Dropbox is a solid, professional storage tool, for fifteen years a default choice. For a dental lab, however, the question is not storage capacity, but how work is organised around it.
Dropbox is probably the most mature cloud storage service on the market, with robust synchronisation, native applications on all operating systems and a folder structure of immediate use upon first access. Numerous dental labs adopt it today — often a Business plan for the lab, with folders shared towards principal practices.
The problem is not Dropbox: storage and workflow are distinct domains. A shared Dropbox folder provides access to files; it does not communicate their content, status, who modified them or for what reason. For an individual professional or creative studio it proves adequate. For a lab producing custom-made medical devices a workflow layer is required that Dropbox does not provide.
What you receive — free of charge, from your appointed lab. Comparison conceived for those who upload files and wish to understand what changes in their daily operations.
| Service |  CadCamCloud | Dropbox |
|---|---|---|
| Free for you (permanently) | Yes | Yes |
| Guided form — what to attach and with which data is specified | Yes | No |
| Status of your work items in real time | Yes | No |
| Permanent history — files are not subject to expiry | Yes | Yes |
| Direct chat with the lab in the platform | Yes | No |
| Recorded and consultable communication | Yes | No |
| Mobile companion app | Coming soon | Yes |
| Register free of charge Free account, no card required. |
What you manage — workflow tools, branding, integrations and medico-legal compliance. Pricing and features at the various paid plan levels below.
| Service | CadCamCloud | Dropbox |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat per lab (EUs free of charge) | Per user |
| Forms configurable on the lab side | Yes | No |
| Order workflow managed (status per file) | Yes | No |
| Ten-year medico-legal archive (immutable PDF/A) | Yes | Partial |
| Complete portal white-label | Yes | No |
| REST API + signed webhooks | Yes | Yes |
| Exclusive EU hosting | Yes | Partial |
| Structured exportable audit log | Yes | Partial |
| Register free of charge Free account, no card required. |
What is obtained at each level. Cells marked "—" indicate tiers not offered in the competitor price list — a public fact, not an opinion.
| Level | CadCamCloud | Dropbox |
|---|---|---|
| Pro · Entry paid | €12–15 / month
| Plus €11.99 / month (2 TB)
|
| Premium · Mid | €29–39 / month
| Business €18 / user / month
|
| Enterprise · Top | By quotation
| Enterprise (by quotation)
|
| Register free of charge Free account, no card required. |
Dropbox Plus offers 2 TB at approximately €11.99/month for personal use. The Business plans start at €18/user/month (Standard) with 5 TB of team storage, audit log and centralised user management.
The CadCamCloud model is flat for the lab, not per-seat. Pro €12/month annual (€15 monthly) is positioned within the same range as Dropbox Plus. The structural difference emerges with growth: Dropbox Business is €18/user/month, CadCamCloud remains €12 irrespective of the number of operators — the entire lab team accesses the portal, while client practices (the EUs uploading files) are free of charge. At five lab users, the per-seat model entails approximately €90/month, the flat model €12. Premium €29-39/month adds complete white-label; custom domains on Enterprise.
Dropbox is generous: maximum file size 50 GB on the free plan, unlimited on the paid plans. Retention is essentially permanent for the duration of the subscription. Version history of thirty days (Plus) or 180 days (Business Standard).
CadCamCloud accepts files up to 2 GB on Premium and Enterprise (100 MB on Basic, 500 MB on Pro) — sufficient for any STL, intraoral scan or DICOM CBCT series in the dental workflow. Retention is ten years — not as a by-product of payment, but as an explicit medico-legal guarantee forming an integral part of the service. Even in the event of termination of the relationship by the lab, the export of retained data is provided for under contract.
Dropbox is hosted by default on AWS US, with the "EU regional storage" option available only from the Business Standard plans onward. It is GDPR-compliant (with standard DPA), HIPAA-compatible on Business+ with BAA, and SOC 2.
CadCamCloud is hosted exclusively in the European Union (Hetzner Germany, Wasabi EU). The immutable PDF/A generated for each submission is designed for Italian and European medico-legal retention. Audit trail integrated on every action, exportable in JSON or PDF.
Dropbox is pure storage. There is no concept of "order", of "work item status", of "request form". Such layers must be constructed separately with Zapier or custom automations, or are simply absent and reliance is placed upon WhatsApp.
CadCamCloud proceeds from the order: each submission is a job, each file within it is a job_item with its own status (received, in production, quality control, ready, shipped). The practice views the status in real time without the need for telephone calls. REST API + signed webhooks to integrate the lab management system natively, rather than via fragile bridges.
Dropbox provides no white-label. Client practices view the Dropbox interface with the Dropbox logo. Sharing transits via dropbox.com.
CadCamCloud Premium provides the public portal under your domain (subdomain.cadcamcloud.net or, on Enterprise, full domain of the lab). Logo, colours, price list and gallery are yours. For the practices it is the portal of your lab, not a third-party service.
Free account, no card required.
Without doubt, and numerous labs operate in such manner. Dropbox for internal team storage, CadCamCloud for the order flow arriving from practices. They are complementary tools, not substitutes.
HIPAA is American regulation. In the European Union, GDPR (with reinforced conditions for healthcare data under Art. 9), the Italian Privacy Code, and for custom-made medical devices MDR 2017/745, are applicable. Dropbox is GDPR-compatible at a base level. For the ten-year retention of MDR and for a structured audit trail on the clinical case, a tool designed for such use case is required.
The EU storage option of Dropbox Business concerns the file at-rest. CadCamCloud is entirely EU: storage, application, backup, support. No data leaves the EU perimeter for any operational reason.
The principal investment concerns the onboarding of your client practices on the portal (free of charge to them). For the migration of existing historical files, an import service is available on Premium and Enterprise plans; alternatively, numerous labs elect to retain the historical archive on Dropbox in read-only and commence the new flow from zero on CadCamCloud.
No, CadCamCloud is web-first and conceived as a recipient portal. For the lab, access is via browser; for the practices likewise. A mobile companion application (iOS/Android) is on the roadmap for 2026 with focus on push notifications and order tracking.
Start free with the Basic plan, or book a thirty-minute guided demo.
Sources
Every figure reported in these pages is verified against a public price list.
Public data updated on 17 May 2026
The data reported derive from the official public price lists of the respective services, verified on the date indicated above. CadCamCloud is neither affiliated with nor sponsored by any of the services cited. Trademarks belong to their respective owners and are used for descriptive comparison purposes. For up-to-date data please refer to the official sites, which may update prices and features without prior notice.
Consumer price lists undergo frequent variation. For updated data please refer to the sites of the respective services. Quarterly re-check.