E-signatures for small businesses

What does a small business get signed in a typical month?

It depends on the business, but the mix tends to cover customers, suppliers and staff. A kitchen fitter sends quotes for approval and a sales contract once the design is agreed. A wholesaler sends purchase orders to suppliers and credit terms to new trade customers. A café owner signs a lease renewal, a new barista's contract and a supplier agreement for coffee beans.

What these have in common is that the owner usually does the paperwork personally, late in the evening, from whatever file the other side sent.

• Sales contracts and quote approvals
• Purchase orders and supplier agreements
• Service agreements with customers
• Employment contracts for new staff
• NDAs with partners and contractors

The awkward parts for a small business

Files arrive in every format. One supplier sends a Word document, another an Excel price schedule that needs a signature, a customer sends a photo of a printed page. Converting each to a clean PDF before signing eats time.

Then there is cost. Many e-signature products are priced for companies with a procurement team, with annual billing and per-user fees. A five-person business with one person who signs things should not need that.

How a small business uses Sign PDF

The routine is the same for a quote, a contract or a purchase order.

• Upload the file as it came: PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Pages, RTF, plain text or a JPG or PNG photo.
• Sign PDF turns it into a PDF and places signature, name and date boxes for each party it finds.
• Type plain instructions such as 'customer signs first' or 'add a checkbox for terms accepted'.
• Add names and emails and send, or sign it yourself first.
• Everyone gets the sealed PDF with its certificate of completion attached at the end.

What does it cost a small business?

If you sign two documents a month or fewer, Light is $5 a month. Most small businesses sign more than that once quotes and supplier paperwork are counted, and Full at $10 a month gives unlimited documents, templates, signing order and reminders.

There are no per-user fees because there are no extra users, and no annual commitment. A document counts once it is sent, however many people sign it.

What small businesses should know before choosing us

There is one login per account. We have no team seats or roles, so if three people in the business send contracts and you want them under one bill with shared templates, a tool with team plans will work better.

We do not connect to accounting, CRM or cloud storage, do not take payments and have no API. If you want signed quotes to turn into invoices automatically, look at a tool that includes that.