Document approval software that speeds up sign off by 30%

Filestage brings all your reviewers, feedback, and versions into one place so you get sign-off faster, with a full audit trail. Built for marketing teams and creative agencies.

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  • ✓ GDPR compliant
document approval software Filestage

Trusted by professionals from top brands and agencies

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  • Proven results with Filestage

Real results from marketing, creative, and production teams

"Instead of writing detailed instructions over email, reviewers can just click on a file to add comments in context. This makes everything faster – from giving feedback, to managing the process, to making edits before sharing the next version.​"
Karina Berner
Karina BernerCreative Production Specialist, Sartorius
"Filestage helps us reduce long email threads and revision loops by working more interactively and collaboratively."
Zsolt Arnodi
Zsolt ArnodiDigital Communication Specialist, B. Braun
"There have been quite a few instances where we were able to go back to something someone said in Filestage and make a correction that perhaps was missed, so the tool has proven to be very useful."
Naeran Rubio
Naeran RubioAssociate Director of Content & Communications, Sharp
"It is now much easier for us to process the collected feedback since we can access all the information in a single place."
Angelika Schneider
Angelika SchneiderExecutive Creative Direction Motion Design, Sixt
"Filestage gives our suppliers and agencies a centralized platform to submit creative assets for feedback and approval. This helps us deliver content at speed and scale."
Johannes Morath
Johannes MorathManager Marketing Projects, Kärcher

Teams spend less time chasing approvals and more time creating with Filestage’s automated online proofing software.

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Faster approval cycles across creative projects
0 %
Emails eliminated per review cycle
0 +
Fewer compliance and version mistakes
0 %
Saved on content approvals every week
0 + hrs

*Based on customer usage data and internal analysis.

  • The problem with manual approvals

Manual document reviews vs document approval software

When approvals happen over email, version confusion, missed comments, and slow sign-offs pile up fast – and across every department.

With Filestage’s document workflow software, you can:

See every approval at a glance

Know exactly where each document is in the review process, who’s approved, and who’s holding things up.

Cut review time by 30%+

Consolidate feedback in one place so your team always works from the right version, with the right comments, the first time.

Save 50+ hours/week in manual effort

Set up automated reminders and workflow handoffs to keep approvals moving. Save time manually chasing stakeholders.

  • How Filestage simplifies document reviews

A structured document approval workflow for every asset

Keep document review and approval fast and transparent in four simple steps:

Upload any file to Filestage
Invite reviewers to your file
Collect feedback directly on documents in Filestage
Track status in real time in Filestage

Faster document approvals with fewer miscommunications

Build a structured document approval process to eliminate miscommunications and siloed feedback. Just look at these results from our customers:

Calendar, date, due date

10 days saved per project

Fanuc now gets files from V1 to approved in just five days.

Megaphone, microphone, announcement

320% ROI on marketing reviews

Kärcher saves around $79,000 in feedback time with a 320% ROI.

Fast, bolt, speed, integration

30% faster campaign approvals

Sixt has reduced feedback time by 30% and eliminated communication mistakes.

See how top brands approve documents 30% faster

Book a 30-minute, tailored walkthrough of your real workflows to see how Filestage can support your team.

Learn how leading brands get documents signed off faster.

Get a free workflow consultation
  • Document approval for every use case

Everything you need to run a structured document approval process

  • Set up your approval stages so files move to the next reviewer group automatically when a stage is approved. No manual effort required.
  • Add due dates and automated reminders so you can stop manually chasing stakeholders.
“Ever since we started doing all our approvals and change requests digitally through Filestage, the process has become much more automated and simple.”

Naeran Rubio

Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America

Automated workflow in Filestage
  • Every comment and annotation lives directly on your content – no more cross-referencing email threads or Slack messages.
  • Reviewers see each other’s feedback in real time, so conflicting comments get resolved right away.

“The commenting feature in Filestage allows all project stakeholders to give open and transparent feedback, making it easy for each party to understand document change requests.”

Tim Simonsen

Tim Simonsen

Marketing Director at Queisser Pharma

Compare two versions of a file in Filestage
  • Every upload stacks automatically on top of the last, so reviewers always know which file is current.
  • Easily compare previous versions side-by-side or revert to an earlier file without rework.

“When someone picks up an ongoing project, they can quickly review all previous feedback and check if they have the most recent version of the file. This helps avoid unwanted changes and keeps everyone on the same page.”

Melissa Abrini, Creative Director at Story

Melissa Abrini

Creative Director at Story

Multiple versions of a file
  • Use Review Agents to check content before it reaches human stakeholders for faster approvals.
  • Catch errors earlier in the process and reduce the number of revision rounds needed before final sign-off.
“Filestage offered us exactly what we were looking for. It’s a simple and transparent solution that helped us fix all our problems in the review process.”
Thomas Nesensohn

Thomas Nesensohn

Team leader at Zünd

AI-assisted reviews in Filestage
Password protect your files

Document approvals for regulated industries

With Filestage, you can share documents and PDFs with password protection, download restrictions, and anonymized feedback.

 

Filestage offers full GDPR compliance, AES 256 encryption that’s certified against ISO/IEC 27001:2022, and certified EU servers.

