Electronic signature software

Compare electronic signature software by tracking a document from request to finished record. Check who signs, how mistakes are fixed, what evidence is produced, and who can retrieve the result.

For an Australian transaction, confirm the requirements for that document and recipient before relying on a provider’s general claim.

The Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department provides guidance on electronic signatures, documents and transactions. Check the Electronic Transactions Act 1999 (Cth) and state and territory equivalents for requirements around validity, witnessing and consent.

Define the job before comparing products

List the documents, recipients and signing order for an ordinary request. Add a mistake such as a wrong email address or a changed document, and decide what should happen if someone has already signed when it is found.

Set the required record at a high level: who needs the signed PDF and event record, who must retrieve them if the sender leaves, and the retention period under your organisation’s policy.

Run those checks on the same ordinary request: follow the routing, try a harmless correction, then check the final record and whether the right colleague can retrieve it.

Check plan figures against sending volume

The Australian Docusign eSignature plans list Personal at AU$15 a month, or AU$180 billed annually, with five envelopes per month. Standard is AU$37 per user a month, or AU$444 billed annually, with 100 envelopes per user per year.

Business Pro is AU$59 per user a month, or AU$708 billed annually, and also includes 100 envelopes per user per year. The page says additional tax may apply but does not specify a GST amount or treatment, and lists no GST-inclusive total, so confirm the total before comparing costs.

Plans differ in included tools. Standard lists five SMS deliveries and five identity verifications as one-time bonuses. Business Pro adds mobile-friendly web forms, payment collection during signing, interactive form fields, real-time data verification and bulk sending.

The Personal plan says it securely stores and provides access to agreements in one place. Enhanced plans say envelope limits can be customised and list centralised organisation management and single sign-on (SSO). No Australian price is stated for those plans here.

The listed figures do not say how a sent-but-uncompleted envelope is counted or specify an excess-use fee. Confirm both against the proposed terms before comparing allowances.

Docusign Standard lists five identity verifications as a one-time bonus, but no identity-verification method is named here. Ask each vendor which authentication options are included in the intended tier and whether they add cost.

Three products to examine

Adobe Acrobat Sign: Adobe Help’s Signing order and Audit report pages are documented product starting points. These pages do not state Australian plan names, prices or envelope allowances.

Docusign eSignature: use its Australian plans page to compare the plan figures and included features above.

Dropbox Sign: the Dropbox Help guide to signing order documents how senders switch on Set signer order and rearrange signers. The next signer is prompted by email after the preceding signer signs; no Australian plan names, prices or envelope allowances are stated on this guide.

Test one harmless two-signer request in the intended tier. Include the recipient and signing order, assigned fields, a correction after the first signer acts, and retrieval of the finished PDF and event record by a colleague outside the sending team.