.

What happens to my archive if I leave Global Relay?

You have to choose. Global Relay will export a copy of the archive in PST or EML format at a contract-dependent price, or keep it as a static archive. If you engage neither within 120 days after termination, the master terms allow Global Relay to securely delete the archived data. Diary that date before you give notice.

Know which recordkeeping rules changed before your archive renewal does

One register of the SEC, FINRA and state rules that apply to your firm, watched daily, with the policy update drafted when one moves. $149 a month for one owner, $298 for up to three people, month to month. Compare every plan on pricing.

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