# Send a Report to a Client Without a PDF, a Login, or a 40 MB Attachment

Canonical: https://commareports.com/share-html-file-with-client
Published: 2026-08-28

> Deliverables that arrive as email attachments get lost, and portals make the client sign up. Publish the HTML once: a link they open in one click, comments that land on the report, revisions that show what changed.

# Sending a deliverable to a client

The work is done and it's an HTML file — an analysis, an audit, a
performance review, a scan. Now comes the part that costs you a day: the
delivery.

## The three usual routes, and what each costs

**Email the file.** Attachments over ~20 MB bounce, and HTML attachments
in particular get quarantined by mail filtering because a self-contained
HTML file with embedded script is exactly the shape of a phishing page —
see [emailing an HTML report](/email-html-report). If it does arrive,
the client can't open it on a phone.

**Export to PDF.** The interactive parts die: the sortable table becomes
a screenshot of its first sort, the chart tooltips are gone, a 40-column
table gets cropped at the page margin. You also lose every link.

**Put it in the portal.** Now the client needs an account, an invite, a
password reset, and a support conversation before they see any of your
work. Half of them never make it and ask you to just email it.

## Publish it once instead

Drag the file — or the whole output directory, or a zip — into
[Comma](https://commareports.com/). You get a URL:

- Renders faithfully, including scripts, inside a sandboxed iframe. The
  filters and charts still work — [interactive HTML
  reports](/interactive-html-reports).
- Opens on a laptop and a phone, in one click, with no account.
- **The client never pays and never signs up.** Pricing is per
  publisher; viewers and commenters are free and unlimited.

## Set the access to match the engagement

Per report, not per account:

| Situation                           | Setting                                        |
| ----------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------- |
| Draft, internal review only         | `private`, invite the two people who need it   |
| Sent to a named client contact      | `public` visibility, link permission `comment` |
| Read-only final, no more feedback   | `public` visibility, link permission `view`    |
| Client is on your identity provider | `domain` visibility _(Enterprise)_             |
| Engagement is ending                | password + expiry on the link _(Enterprise)_   |

Full model — five visibility levels, four link permissions, per-person
roles that override the link — in
[sharing & access control](/docs/sharing).

## Feedback that stays attached to the work

Comment permission means the client selects the paragraph or the number
and replies there. The thread stays anchored across revisions, so when
you re-publish, "this is the wrong baseline" is still sitting on the
baseline. Compare that with the alternative, which is an email saying
"see attached, comments in the third chart" —
[commenting on HTML](/comment-on-html) and
[stop screenshotting reports](/stop-screenshotting-reports).

You can answer in the thread. So can an agent, if you've wired one up —
[let an agent respond to comments](/agents/let-an-agent-respond-to-comments).

## Revisions, so "what changed" has an answer

Publish v2 to the same report id and the URL is unchanged — the client's
bookmark, the link in your invoice email and the one in their Slack all
still resolve. The old version stays as a revision you can diff. This is
also how a monthly deliverable stops being a folder of near-identical
files:

```bash
curl -fsS -X PATCH "https://commareports.com/api/v1/reports/$REPORT_ID" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COMMA_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "$(jq -n --rawfile html report.html \
        --arg title "Q3 review — Acme" '{title: $title, html: $html}')"
```

Or put it on a schedule and let the refresh happen without you —
[scheduled HTML reports](/features/routines/scheduled-html-reports).

## Before you send anything client-facing

- Check the visibility is what you meant. `public` means anyone with the
  link; that's usually right for a client and never right for a draft.
- If the report embeds credentials, internal hostnames or another
  client's data in a tooltip, that ships with it. A link is easier to
  revoke than an attachment, but it isn't a redaction step.

## Try it

Comma is free — unlimited reports, unlimited commenters, unlimited
revision history.

**[Publish a client deliverable →](https://commareports.com/)**

### Related

- [Upload an HTML file and get a link](/upload-html-file-get-link) · [Where to host a single HTML file](/host-html-file)
- [Email an HTML report](/email-html-report) · [Comma vs Google Docs](/vs/google-docs)
- [Sharing & access control](/docs/sharing)