E-signature software

Everything below links to the page it comes from, and says when we checked it.

Price it per sender, not per signer

Most e-signature plans charge for each person who sends documents out, so start with the price for one sender. On the entry plans:

• $10 a month billed yearly on SignWell Light, DocuSign Personal, Signeasy Personal and Zoho Sign Standard. Foxit eSign Essentials is $120 a user a year, and Foxit offers no monthly billing.
• $8 a month billed yearly on SignNow Business, and that price is for the whole account with unlimited users.
• $14.99 a month on a yearly plan for Adobe Acrobat Standard, $15 a month billed yearly on Dropbox Sign Essentials and $19 a user a month billed yearly on PandaDoc Starter.

A second sender changes the picture. DocuSign Personal is single-user only, and Dropbox Sign's team plan, Standard, needs at least 2 users, from $600 a year. SignWell adds senders to Light at $10 a month each on the yearly plan. Checked Sep 27, 2026.

How many documents you can actually send

The entry plan's allowance is where cheap plans differ most.

• Unlimited: SignWell Light, Dropbox Sign Essentials and PandaDoc Starter.
• Zoho Sign Standard: 25 envelopes per user a month.
• Foxit eSign Essentials: 250 envelopes a year. The same page's FAQ talks about no transaction limits; we go by the 250 on the plan card.
• SignNow Business: 100 signature invites a year on the yearly plan, or 10 a month billed monthly, shared by the account. After that it moves to pay-as-you-go.
• DocuSign Personal and Signeasy Personal: 5 a month.
• We didn't find a stated limit for Adobe Acrobat Standard bought by one person.

Checked Sep 27, 2026.

Check what the entry plan leaves out

We check five things on each entry plan: reusable templates, automatic reminders, an audit trail, signing on a phone and cloud storage integrations.

• SignWell, DocuSign, Dropbox Sign, SignNow and Adobe include all five.
• Zoho Sign Standard has no templates. They start at Professional.
• PandaDoc Starter has no automatic reminders. They start at Business.
• Foxit sells cloud storage connections as a paid add-on, Foxit Connectors.
• Signeasy Personal has no templates and no automatic reminders, and it can only import from Google Drive.

Checked Sep 27, 2026.

If you handle patient information

We don't publish a healthcare-practices list for this category. Our rule for that list starts with a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement (BAA) on the entry plan, and only SignWell's pages state one. Here is what each company's pages say. We can't tell you what HIPAA requires of your practice.

• SignWell ticks "HIPAA support / BAA" for Light and up, and its healthcare page says it will sign a BAA.
• DocuSign lists a BAA as "Contact sales", on its Enhanced plans only.
• Dropbox Sign offers a signed BAA with a minimum contract value.
• PandaDoc asks you to request a BAA from your account team and names no plan.
• SignNow sells a BAA as a paid add-on on Site License only.
• Zoho Sign offers its BAA template on request by email to Zoho's legal team, and names no plan or price.
• Foxit says it is prepared to enter into a BAA where applicable, and its pricing table puts HIPAA compliance on eSign Business, not Essentials.
• Adobe signs a BAA through sales for the standalone Acrobat Sign service, which is not the Acrobat Standard plan.
• We didn't find a Signeasy page that says it signs a BAA. HIPAA compliance there is an add-on to Business Pro.

Checked Sep 27, 2026.

How the ranking weighs them

Price per sender counts for 35% of the score, documents a month 20%, what the entry plan includes 20%, support 15% and a free plan 10%. If one of these matters more to you than its weight, read the ranking with that in mind. The formula behind each criterion is on how we score e-signature software.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free e-signature plan?

Five have a free plan, each with a small cap:

• SignWell: 1 sender, 1 template and 3 documents a month.
• Dropbox Sign: 3 signature requests a month.
• Zoho Sign: a single user and 5 envelopes a month.
• PandaDoc: 60 documents a calendar year, 2 recipients each.
• Adobe: a free Acrobat account sends two requests every 30 days.

SignNow has a 7-day trial, Foxit and Signeasy 14-day trials, and DocuSign a free trial whose length we didn't find. Checked Sep 27, 2026.

Is DocuSign cheaper billed monthly or yearly?

Yearly. DocuSign Personal is $15 billed monthly, $11 a month on a yearly commitment paid monthly, or $120 paid upfront for the year. On the commitment paid monthly you can cancel within 30 days without penalty; after that the rest of the year is owed. Checked Sep 27, 2026.

Can I cancel an annual plan and get money back?

It depends on the company:

• Adobe charges a fee of up to half the remaining commitment if you cancel an annual plan paid monthly after 14 days, and gives no refund on a prepaid year after 14 days.
• Signeasy offers a 100-day money-back guarantee on yearly plans.
• SignNow offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
• SignWell says "No long-term contracts."

Checked Sep 27, 2026.

Can I collect a payment when someone signs?

PandaDoc Starter does, through Stripe only; the same article says its Collect Payment workflow step is still rolling out to Starter. DocuSign starts payments at Business Pro, SignNow at Business Premium and Zoho Sign at Enterprise. Foxit's Essentials card lists Foxit Pay, but its compare table puts it on eSign Business only, and we go by the table. We didn't find payment collection on SignWell's, Dropbox Sign's or Signeasy's pages, and Adobe's payments page names no plan. Checked Sep 27, 2026.

What support comes with the entry plan?

• Phone: SignWell (email, phone or a Zoom call), Zoho Sign (email, web and phone), Foxit (phone) and Adobe (phone and chat).
• Chat: PandaDoc and SignNow, both 24/7, and DocuSign.
• Email: Dropbox Sign and Signeasy. Dropbox Sign's pricing table says email, though a tooltip on the same page says email and chat.

Checked Sep 27, 2026.