Electronic signature software comparison for small teams: plans, seats and limits

This electronic signature software comparison covers the seven services a team of three to ten people is most likely to shortlist: Chaindoc, DocuSign, PandaDoc, Dropbox Sign, Adobe Acrobat Sign, SignNow and Youtrust (called Yousign until July 2026). Every price comes from the vendor's own pricing page, with the date we verified it and the billing cycle written out.

The short version? Per-user pricing decides the bill more than any feature does. SignNow has no per-user price at all, Adobe's team plan is the cheapest per seat in dollars at three users, and DocuSign Standard is the priciest dollar entry plan we priced.

Chaindoc publishes this guide and sits in every table under the same rules. If you only need one contract signed today, sending a document for signature takes a few minutes on any of the seven.

Two price tags can look alike and describe different things. Four details decide whether an electronic signature software comparison is fair:

• The unit. DocuSign counts envelopes, and one envelope can hold several documents and signers; it's counted once when it's sent, signed or not. SignNow counts signature invites, Chaindoc counts signatures, PandaDoc counts documents.
• The billing cycle. "Billed annually" means one charge for the year. "Annual commitment paid monthly", which DocuSign's US page and Adobe use, means monthly payments that still bind you for twelve months.
• Who needs a seat. Per-user prices cover the people in your account who send documents. The client signing what you send isn't one of your seats.
• What "not on our record" means. We didn't find or didn't record that item on the date shown. It isn't a claim that the vendor lacks it.

That last point matters more than it sounds. Pricing pages change quietly, so if a cell below says "not on our record", open the vendor's page and look.

Free tiers are a separate question, and we've covered where the free tiers stop on their own page. This one starts at the first paid plan.

This part of the electronic signature software comparison lists the plan a team of three would buy first, as each vendor's pricing page showed it on the date in the last column. Prices are exactly as published: dollars for the US pages, euros for the EU pages, and no conversion between them.

Watch the fourth column. Five of the seven price per person, SignNow prices per account, and Chaindoc prices a plan plus a monthly add-on for each extra member.

The method is plain multiplication: the published price, times the number of users, times twelve months. Where a vendor offers annual billing we used it, because that's the cheaper route. These are base subscriptions before tax and before add-ons like identity checks.

Chaindoc's own maths works the same way. The Team plan is €182 a year billed annually and covers one member; each extra member is a €19 monthly add-on. Three people come to €182 plus 2 × €228, which is €638 a year.

The jump from three to ten users is where per-user pricing bites. On DocuSign's own pricing page, Standard in the US is $30 per user per month on an annual commitment paid monthly, so a team goes from $1,080 a year at three users to $3,600 at ten. SignNow's Business plan stays at €96 a year for any number of users, but its 100 signature invites a year work out to ten per person once ten people share them. If you want every DocuSign tier and add-on in one place, here's each DocuSign plan priced out.

Per-seat totals hide a second cost in any electronic signature software comparison: the feature you actually need may sit one or two tiers above the plan you priced.

PandaDoc is the clearest case: ID verification and payments start on Business, which is $49 per seat per month billed annually, not on Starter. DocuSign sells ID verification as a paid add-on from Standard. Five attempts come free once, then it's from €2.35 an attempt in the EU or $2.40 in the US. Chaindoc includes a monthly quota of identity checks on every paid plan: 1 on Personal, 5 on Team, 10 on Business. They're optional, and you decide per request whether a signer goes through one.

The API is the other trap. Several vendors sell it on a separate price list, so the plan in your basket may not include it at all.

Every service in this electronic signature software comparison is the right pick for somebody. Here's where each one leads, said once and not walked back later.

SignNow wins for a team that keeps growing but sends rarely. Business is €8 a month billed annually for unlimited users, and nothing else in the table comes close on that count. The limit is volume, 100 signature invites a year, so it suits ten people who each send a handful of contracts rather than three people sending every day.

Adobe Acrobat Standard for teams is the cheapest per-seat plan in dollars at three users, and the same licence edits and converts PDFs. Adobe lists Acrobat Standard and Pro with unlimited transactions, subject to technical and throttling limits.

DocuSign shows API access on all four plans it lists, along with mobile apps and Microsoft 365 integration. If a developer will wire signing into your own systems next year, that matters more than this year's seat price.

PandaDoc is built around sales paperwork. Its Business summary lists custom quotes, a content library and approval workflows, and its free plan covers 60 documents a year.

Dropbox Sign has a free plan, and its Essentials plan at $10.05 a month billed annually is the lowest dollar entry price we recorded.