Connect Filestage with your favorite apps

Automate your workflow with our native and custom Zapier integrations.

Project Management

Assign review tasks to your teammates and track file statuses in your project management tool.

Messenger

Share files, comments, and review decisions in your favorite channels and spaces.

Content creation

Upload files and see comments in your content creation tools, so you can iterate and get approval faster.

And many more!

Create custom integrations in Zapier, turn marketing request forms into projects, and more.

Explore all integrations

Learn more about document approval software

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Your document approval questions, answered

What is document approval software?

Document approval software is a platform that manages the entire review and sign-off process for documents and other content types. Instead of reviewing files over email and collecting feedback across scattered threads, it brings everything – comments, versions, approvals, and stakeholder communication – into one place. That way, marketing teams can move faster and maintain a clear record of every decision made.

A document approval workflow is a structured process that moves a document through a series of review and sign-off stages before it’s finalized. Each stage typically involves a specific group of stakeholders like (legal, marketing, or compliance) who review the content, leave feedback, and either approve it or request changes. Once one stage is complete, the document moves to the next, until final approval is granted. In Filestage’s document workflow software, this entire process is automated so nothing gets stuck waiting for a manual handoff. You can also set up custom approval workflows and track the approval status of each project from a simple dashboard.
Document management software focuses on storing, organizing, and retrieving files. Document approval software focuses on review rounds, the feedback, the stakeholder sign-offs, and the audit trail. While some document management tools include basic sharing features, they weren’t built for collaborative document approval workflows. Filestage is purpose-built for the approval process itself, which means faster feedback, fewer revision rounds, and a clearer path to sign-off.
Filestage offers some great benefits for contracts, invoices, and legal document approvals. You can upload documents and ask for feedback and approval from specific people using password-protected links. And by managing all your versions and comments in one place, you get a complete audit trail of how each document was signed off. You can even export review reports for your legal documents to save a record on your own systems.
Yes, external reviewers like clients, agencies, legal teams, or executives can view content, leave comments, and approve documents without creating a Filestage account. You can invite them via a secure link or by email. This makes it easy to bring any stakeholder into your approval workflow without adding friction to the process.
Slow stakeholders usually indicate a problem with your process. When reviewers don’t know what’s expected of them where a file is, approvals stall. A document approval workflow tool like Filestage solves this in two ways. First, you can set due dates on every review stage so stakeholders know exactly when feedback is needed. Second, automated reminders chase them for you — so you’re not the one sending the follow-up emails. As Kärcher’s marketing team put it after rolling out Filestage: “We’ve saved hundreds of hours on our artwork reviews.”
Version confusion is one of the most common (and most costly) problems in manual approval workflows. When files are shared over email or stored in shared drives, it’s easy for reviewers to open the wrong version and give feedback on content that’s already been updated. In Filestage, every new version is uploaded directly to the project and stacked on top of the previous one. Reviewers always land on the latest version automatically, and you can open any two versions side by side to compare changes and confirm every piece of feedback has been addressed.
A document approval audit trail is a timestamped record of every action taken during the review process. For instance, who uploaded each version, who left which comments, who requested changes, and who gave final approval. For teams in regulated industries like pharma, healthcare, or consumer packaged goods, this kind of documentation is a compliance requirement. Filestage maintains a full activity log for every project, giving you a defensible record of every decision made during the approval process. Combined with ISO 27017 certified EU servers and AES-256 bit encryption, it’s built to meet enterprise governance standards.
Yes, as long as you choose a platform built with security in mind. Filestage is fully GDPR compliant, stores all data on ISO 27017 certified EU servers, and protects every file with AES-256 bit encryption. You can also password-protect individual projects, restrict downloads, and anonymize reviewer feedback when needed. For teams handling sensitive contracts, regulated content, or confidential client materials, Filestage gives you full control over who can access your files at every stage of the approval process.
Google Drive and SharePoint are built for storing and sharing files, but they’re not designed for managing structured approval workflows. When teams use them for approvals, feedback ends up scattered across comments, emails, and chat messages, with no clear record of who approved what or when. Filestage is purpose-built for the review and approval process. That means multi-stage reviewer groups, automated workflow handoffs, side-by-side version comparison, due dates, automated reminders, and a full audit trail all in one platform.
Filestage supports approvals across a wide range of content types, making it suitable for marketing teams, creative agencies, legal departments, and product teams alike. You can review and approve PDF documents, Word files, presentations, images, design mockups, videos, audio files, live websites, and interactive HTML all within the same project. So instead of managing feedback on one file here and another there, your entire content approval process lives in one place.
Most teams are up and running in Filestage within minutes. You create a project, define your reviewer groups for each approval stage, upload your content, and invite your stakeholders either by email or via a shareable link. There’s no lengthy implementation, no IT setup required, and no training needed for reviewers. As dm-drogerie markt’s team noted after rolling out Filestage across their organization: “New reviewers don’t need any training. Everyone can easily find their way around.” If you want a more tailored setup for complex workflows, the Filestage team offers onboarding support to get your process running exactly the way you need it.