Buying e-signature on a near-zero budget comes down to whether the free or entry option can actually send documents for signature, and what the bill scales with — per seat with an envelope allowance, per document, or a sales quote. PandaDoc has the most generous standing free tier in the cluster: Free eSign at $0 with unlimited signatures, capped at 5 documents a month. That cap, not the signature count, is the wall you hit. Dropbox Sign follows with a free tier of 3 signature requests a month, and it also owns the cheapest usable paid entry — Essentials at $15/user/mo annual ($20 monthly) — with Standard at $25/user/mo annual ($30 monthly) carrying a 2-user minimum; API and embedded signing are a separate product from $75 per 50 requests a month. airSlate is the lowest paid per-seat entry and has no free plan: Business $8/user/mo annual ($20 monthly), Business Premium $15 ($30 monthly), Enterprise $30 ($50 monthly). The ceiling to watch is that every tier caps at about 100 signature invites per user per year, with extras around $1.50 each, and HIPAA / 21 CFR Part 11 sit behind Site License. DocuSign is priced at entry but carries no free plan: Personal $10/mo billed annually ($120/yr, $15 monthly) capped at 5 envelopes a month, then Standard $25/user/mo annual ($45 monthly, about 44% off) and Business Pro $40/user/mo annual ($65 monthly); Standard and Business Pro both include 100 envelopes per user per year, so the real constraint at entry is the envelope allowance, not the seat. Juro is the outlier with no free tier and no published price at all — quote-only, sized by contract volume and add-ons, though unlimited users on every plan. The practical split: unlimited signatures under a document cap (PandaDoc), cheapest per-seat entry with a small free allowance (Dropbox Sign), lowest annual per-seat cost with an invite ceiling (airSlate), recognized brand and compliance breadth at a published entry price (DocuSign), or negotiated contract-lifecycle pricing (Juro). All prices re-checked 2026-09-20 against official pricing pages, evidence=research.
Free eSign at $0 with unlimited e-signatures (5 docs/month cap) — the only free plan in the cluster that does not meter your signatures. Paid starts at Starter $19/user/mo annual.
Free tier: Yes · 14-day free trial
Paid from: $0/mo (Free eSign) · $19/user/mo (Starter, annual) (Per-user billing; annual saves ~46%. Free eSign plan is unlimited signatures with a 5-document/month cap. Starter ($19/user/mo annual) adds unlimited documents; Business ($49/user/mo annual) unlocks CRM integrations, custom branding and payments. Enterprise is quote-only (SSO, API, CPQ).)
PandaDoc pairs document automation (proposals, quotes, sales docs) with built-in e-signature and payment collection, a genuinely free e-sign tier, and deep CRM integrations — priced per user with an annual-billing discount.
A standing Free plan sends 3 signature requests/month at $0; paid Essentials is the cluster's lowest entry at $15/user/mo annual with genuinely unlimited signatures. Dropbox-native storage included.
Free tier: Yes · 30-day free trial
Paid from: $0/mo (Free, 3 requests/mo) · $15/user/mo (Essentials, annual) (Per-seat app plans with ~33% annual discount. Standard has a 2-user minimum. API and embedded signing are a separate product: from $75 per 50 requests/mo (embedded signing on Standard API ~$300/mo). SharePoint integration was discontinued March 2026.)
Dropbox Sign (formerly HelloSign) is the simple, affordable e-signature tool that saves signed docs straight into Dropbox: unlimited signatures on the paid plans, a free 3-requests/month tier, and a per-seat entry at $15/user/mo — with API and embedded signing billed on a separate track.
No standing free tier — a 7-day trial. signNow Business is the cheapest paid per-seat entry at $8/user/mo annual, the lowest entry in the set, with SOC 2 Type II compliance at that price.
Free tier: No — trial only · 7-day free trial
Paid from: $8/user/mo (Business, annual) (Per-seat, no free plan. Every signNow tier caps at ~100 signature invites per user per year; extra invites billed ~$1.50 each. API access is a separate product (from ~$146/mo) and the WorkFlow automation platform bills on credits (Growth ~$399/mo). HIPAA/21 CFR Part 11 locked behind Site License.)
airSlate's signNow is the mid-market value play: SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA-grade compliance at about a third of DocuSign's price, per-seat plans from $8/user/mo on annual billing, with a 100-invites-per-user annual cap and separately priced API and WorkFlow automation.
No free plan — a 14-day trial. Personal is the floor at $10/user/mo annual (5 envelopes/month); Standard $25/user/mo annual is where teams land. The bill is the highest of the five at Standard.
Free tier: No — trial only · 14-day free trial
Paid from: $10/mo (Personal, annual) (Per-seat billing with ~44% annual discount on Standard. Standard and Business Pro each include 100 envelopes per user per year; Personal is capped at 5 envelopes/month. Additional products (CLM, Identify, Payments, SMS) are billed separately.)
DocuSign is the e-signature market standard — legally binding in 180+ countries with the broadest enterprise integrations, compliance depth and agreement-lifecycle reach, priced per seat with annual-billing discounts.
No self-serve free or paid tier at all: Juro is quote-only through a demo, with a 20%-off-year-one promo on the month of demo. Total cost is unknown until a sales call sizes it.
Free tier: No — trial only · Demo-gated (20% off year-one for new customers)
Paid from: Quote-only (no published self-serve price) (No published tiers: Juro sells a single custom-priced plan sized by contract volume, type and add-ons (AI Draft/Extract/Review, premium integrations). Unlimited users on all plans. New customers signing the month of demo get 20% off year-one. No forever-free tier.)
Juro is a browser-native contract-lifecycle platform: no Word dependency, native e-signature, template library and a repository that tracks signed docs, with unlimited users on all plans — priced quote-only through a calculator, with no self-serve tiers.
Bottom line: PandaDoc is the only standing free plan that gives you unlimited signatures ($0, 5 docs/month); Dropbox Sign follows with a free 3-requests/month tier and the cheapest paid entry ($15/user/mo annual, unlimited signatures). airSlate has no free plan but the lowest paid per-seat entry ($8/user/mo annual) with real compliance. DocuSign and Juro both start trial-only; DocuSign is the most expensive at Standard and Juro is quote-only. Free-ness and bill-scaling decide; compliance depth is the tiebreaker.
PandaDoc (free e-signatures, 5 docs/month) and Dropbox Sign (3 signature requests/month) have standing free tiers. airSlate, DocuSign and Juro are trial-only; Juro is further quote-only with no self-serve tier at all.
airSlate signNow Business at $8/user/mo annual is the cheapest paid per-seat entry, then Dropbox Sign Essentials at $15/user/mo annual, then PandaDoc Starter at $19/user/mo annual and DocuSign Standard at $25/user/mo annual. Juro is quote-only.
Yes. PandaDoc's free tier caps document creation at 5/month (signatures stay unlimited); Dropbox Sign's free tier caps at 3 signature requests/month; airSlate has no free tier and its paid plans cap at ~100 signature invites per user per year.