Best Electronic Signature Software

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PandaDoc wins for best overall because it offers a wide range of features with a user-friendly interface and reasonable pricing, including a free plan that can work for varying personal and business signature needs.

PandaDoc is a good choice for signatures, whether you need a single signature for a one-off contract or regularly need to have documents signed for your business. It offers a little something for everyone and is very easy to use. For those reasons, it clinches our top spot for electronic signature software.

The free plan could easily meet your demands if you have fairly basic signature needs. The lowest cost plan adds templates and a rich media with a drag-and-drop editor for $19 per month per user on an annual plan. The higher-cost business plan is $49 per month per user when billed annually and includes custom branding, approval workflows, CRM and Zapier integrations, and other helpful features. Some specific tools, like forms and bulk sending will cost an extra fee. There is also a custom plan available that adds notary features, Salesforce integration, and more.

PandaDoc helps you create or upload documents for signature quickly and makes it very easy for your customers to sign. Automated workflows push the process along when certain signatures are dependent on someone else. If you want to customize your sales documents with designer templates or CRM integration to align more with your brand and better your customer’s experience, it’s possible. But it’s also easy to just get simple signatures once in a while when you need them. Altogether, PandaDoc is a good choice for most signature needs.

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We picked eSignatures.io because it is a lightweight signature tool for fast signatures with a flat cost of $0.49 per sent contract.

ESignatures.io isn’t as well-known of a name as some larger competitors. Still, the pay-per-contract pricing of only $0.49 each makes it highly desirable for some businesses, particularly those with a lower volume of signatures that require features included with some expensive subscriptions to other signature platforms.

There is no monthly fee or any subscription required. This low rate comes with nearly everything eSignatures.io has to offer to make document and workflow management a breeze. That includes SMS-based contracts which have small charge per SMS, bulk sending, embedding, white-labeling, audit trail, and integrations with many sales and customer platforms. Even more, custom branding and template options can tailor your documents to your company’s style, helping you stand out to your customers.  While you don't have to pay any subscription, if you'd like integration planning and a dedicated account manager there is a monthly plan for that costing $3,999 per month. However, this totally unnecessary for most users.

For a pay-as-you-go signature app, this one has plenty of useful features and a good price. If you send less than 20 signatures documents per month, you could save a bundle by choosing this solution.

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We picked Preview as the best free option because it is already built into all modern Mac computers and enables you to drop a signature into nearly any document quickly.

Preview is built into macOS as a free, included feature. If you use a Mac laptop or desktop and ever click on PDF files or images, there’s a good chance you’ve used Preview and were just a couple of clicks away from adding a signature.

With Preview for the macOS app, you can create and save your signature or initials to your computer. The easiest way to do this may be to sign a piece of paper and use your computer to take a picture. You can also use the screen on an iOS device to save your signature. Once it’s saved, you can click on the Markup Toolbar button or Sign button to add it to a PDF.

Preview also gives you the option to combine multiple PDFs and rearrange the pages. You can password-protect sensitive documents so unwanted eyes can’t intercept and read the file. While it doesn’t work for everything and is not compatible with any operating systems other than macOS, Preview is simple to use and you can’t beat the price.

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We chose HelloSign as best for freelancers because it offers powerful features in its essential plan and is perfect for a solo business owner at a reasonable cost.

HelloSign is an online signature software that comes from Dropbox, the popular file storage and sharing platform. While it offers plenty of fancy features for bigger companies willing to pay more, freelancers and solopreneurs looking for a comprehensive service at a reasonable price may find HelloSign’s Essentials plan covers their unique business needs.

With Essentials, you can save five templates, send reminders and notifications, set signer fields, validate signature data, integrate cloud storage, and submit an unlimited amount of signature requests. There are also additional security features, like two-factor authentication and tamper-proof documents. For just one person, the cost is $15 per month when billed annually. The next plan costs $25 each per month per user when billed annually and gives you custom branding, bulk sending, and more integrations. You can buy two to four users for this plan online, but must contact them if you'd like more. You can try it for free for 30 days before paying.

Serious users with technical skills may want to tap into the HelloSign API to integrate electronic signatures onto their websites or apps, but most freelancers probably won’t need that kind of integration. It includes enterprise-grade security and compliance tools that work for just about any profession or need.

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We like Adobe Acrobat Pro and Adobe Sign for small businesses because Adobe Acrobat Pro includes many features businesses may already need, including advanced options to sign documents on your own computers or have documents signed online.

Adobe Acrobat is a software used to read PDF files for free. Users with larger needs can upgrade to Adobe Acrobat Pro, which includes the features you need to add a signature to a document. Also, you can send your PDF to the web for signature and payment when you sign up for an Adobe Sign subscription.

Acrobat Pro is a signature-based software. The Windows-only version costs $12.99 per month, and the Windows/Mac version costs $14.99 per month. Additional signature features from by Adobe Sign Solutions cost extra. These can range from anything as simple as creating PDFs and signing documents to as complicated as website integrations and customized branding. 

With the regular plan you are limited to the one license. There are team subscriptions that give you multiple users and let you manage them and put them in groups. A Standard teams subscription is $14.99 and the Pro version is $16.99 per user per month billed annually.

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We like DocuSign’s industry-leading solution with strong support for secure, cloud-based contract signatures and storage.

DocuSign is a 900-pound gorilla of the online signature industry with a long reputation for helping people sign online. If you’ve ever bought or sold a home, you could be familiar with DocuSign already. For businesses with many important contracts, DocuSign stands out as a good choice for secure signing and storage.

The basic account costs $10 per user per month when billed annually. That includes five signatures per month, basic fields, reminds & notificatioins, and use of the mobile app. If you want more, you’ll have to pay more. The Standard Plan comes with shared templates, comments, and customized branding in addition to the basics for $25 per month per user, while the Business Pro plan offers payments, signer attachments, and bulk send for $40. There is also a custom Enhanced Plan that can offer you things like website or app integrations, identification and authentication, embedded signing, and more. You'll have to contact the company for pricing and details. Lastly, if none of these features interest you and you only want to do signatures and nothing else, there is a very limited free plan.

DocuSign’s Agreement Cloud is a solution that helps you automate and improve how you manage your signature and contract process and makes it a strong contender in this category. Additional features include a collaborative platform for contracts and negotiations, document analytics, identity verification, notary, activity tracking, and lots of integrations. It’s not the cheapest solution, but it covers even the most advanced and complex signature needs your business can throw at it.

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SignNow makes it easy to take payments with contract signatures and payments to your favorite payment processor with no code required.

SignNow handles everything you would expect from a signature app but goes a step further with a powerful and easy-to-use payment system powered by airSlate (part of the same company). SignNow starts at $8 per user per month when billed yearly for its own basic plan, which includes document signing, unlimited templates, basic fields, and their mobile app. The next plan up costs $15 per user per month when billed yearly, but still doesn't add payment capability. However, with this plan you get bulk sending, personalized branding, reminders, and more. The Enterprise plan costs $30 per user per month when billed annually. This is the first one that includes payment capability. You also get conditional fields, signer attachments, and more with this plan. For $50 per user per month when billed annually you can get the full airSlate Business Cloud which adds integrations, compliance, phone support, and more.

But for businesses that need to take a lot of payments with online signatures, that cost could be worthwhile. AirSlate makes it very easy to connect to payment systems like Stripe with an online PDF editor, drag-and-drop form builder, and workflow automation.

The signNow and airSlate solutions handle what you would likely need several apps to otherwise cover. It is PCI compliant for card payments and gives you the essential tools to get money in the bank when sending out signature forms and contracts.