Youtrust sells qualified electronic signatures as an add-on, from €10 each on its Plus and Pro plans, and its free plan gives 2 signature requests a month.

Chaindoc includes identity checks on its paid plans, can tie an invoice to the contract, and gives every signed document a public proof: the file's hash goes on chain when the document is published, and each signer's proof is recorded when signing completes. Its free plan is permanent, 5 signatures a month, no card.

Honestly, none of these leads is "better signatures". For an ordinary contract the signature itself works the same way in all seven. You're paying for volume, seats and the evidence each service keeps.

Industry pages love to promise compliance. The useful question is narrower: does your document type carry a rule the software has to meet? For most contracts it doesn't.

Small businesses and SMEs

For sales contracts, NDAs and service agreements, the federal ESIGN Act says a signature or contract can't be refused legal effect just because it's electronic. A state can only change that rule by adopting UETA, the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, or a consistent law that doesn't favour one technology. In the EU, eIDAS Article 25 gives the same protection to any electronic signature and reserves automatic equivalence with handwriting for the qualified level. For an SME, then, the choice comes down to price, volume and the record you keep.

Accountants

This is the one place where a general signing tool is usually the wrong pick. IRS Publication 1345 (Rev. 12-2025) allows electronic signatures on Forms 8878 and 8879, but the software must record the signed form's image, the date and time, and for remote signing the taxpayer's IP address and username. Identity has to be verified at NIST SP 800-63 level 2 with knowledge-based authentication, or higher, and after three failed attempts the preparer must get a handwritten signature. Tax software that runs those questions does this job. Chaindoc's identity checks are KYC checks, not knowledge-based questions, so use it for engagement letters rather than Form 8879.

Lawyers and law firms

15 U.S.C. § 7003 carves out wills, codicils and testamentary trusts, adoption, divorce and other family law, most of the UCC, court orders and official court documents, and notices such as utility shutoffs, foreclosure or eviction on a primary residence and product recalls. No feature list changes that. For EU work, read what a qualified signature requires before you trust any vendor's label, and ask which format the qualified signature comes in. Chaindoc's qualified lane produces PAdES-BES, which carries no timestamp.

HR teams

Offer letters and contractor agreements are ordinary ESIGN territory. Form I-9 isn't. USCIS guidance says the system must let the person acknowledge the attestation, attach the signature at the time of the transaction, keep a record of who signed and give a printed confirmation on request. Ask each vendor about all four.

Real estate has its own wrinkles, and they're covered in our piece on signing in property deals.

Chaindoc makes sense when you want the identity check, the signature and the invoice in one place, with a proof of each signed version recorded on a public blockchain. The plans, as our plans page listed them on 2026-09-20:

• Free: €0, permanent, no card, 5 signatures a month, 1 user.
• Personal: €9 a month billed monthly, or €86 a year billed annually; 15 signatures and 1 KYC check a month.
• Team: €19 a month billed monthly, or €182 a year billed annually, with team management and 5 KYC checks a month.
• Business: €29 a month billed monthly, or €278 a year billed annually; 100 signatures and 10 KYC checks a month, plus the API.

Extra members are €19 a month each and 10 extra signatures are €9 a month, so per-user maths applies to us too.

Where it isn't the pick: there's no bulk sending and no SAML single sign-on, and a set signing order exists only through approval routes on Business. Native mobile apps are still in development, so phone signing runs in the browser. Need any of that today? The tables above point elsewhere. For a plan-by-plan view against one rival, see how Chaindoc lines up with DocuSign.

Run these nine questions against two or three vendors. Most take a minute on the pricing page; the last two take an email.

1. 1.
   How many people will send documents this year, and next year?
2. 2.
   How many documents did your busiest month produce, in the vendor's own unit?
3. 3.
   Billed annually, billed monthly, or an annual commitment paid monthly?
4. 4.
   Which identity method does the vendor offer (SMS code, ID document, knowledge-based questions), and what does each attempt cost?
5. 5.
   Does the audit trail show who signed, when and from which IP address, and can you export it as a PDF?
6. 6.
   Do any of your documents fall under Form 8879, Form I-9 or § 7003?
7. 7.
   Is the API on the tier you're buying, or on a separate price list?
8. 8.
   Do you need a set signing order, and which plan has it?
9. 9.
   Can you export every signed PDF and its audit trail in one go before you leave?

Answer those and the electronic signature software comparison mostly settles itself. The tables above just save you the first hour.