Free electronic signature tiers compared: what you get before you pay

Signing a document someone sends you is the easy part. The question that splits free electronic signature tiers is sending: asking other people to sign, and keeping proof that they did.

Here's what the vendors' own pricing pages listed when we last verified them. Youtrust (called Yousign until July 2026) gives 2 signature requests a month, Chaindoc 5 signatures a month and PandaDoc 60 documents a year. Dropbox Sign has a free plan whose allowance isn't on our record. For DocuSign, Adobe Acrobat Sign and SignNow, a free sending tier is not on our record (checked 20 to 22 September 2026), though DocuSign runs a permanent free account for signing what others send you.

No statute asks what you paid for the software. Money buys volume, seats and the evidence the service keeps. To get one contract signed today, our page on signing documents online walks through the flow.

The table shows what each vendor's pricing page listed for its free electronic signature tier on the date in the last column. "Not on our record" means exactly that: we didn't find or didn't record a free tier on that date. It isn't a claim that the vendor has none, so it's worth a look at their page before you decide.

Watch the units, too. Chaindoc counts signatures, Youtrust counts signature requests, PandaDoc counts documents and DocuSign counts envelopes. One DocuSign envelope can hold several documents and signers, and it's counted once when it's sent, signed or not. Five of one thing isn't automatically five of another.

The word covers four different deals, and only one of them lets you send contracts every month without paying.

1. 1.
   A free signer account. You can sign and store what other people send you, but you can't send your own requests. DocuSign's free account is this kind: you can upload, sign, return and store documents with no card, while collecting other people's signatures points you to a premium trial or a paid plan.
2. 2.
   A recurring sending allowance: a quota that resets, like Chaindoc's 5 signatures a month or Youtrust's 2 requests. PandaDoc's free plan says 60 documents a year; don't read that as five a month, because the page doesn't say how it resets.
3. 3.
   A free trial: everything for a few weeks, then a bill. Chaindoc's Personal and Team plans have a one-month trial that needs a card; the Free plan is separate and permanent.
4. 4.
   A developer sandbox. SignNow's Dev Mode and PandaDoc's API Free plan let developers test an integration without paying (both checked 23 September 2026). They're for building, not for signing your contracts.

If you only ever sign, the first kind is enough, and so may be the PDF reader you already have. Our guide to adding a signature to a PDF covers the built-in tools.

The price that matters is the one you meet in your first busy month. Below is the cheapest plan each vendor lists, with the billing cycle in words, because a monthly price billed annually is a twelve-month commitment. For DocuSign's full ladder, our breakdown of what DocuSign really costs goes plan by plan.

Where others come out ahead, we'll say so. SignNow's Business plan has no per-user price: €8 per month billed annually, or €20 per month billed monthly, for unlimited users and 100 signature invites a year. On Chaindoc each extra team member is a €19 monthly add-on, so a growing team can pay less at SignNow than with us.

Our own free electronic signature tier, in the same terms as the tables: 5 signatures a month, one user, 100 MB of storage, no card and no end date. Team management isn't on it, and neither is the API, which comes with the Business plan. Free has no identity checks; Personal includes one a month, and KYC verification stays optional on every plan.

Here's how a Chaindoc signing is recorded. The file is hashed on upload, the version hash goes on chain when the document is published, and each signer's proof is recorded when signing completes. That's the part we'd point to in a dispute.

Yes, for most agreements, and the price of the tool never comes into it.

The ESIGN Act says a signature or contract in interstate commerce "may not be denied legal effect, validity, or enforceability solely because it is in electronic form" (15 U.S.C. § 7001(a)). Its definition of an electronic signature is broad: a sound, symbol or process attached to or logically associated with a record and adopted with the intent to sign. A typed name can qualify. So can a click. UETA, the uniform act states pass as their own law, says the same at state level.

Europe lands in the same place. Article 25(1) of eIDAS bars denying an electronic signature legal effect, or admissibility as evidence, solely because it's electronic or isn't qualified.

