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Free e-signature plans compared (2026): what the free tier really includes

Most “free e-sign” plans are capped: SignWell's free plan allows 3 documents a month, DocuSeal's Cloud Basic 10 signature request emails a month, and DocuSign's free account lets you upload, self-sign, return and store documents free forever — sending documents for others to sign starts at $11/month for 5 envelopes. FreeSign is free with no document or signature cap and no account, because it never receives your PDF. The trade-off: it is a signing tool, not a hosted document workflow — paid platforms do storage, dashboards, templates and reminders that FreeSign's free tier does not.

Prices checked 8 October 2026; may change. Every competitor figure below links to the vendor's own pricing page.

The free tiers side by side

What “free” means at each vendor

DocuSign. The eSignature plans page lists no free plan for sending: Personal is $11/month (annual, billed monthly) with 5 envelopes per month for one user, then Standard at $30 and Business Pro at $45, with 100 envelopes per user per year on annual plans. Bulk Send is a Business Pro feature. Recipients do not need an account to sign — the sender pays. A separate free account lets you upload, self-sign, return and store documents free forever, but not send documents for others to sign.

Dropbox Sign. The pricing page links a free plan for people who just need to sign a document, and offers a 30-day free trial of paid features. Paid plans start at Essentials from $15 USD/mo for an individual and Standard from $25 USD/user/mo (monthly and yearly rates differ on the pricing page; verify before buying); paid plans include unlimited signature requests.

SignWell. The free plan allows 3 documents a month, 1 sender and 1 template, and — unusually — includes the API, with 3 free API documents a month. Light is $10/mo billed yearly ($12 monthly) with unlimited documents; Business is $30/mo billed yearly for 3 senders.

DocuSeal. Cloud Basic is $0/user/month with 10 signature request emails a month; Pro is $20/user/month. The open-source self-hosted edition is free if you run the server yourself. API and embedded signing cost $0.20 per completed document and require Pro.

FreeSign. Per our pricing page: unlimited users, documents and signatures, free forever — no account, no card. The free tier includes a per-signer X.509 certificate from an HSM-backed CA, a PAdES-B-T timestamp, OpenTimestamps blockchain anchoring, a tamper-evident audit trail, bulk signing of several PDFs in one pass, and the JS API, MCP and embeddable widget. Enterprise (AATL green check, QES, signing workflows, SSO, SMS verification, SLAs) is available on request.

Why FreeSign has no cap — and what that costs you

Per-seat and per-envelope pricing exists because hosted platforms run an application around your documents: they store them, route them and show them on a dashboard. FreeSign never receives the PDF — your browser hashes it and the signature is merged into the file on your device — and it has no accounts. With nothing to store and no seats, there is nothing to meter.

The same design is why the free tier cannot do several things the paid platforms above are built for. Be clear-eyed about them:

• No document storage. You keep the signed PDF; FreeSign has no copy to show you later.
• No sender dashboard, reminders or routing. You send the PDF to the next signer yourself; they countersign on free-sign.com. Workflows with routing and a status dashboard are Enterprise-only.
• No templates or form builder. FreeSign is not a document editor; you bring a finished PDF.
• No team management. No seats, roles, SSO or SCIM on the free tier.
• Yellow, not green, in Adobe Reader. The FreeSign CA is not on Adobe's AATL trust list, so Reader warns by default even though integrity and signing time verify. The green check is an Enterprise option.
• No SMS or ID-document verification — signers are verified by email code (optionally a passkey). SMS/KBA is Enterprise.
• No compliance certifications advertised. FreeSign does not claim SOC 2 or ISO 27001; if procurement requires them, pick a vendor that documents them.

What you get instead is a signature that is more than a pasted image: a cryptographic PAdES-B-T signature with your own certificate, verifiable in Adobe Reader, openssl, pyHanko or the open-source verifier — without FreeSign being online.

Which free e-signature plan should you pick?

• You need to sign your own PDFs, often, at no cost — FreeSign. No cap, no account, and the document never leaves your device. Sign a PDF without an account.
• You send a few documents a month and want a hosted sender inbox with templates — SignWell's free plan (3 documents/month) or DocuSeal Cloud Basic (10 signature request emails/month).
• You want a free API with a hosted backend — SignWell's free plan includes API access; FreeSign's API, MCP and embed are free too, but you orchestrate the workflow and storage yourself.
• You can run your own server — DocuSeal's open-source self-hosted edition.
• Your organisation needs routing, reminders, team seats and an Adobe green check — a paid plan from DocuSign, Dropbox Sign, SignWell or DocuSeal, or FreeSign Enterprise on request. See FreeSign vs DocuSign for the detailed trade-offs.

How to try FreeSign's free tier in a minute

1. Open free-sign.com and drop a PDF (up to 10 at once). It is hashed in your browser, not uploaded.
2. Enter your email and full legal name, tick consent, and click Sign in this browser.
3. Type the 6-digit code from your inbox and click Verify & sign.
4. Click Download signed PDF, then drop it into /verify to check the signature yourself.

FAQ

Related: what a free e-signature is · FreeSign pricing · FreeSign vs DocuSign · all comparisons.