Getting a document signed electronically has been legally binding for years — in most places a typed name plus an audit trail (IP address, timestamp) holds up the same as ink. What hasn't caught up is pricing: the tool most people default to, DocuSign, charges per seat, which is painful when it's just you, a co-founder, or a five-person team sending the occasional contract. The tools below all provide legally-binding e-signatures without that per-seat model — some charge per document, some have a genuinely usable free tier, and a couple are built API-first for developers who want signing built into their own product rather than a separate app.
The short version: for the absolute cheapest way to get started, SignedBy has a real free tier (3 documents/month) and no per-seat pricing. If you're a developer adding e-signature to your own app rather than sending documents manually, Firma.dev's pay-per-envelope API (€0.049/document) is dramatically cheaper than integrating DocuSign. Need EU data residency and eIDAS-qualified signatures that hold up across the whole EU, not just a basic e-signature? Certyneo is built specifically for that. If your workflow needs identity verification and payment collection bundled with the signature itself, Chaindoc covers all three. And if the person signing shouldn't have to create an account at all, SignFile and WaiverStevie.com both let signers sign with zero friction.
1. SignedBy — best free tier for solo professionals
SignedBy is built specifically for solo professionals and small teams who don't want DocuSign's per-seat pricing. The free plan covers 3 documents/month with no card required; paid tiers scale by feature, not by seat.
Pricing: Free (3 docs/month) · Pro €7/month (unlimited documents) · Team €14/month (up to 3 users) · Business €29/month (up to 5 users, full API).
Verdict: the best starting point if you just need occasional contracts signed without committing to anything — EU data hosting and RFC 3161 trusted timestamping give it real legal weight, not just a checkbox. It's a younger company with less of a track record than DocuSign, and the free tier shows SignedBy branding on the signing page.
2. Firma.dev — best pay-per-document API for developers
Firma.dev is a developer API that adds legally-binding e-signatures to any app for a few cents per document instead of days spent integrating DocuSign's API. It claims broad compliance coverage (GDPR, SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, eIDAS, ESIGN, UETA) and supports a 7-language signing UI.
Pricing: €0.049 per envelope, pay-as-you-go, no contract; optional €100/month priority support add-on.
Verdict: roughly 10-20x cheaper per document than DocuSign if you're sending real volume through your own product. It launched in July 2026, so there's no long track record and no visible public customers yet — worth confirming the compliance claims directly rather than taking the marketing copy at face value, and note the 10MB per-document upload limit.
3. Certyneo — best for EU data residency and qualified signatures
Certyneo is a European electronic signature platform built for eIDAS compliance, with signatures up to the Qualified level (the strongest tier under EU law, valid across all member states) and 100% EU-hosted data.
Pricing: Free (5 envelopes/month, then 2/month after 14 days) · Personal €9/month (25 envelopes) · Standard €19/month (100 envelopes, 10 users) · Business €39/month (300 envelopes) · Business Pro €99/month (1,000 envelopes, unlimited users) · Enterprise from €299/month · Qualified signature billed separately at €9.90/signature.
Verdict: the one to pick if a client or regulator specifically requires eIDAS-qualified signatures, or if EU data residency is a hard requirement — 10-year legal archiving is included at every tier. Presence outside the EU is limited, and qualified signatures cost extra per use rather than being bundled.
4. Chaindoc — best for bundling signature, ID verification and payment
Chaindoc combines e-signature, KYC identity verification and payment collection into a single agreement flow, with a blockchain-anchored (SHA-256) audit trail and ISO 27001 / ISO 9001 certification.
Pricing: Free (5 signatures/month, 100MB) · Personal €9/month · Team €19/month · Business €29/month · discounts on annual billing.
Verdict: worth it specifically when a deal isn't done until identity is verified and payment is collected, not just signed — most e-signature tools make you stitch those together yourself. The free and entry tiers have low signature limits, and crypto payment collection is Business-plan only.
5. SignFile — best zero-friction signing for the other party
SignFile is a digital contract signing platform that lets people sign legally-binding PDFs without creating an account first — removing the single biggest reason recipients delay signing something.
Pricing: Free (3 docs/month) · Starter $9/month (30 docs) · Pro $19/month (unlimited) · Team $29/month (5 seats) + $5/extra seat · 2 months free on annual billing.
Verdict: the $19/month unlimited Pro tier undercuts DocuSign and Adobe Sign significantly, and PDF sanitization (stripping embedded JS/exploits) plus public SHA-256 verification are nice trust signals for a smaller vendor. It's newer and smaller than the established players, and doesn't mention deep CRM or workflow integrations.
6. WaiverStevie.com — best unlimited-envelopes free plan
WaiverStevie.com is a REST API-driven e-signature platform whose free plan allows genuinely unlimited envelopes and signatures — the tradeoff is a watermark on signed documents until you upgrade.
Pricing: Free with watermark (unlimited envelopes); paid tier pricing not publicly specified.
Verdict: if volume matters more than a clean watermark-free document — for example, internal or low-stakes agreements — this is the only tool here with no cap on the free tier at all. Paid pricing isn't published, so you'll need to ask before relying on it for anything client-facing.
| Tool | Best for | Entry price | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| SignedBy | Solo pros, no per-seat pricing | €7/mo | 3 docs/mo |
| Firma.dev | Developers, pay-per-document API | €0.049/envelope | Trial only |
| Certyneo | EU residency, eIDAS Qualified | €9/mo | 5 env/mo |
| Chaindoc | Signature + KYC + payment bundled | €9/mo | 5 sig/mo |
| SignFile | No account needed to sign | $9/mo | 3 docs/mo |
| WaiverStevie.com | Unlimited free volume (watermarked) | Free | Unlimited |
If you're just sending the occasional contract, start with SignedBy's or SignFile's free tier — both cover a handful of documents a month with zero setup. If e-signature needs to live inside your own product, Firma.dev's per-envelope API is the cheapest path in. And if a client or regulator specifically demands EU-hosted, eIDAS-qualified signatures, none of the general-purpose tools here substitute for Certyneo — that's a genuine legal requirement, not just a nice-to-have.