Here's the catch, though. Validity is the floor; proof is the fight. If a signer later says "that wasn't me", you need to show who signed, when, and that the file hasn't changed since. A service that hands back a sealed file and an audit trail gives you that. A pasted signature image gives you the image and nothing else.

US law doesn't grade signatures, but the EU's three levels are the usual shorthand for how much proof one carries.

A simple electronic signature is any electronic data used to sign: a typed name, a drawn mark, a ticked box. An advanced signature meets the four conditions of Article 26. It's uniquely linked to the signer, capable of identifying them, created with data under their control and tied to the document so that any later change shows. A qualified signature adds a qualified certificate and a qualified signature creation device, and Article 25(2) gives it the effect of a handwritten signature across the EU.

Qualified signatures cost money for a structural reason. The certificate comes from a qualified trust service provider that has checked your identity, and that check isn't free to run. Whether a provider is qualified can be checked on the EU Trusted List. Our guide to what a qualified signature involves walks through the process.

A free electronic signature tier rarely fails on the signature itself. It fails on the things around it, and usually in the week you're busiest. These are the five we'd check, in this order.

1. 1.
   The unit and the reset. Signatures, requests, documents and envelopes aren't the same count, and a monthly quota behaves differently from a yearly one. A DocuSign envelope counts once when it's sent, whether or not anyone signs it.
2. 2.
   Seats. Chaindoc Free is one user. On Chaindoc, team management begins at the Team plan, and each extra member is a €19 monthly add-on. Youtrust's One plan is single-user; its Plus and Pro plans are priced per user.
3. 3.
   Identity checks. Who verified the signer, if anyone? DocuSign sells ID verification as an add-on from its Standard plan: 5 free checks, then from €2.35 an attempt (checked 20 September 2026). Chaindoc's Free plan has none; Personal includes 1 check a month, Team 5 and Business 10.
4. 4.
   Signing order. Does everyone get the request at once, or one after another? A normal Chaindoc request invites all signers together, and a set order runs through approval routes on the Business plan. If your contracts need a manager to sign before the client sees them, that's a paid feature with us.
5. 5.
   Storage, and what happens when you stop. Chaindoc Free holds 100 MB. Before you file a year of contracts in any free account, find out what happens to them if you downgrade or close it, and keep exported copies you control.

Fair warning: none of these appear in a free tier's headline. They sit in the comparison table's small print, or you meet them the first time a send fails. Ten minutes with the pricing page now is cheaper than a contract stuck in a queue at the end of the month.

Some records stay outside ESIGN whatever tool you use. 15 U.S.C. § 7003 carves out:

• wills, codicils and testamentary trusts
• state family law, such as adoption and divorce
• most of the Uniform Commercial Code (Articles 2 and 2A, on sales and leases, stay covered)
• court orders, notices and official court documents
• notices of utility shutoff; of default, repossession, foreclosure or eviction on a primary residence; of cancelled health or life insurance; and product recalls
• documents that must travel with hazardous materials

The exclusion follows the record type. It has nothing to do with what the software cost.

A second trap catches businesses. When a law says a consumer must get information in writing, an electronic record only counts if the consumer agreed first, after being told about paper copies and withdrawal, in a way that shows they can open your format (§ 7001(c)).

If you only ever sign what other people send you, you don't need a plan at all. A free signer account covers you, and so does the PDF reader you already have.

Sending a handful of agreements a month? Compare the recurring allowances: 2 requests at Youtrust, 5 signatures at Chaindoc, 60 documents a year at PandaDoc, as verified on the dates above. Pick the one whose unit matches how you work.

Once a second person on your team needs to send, free stops being the question; seats are. If DocuSign is what you're moving away from, our side-by-side with DocuSign sets out what changes.

And if a contract has to survive a determined challenge, or EU rules ask for a qualified signature, budget for that level from the start. A free electronic signature is a sound default for everyday agreements. It's a poor plan for the one document you can't afford to lose.