LabArchives overview
Verdict. The most transparent pricing of any ELN we track: a permanent free tier and published per-user rates for academic and corporate users, which makes it the only one in this set you can budget for without talking to sales. The feature set is narrower than Benchling's, with no biological registry or plate module found, and its independent review base is far too small to draw conclusions from.
Last verified
At a glance
| Vendor | LabArchives, LLC (Dotmatics), Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
|---|---|
| Deployment | cloud |
| Lab size | small, mid, enterprise |
| Pricing | From 330 USD per user per year, academic Professional tier. Free tier at USD 0 with 2 owned notebooks, 1 GB total storage and a 25 MB file limit. Professional at USD 330 academic or USD 575 corporate per user per year. ELN with Inventory at USD 360 academic or USD 675 corporate. Inventory alone at USD 99 academic or USD 199 corporate after a 90-day trial. Education at USD 25 per student per term. Enterprise is quote-based. |
| Modules | experiment-templates, protocols, inventory, sample-management, chemical-drawing, data-analysis, e-signature, reporting, collaboration, api |
Compliance evidence
| Standard | Evidence | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 21-cfr-part-11 | Documented | Signing and witnessing workflow with audit controls documented in the help centre. source |
| iso-27001 | Documented | Certification referenced on the research integrity and security page. source |
| soc-2 | Documented | AICPA SOC 2 Type II. source |
| gdpr | Documented | GDPR commitment documented on the research integrity and security page. source |
| hipaa | Documented | HIPAA commitment documented on the same page — uncommon among the ELNs we track. source |
| eu-annex-11 | Unknown | |
| gamp-5 | Unknown | |
| iso-17025 | Unknown |
Assessment by dimension
Editorial reading of documented evidence, not a hands-on test. See how we assess.
- Overall fit Strong
Explicitly segmented for academic, commercial, government and enterprise research, and the free tier matches the academic claim.
- Compliance Strong
Part 11 signing documented, plus ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and HIPAA. Annex 11 and GAMP 5 stay unverified.
- Deployment execution Limited
Cloud only, with no public on-premise or hybrid offer and no published implementation timeframe.
- Pricing transparency Strong
Published per-user rates across five tiers plus a permanent free tier: the most transparent in our set.
- Usability Mixed
4.3 out of 5 on G2 but across only 3 reviews, a sample far too small to read as a usability verdict.
- Support Limited
The independent review base of 3 reviews gives no usable signal on support quality either way.
What LabArchives is
LabArchives is a cloud electronic lab notebook, described by the vendor as “a digital notebook and workspace for better data management, connectivity, and collaboration”. LabArchives, LLC was established in 2009 and is based in Boston. It is no longer independent: Insightful Science acquired it in 2021, and since 2022 it has been part of Dotmatics, alongside GraphPad Prism, Geneious and SnapGene.
The site segments its offer across academic, commercial and start-up, government and enterprise research, and the help documentation states it serves “teams of all sizes”. The academic emphasis is not just marketing: the pricing structure, with a per-student education rate and a permanent free tier, is built around it.
Capabilities we could document
Documented on LabArchives’ own pages: ELN templates and workflows, inventory with links into the notebook, sample management, chemical sketching, electronic signing and witnessing, monitoring and reporting, sharing and collaboration, and a developer API with plan-dependent restrictions.
Several capabilities we looked for were not found, and the absences are consistent enough to matter. There is no structured biological entity registry comparable to Benchling’s, no advanced plate module, no generic native instrument-connectivity layer, and no standalone quality management module. Analysis and organisation features exist, but we could not establish a separate analytics engine, and no standalone protocol-library product was found.
Read together, this is a notebook with strong record-keeping and sharing rather than a platform that models biology as structured data.
Deployment and implementation
Cloud only. We found no public on-premise or hybrid offer. Hosting is available in the United States and rest of world, the United Kingdom, the EU and Australia, which is a genuinely useful spread for European and Australian institutions with data-residency constraints.
No generic implementation timeframe is published, and we do not estimate one.
Pricing
This is where LabArchives stands apart. The prices are published:
| Tier | Academic | Corporate |
|---|---|---|
| Free | USD 0 — 2 owned notebooks, 1 GB total, 25 MB max file | — |
| Professional | USD 330 per user/year | USD 575 per user/year |
| ELN + Inventory | USD 360 per user/year | USD 675 per user/year |
| Inventory only | USD 99 per user/year | USD 199 per user/year |
| Education | USD 25 per student/term | — |
| Enterprise | Quote-based | Quote-based |
Inventory alone follows a 90-day trial. The free tier is time-unlimited rather than a countdown, which makes it usable for a genuine evaluation — within its 1 GB ceiling.
Compliance
21 CFR Part 11: documented, through the signing and witnessing workflow and its audit controls. ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and HIPAA are all documented, and HIPAA in particular is uncommon in this market.
EU Annex 11, GAMP 5 and ISO 17025 are unknown: no dedicated page was found. For a European GMP environment, Annex 11 being unverified while Part 11 is documented is the gap to raise with the vendor first.
Who it’s for, and who it isn’t
LabArchives fits academic groups and core facilities that need a real free tier, buyers who need a published number to build a budget, and labs whose regulatory pressure is around signing, witnessing and HIPAA.
It does not fit teams that need entities, plates or native instrument connectivity, or labs with an on-premise requirement. One honest caveat on our own assessment: with only 3 independent reviews found, we have almost no outside signal on day-to-day usability or support, so those two dimensions reflect the thinness of the evidence, not a judgement on the product.
Alternatives to LabArchives
- Benchling: If you need biology modelled as structured data, with registered entities, plates and analytics rather than records.
- SciNote: Comparable academic reach with an on-premise option and a far larger independent review base to judge daily use from.
- SciSure: If hosting inside your own infrastructure is a requirement, which LabArchives does not publicly offer.
FAQ
How much does LabArchives cost?
Unusually for this market, LabArchives publishes its prices. The Professional tier is USD 330 per user per year for academic users and USD 575 for corporate, ELN with Inventory is USD 360 academic or USD 675 corporate, and there is a permanent free tier limited to 2 owned notebooks and 1 GB of storage. Enterprise remains quote-based.
Is the LabArchives free tier actually usable?
It is time-unlimited rather than a trial, which is the important part, but it is capped at 2 owned notebooks, 1 GB of total storage and a 25 MB maximum file size. That suits an individual researcher or an evaluation, not a working group sharing instrument output.
Is LabArchives still independent?
No. Insightful Science acquired LabArchives in 2021, and since 2022 it has been part of Dotmatics, alongside products such as GraphPad Prism, Geneious and SnapGene. The LabArchives product identity continues, but purchasing decisions now sit within a wider portfolio.
Does LabArchives connect to laboratory instruments?
We found no generic native instrument-connectivity layer documented. A public developer API exists, with restrictions depending on plan, so integration is possible, but it is engineering work rather than a configured feature. Treat instrument connectivity as a question for the vendor.
Sources
- LabArchives — About (accessed 2026-09-18)
- LabArchives — ELN for research (accessed 2026-09-18)
- LabArchives — Pricing (accessed 2026-09-18)
- LabArchives — Research integrity and security (accessed 2026-09-18)
- LabArchives joins Insightful Science (accessed 2026-09-18)
- G2 — LabArchives reviews (accessed 2026-09-18)