Are you overpaying for e-signatures?
Most e-signature platforms are priced for teams that send documents all day. If you send a handful a month, you are paying for that pricing model anyway.
You buy a seat for every person who might need to send something, you commit to a year up front, and you get an envelope allowance you will almost never use. And once you want to automate any of it, sending from your own system, embedding signing, wiring it to a CRM, the plan that looked affordable turns out not to include that.
You get pushed onto a separate, pricier tier just to unlock the API. The sticker price on the plan is not what you actually pay, and the gap between the two is the whole point of this audit.
The method behind the numbers
We pulled the current 2026 pricing for the three platforms most people compare, DocuSign, Adobe Acrobat Sign, and Dropbox Sign, and modeled what it costs to get the same capability from each one, not just the cheapest plan on the page. Then we put a calculator at the top so you can run your own numbers instead of taking our word for it.
Calculate what you actually pay
How the calculator works
How competitor pricing is calculated
Competitor estimates take the business per-seat annual price times seats across twelve months, and where a plan caps envelopes the competitor's overage rate applies once you pass its allowance.
How the Firma.dev price is calculated
The Firma.dev figure is different because there are no seats and no minimum to factor in. It is simply your monthly volume times EUR 0.049 (about 5 cents USD) per envelope, times twelve. Nothing else gets added, so the number you see is the number you pay.
The 2026 e-signature pricing audit
Here's how the four platforms compare on entry price, per-user cost, send limits, overage fees, and hidden add-ons. Competitor figures are USD list prices as of July 2026 and worth re-checking before you commit. The calculator above shows the same comparison in EUR at a direct conversion.
Platform
Entry plan
Envelope limit
Overage
API / automation
Notable add-on fees
DocuSign
Standard: $25/user/mo (annual), $45/user/mo (monthly); Business Pro: $40/user/mo (annual), $65/user/mo (monthly)
Up to 100 envelopes/user/yr
Commonly $3 to $8 per extra envelope
Sold as a separate plan; a Business Pro seat does not include API access
SMS from ~$0.40/send; ID verification from ~$2.50/attempt
Adobe Acrobat Sign
Teams: $16.99 / $23.99 / $29.99 per user/mo (two-license minimum)
Capped at 150 transactions/user/yr
Enterprise/API is quote-only, unpublished
Enterprise/API tier required; some reports peg the effective per-transaction cost at $10+ (API-tier figure, not a base-plan number)
SMS and identity verification are paid add-ons
Dropbox Sign
Standard: $25/user/mo (two-user minimum)
Unlimited requests on app plans
N/A on app plans
Separate billing track; embedded signing requires API Standard at $300/mo ($3,600/yr) before any production document
API Standard fee applies before first document sent
Firma.dev
No per-seat fee, no minimum
Pay-as-you-go
None
Same per-envelope rate covers API and automation, no separate track
None disclosed; legally valid in 55+ countries
DocuSign
DocuSign's core plans
DocuSign Standard is $25/user/month annually ($45 monthly) and Business Pro is $40/user/month annually ($65 monthly), both with an allowance of up to 100 envelopes per user per year.
Overage and add-on costs
Go over that allowance and each extra envelope is billed pay-as-you-go, commonly in the $3 to $8 range depending on your plan and whether you pre-paid. SMS delivery starts around $0.40 per send and ID verification around $2.50 per attempt.
The API catch
One detail that catches developers out: API access is a separate plan from the subscription, so a Business Pro seat does not let you make API calls.
Adobe Acrobat Sign
Individual vs. team plans
Adobe's business plans run as Teams tiers at $16.99, $23.99, and $29.99 per user per month, with a two-license minimum.
Add-on costs
SMS and identity verification are paid add-ons on top.
Dropbox Sign
Dropbox Sign's plan tiers
Dropbox Sign has a free plan with 3 signature requests a month. Essentials is $15/month for one user with unlimited requests, and Standard is $25/user/month with a two-user minimum. Premium is custom-quoted.
The embedded signing catch
The catch for anyone building a product is that the API is a completely separate billing track from the app, and embedded signing, the thing you actually want if you are putting signing inside your own software, requires the API Standard plan at $300/month, which is $3,600 a year before you send a single production document.
Firma.dev
Simple, per-envelope pricing
Firma.dev is EUR 0.049 (about 5 cents USD) per envelope. There are no per-seat fees, no monthly minimums, and no upfront cost. You pay for what you send and nothing else, and e-signatures are legally valid in 55+ countries.
One rate for API use too
If you are building signing into a product, the same per-envelope rate covers API use. There is no separate, pricier API track to buy into.
The API tier is where the real bill lives
A base or business seat plan does not include API or embedded signing.
The moment an internal team wants to automate (send from their own system, embed signing, wire it to a CRM), they are pushed onto a separate, pricier track: DocuSign's separate API plan, Dropbox Sign's $300/mo embedded tier, Adobe's quote-only enterprise where reports suggest $10+ per envelope.
Real pricing examples
Three profiles, with annual cost on a typical per-seat plan next to Firma.dev pay-as-you-go. The competitor figures use list prices from the audit above so you can check the math.
A 3-person business signing ~10 documents a month.
DocuSign Standard, three seats, $900/yr. 120 envelopes sits inside the allowance, so the seats are the entire cost for volume two people could send. Firma.dev: 120 envelopes at €0.049 ≈ €5.88 (~$6).
A 10-person ops team signing ~40 a month, with a spiky quarter that hits ~120 in one month.
DocuSign Standard, ten seats, $3,000/yr, and the busy month pushes past the pooled allowance so overages at $3–$8 each pile on top. Firma.dev: 480 envelopes at €0.049 ≈ €23.52 (~$27), no overage, no seat math. This is the example that must show the overage firing.
A team that wants to automate sending from their own system.
On the competitors, that means leaving the seat plan for a separate API tier: DocuSign's separate API plan, or Dropbox Sign's $300/mo ($3,600/yr) embedded tier, or Adobe's quote-only track reportedly $10+ per envelope. On Firma.dev, automation is the same €0.049 per envelope with nothing extra to buy.
Up to 100 envelopes/user/yr