Electronic signature pricing: what you really pay

There is no single price for an electronic signature, because providers charge for different things: the user, the envelope, the individual signature or a plan with a monthly quota. The figure on the pricing page matters less than the total once you switch on what you actually need. Here is how to read e-signature pricing in Europe, with examples taken from providers' own pages on 2 October 2026.

The four ways e-signature providers charge

Per user

You pay for each person who sends documents. DocuSign's Standard plan, on its Irish pricing page, costs €23 per user per month billed annually and includes 100 envelopes per user per year; Dropbox Sign's Standard plan costs €24 per user per month billed yearly, with unlimited signature requests. Predictable for a small team, but the bill grows with headcount, even for colleagues who send a document once a quarter.

Per envelope or request

The plan includes a fixed number of sends. DocuSign Personal costs €9 a month billed annually for 5 envelopes a month; Youtrust (formerly Yousign) One costs €9 a month billed yearly, excluding VAT, for 10 signature requests a month. Simple, until you hit the ceiling.

Per signature

Pay as you go. Skribble's Starter plan has no subscription and charges €1 for each simple signature, €3 for each advanced and €5 for each qualified. Cheap at low volumes, and easy to budget when you only occasionally need a higher level.

Per organisation

One price for the account, with a monthly document quota and a set number of people included. Adding a colleague does not change the bill until you need a larger plan. This is how DOCUJET charges.

What counts as an envelope or a request?

Units are not standard, so compare them before you compare prices. Youtrust, for example, defines a signature request as the whole operation of preparing and sending one or more documents to one or more signers at once, with up to 100 signers. DocuSign counts envelopes, per user per year on its team plans. Skribble counts individual signatures. DOCUJET counts documents per month and sets a maximum number of signers per document on each plan.

The add-ons that change the bill

The headline price usually covers the simple electronic signature. The items that make a signature stronger as evidence are often extra:

• Advanced and qualified signatures. On DocuSign's self-service plans the qualified signature is a paid add-on at €10 per recipient and the advanced one is "contact sales". Youtrust offers both only on its Plus and Pro plans, not on Free or One: the qualified signature from €10 each, the advanced one as an add-on with yearly billing only. Skribble's Team and Pro plans include 72 or 120 advanced or qualified signatures per user per year, then charge per signature.
• SMS verification. DocuSign Standard includes 5 SMS deliveries as a one-time bonus; Youtrust lists SMS authentication from its Plus plan.
• Identity verification. DocuSign Standard includes 5 identity verifications as a one-off bonus. Beyond the bonus, ask for the unit price.
• Qualified seal and time stamp. Check whether the signed document receives them and at what cost. Under eIDAS they carry presumptions of integrity and of the accuracy of the date and time.
• Long-term archiving. Often sold as a separate service.

Monthly or annual billing

Every provider in this guide charges less with annual billing. DocuSign advertises savings of up to 44% on annual plans, Youtrust two months free, Skribble three months free; Dropbox Sign Essentials costs €13.33 a month billed yearly against €17.50 billed monthly. The trade-off is commitment: with annual billing you usually pay the year upfront. Also check whether prices include VAT: Youtrust, Skribble and DOCUJET, for example, show them without it.

How to calculate the real cost

• Count your documents per month, and the signers on each.
• Count your senders. Per-user plans charge for each of them.
• Sort documents by signature level. Most need no particular form; some may need an advanced or qualified signature, as our guide to eIDAS signature levels explains.
• Add the extras you will really switch on, at their real unit prices.
• Annualise everything and compare totals, not headline prices.

A quick illustration with Skribble's published prices: 20 advanced signatures a month is 240 a year. On the pay-per-use Starter plan that is 240 × €3 = €720 a year. On Team, one user's €276 a year includes 72 of them, and the other 168 cost €2.50 each, €420, for a total of €696. Almost the same bill, reached in two different ways. Double the volume and the gap opens: €1,440 pay-per-use, €1,296 on Team, €1,152 on Pro (€432 a year with 120 included, then €2 each). The model, not the headline price, decides what you pay.

Questions to ask before you buy

• Which signature levels are included, and what does each extra one cost?
• Is the price per user, and who counts as a user?
• What happens when you exceed the quota?
• Are SMS codes and identity checks included?
• Does the signed document receive a qualified seal and a qualified time stamp?
• Can you export your documents and their evidence if you leave?

How DOCUJET prices

DOCUJET charges per organisation, not per user. Prices below are per month with annual billing, excluding VAT; with monthly billing they are higher.

• Personal: free, 3 documents a month, simple electronic signature with a record of who signed, when and from where.
• Starter: €10 (€12 billed monthly), 5 documents a month; one-time codes by SMS, qualified electronic seal and qualified time stamp.
• Pro: €25, 15 documents a month, everything in Starter.
• Business: €50, 35 documents a month, up to 2 people; advanced electronic signature (AES) with identity verification, API and webhooks.
• Scale: €82, 100 documents a month, up to 5 people; bulk sending, and compliant long-term preservation under Italian rules (conservazione a norma) as an add-on.
• Enterprise: volumes and price on request.

On the paid plans, the qualified seal and time stamp come from Namirial, a qualified trust service provider; the seal protects the document, it is not the signer's signature. DOCUJET does not offer qualified electronic signatures. The pricing page has full details, and if you are comparing providers, our guide to DocuSign alternatives in Europe sets out the criteria.

Competitor prices and features checked on 2 October 2026 on the providers' own pages, as shown for Ireland or the EU; they change, so check them again before you decide. Sources: DocuSign; Youtrust; Skribble; Dropbox Sign; Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 (eIDAS), Articles 35 and 41.

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