If you need someone to sign a document online, DocuSign is the name everyone knows — and its per-seat pricing is exactly why a wave of smaller, cheaper e-signature tools has shown up to compete for freelancers and small European teams. SignedBy and Certyneo are two of them, and they solve slightly different problems: SignedBy is built to be the cheapest, simplest option for someone who signs a handful of documents a month, while Certyneo is built around eIDAS compliance and EU data residency for teams that need that on paper. Here's how they actually compare.
SignedBy
SignedBy is a lightweight e-signature tool aimed at solo professionals and small teams who don't need, or want to pay for, DocuSign's per-seat pricing model. It has no free document limit issue for casual use and adds a REST API plus webhooks from the Pro tier up, so you can automate signing into your own workflow.
Pricing: Free (3 documents/month), Pro ā¬7/mo (unlimited documents), Team ā¬14/mo (up to 3 users), Business ā¬29/mo (up to 5 users, full API). Multi-currency (EUR, USD, GBP, CHF, INR), cancel anytime.
Strengths: meaningfully cheaper than DocuSign with no per-seat fee, EU-hosted data (EEA), and RFC 3161 trusted timestamping for real legal value.
Limitations: fewer deep integrations (no native Salesforce, for example) than DocuSign, a young company with less of a track record, and SignedBy's own branding stays visible on the signing page on the Free plan.
Certyneo
Certyneo is an eIDAS-compliant European e-signature platform for sending, signing and archiving documents, with EU data residency and a REST API built in from the start. It supports signature levels up to eIDAS Qualified, which carries legal weight across the entire EU.
Pricing: Free (5 envelopes/month, dropping to 2/month after 14 days, 1 user). Personal ā¬9/mo (25 envelopes), Standard ā¬19/mo (100 envelopes, 10 users), Business ā¬39/mo (300 envelopes), Business Pro ā¬99/mo (1,000 envelopes, unlimited users), Enterprise from ā¬299/mo. Qualified signatures billed separately at ā¬9.90 each.
Strengths: 100% EU hosting and GDPR compliance, eIDAS signatures up to Qualified level, 10-year legal archiving included at every tier, and a free tier with no card required.
Limitations: almost entirely Europe-focused with little presence outside the EU, Qualified signatures cost extra per-signature on top of the subscription, and there's no open-source component.
Side by side
| SignedBy | Certyneo | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 3 documents/mo | 5 envelopes/mo (2 after 14 days) |
| Cheapest paid tier | ā¬7/mo, unlimited docs | ā¬9/mo, 25 envelopes |
| Team plan | ā¬14/mo, up to 3 users | ā¬19/mo, up to 10 users |
| Legal signature level | Timestamped (RFC 3161) | Up to eIDAS Qualified |
| Data residency | EU (EEA) | EU |
| Long-term archiving | Not highlighted | 10 years, included |
| Target market | Solo/small team, global | EU businesses, compliance-focused |
Verdict
Pick SignedBy if you're a freelancer or small team that just needs documents signed without a per-seat bill, and don't need the highest eIDAS assurance level. Pick Certyneo if you're a European business that needs eIDAS Qualified signatures, 10-year legal archiving, or you need to hand a compliance officer a paper trail that explicitly says “GDPR, EU-hosted, eIDAS.” Both undercut DocuSign heavily on price; the real decision point is whether you need Certyneo's higher legal signature tiers or SignedBy's simplicity is enough.