Paperwork is now more of an abstract concept than something that requires a printer, a few sheets of paper, and a pen. You don't have to physically sign a contract for it to be legally binding, but there are still a few hoops you have to jump through to make sure your electronic signature will count in court. Using a dedicated eSignature app to sign documents online is the best way to go if you want your digital signature to stand up to all the legal scrutiny a conniving ex-business partner can throw your way.
Automate your digital signature workflowsAs a freelance tech writer, I've had to sign dozens of contracts, statements of work, W8-BEN-E forms, and other legal documents over the last decade just to do my job. I'm based in Ireland, and I can only imagine what shipping original documents back and forth to the US in a timely manner would cost. So, as you can imagine, I've had to use a lot of eSign apps.
Whether you're looking for a way to electronically sign a document that you've just received or want to send documents out to be digitally signed by contractors and other business partners, I have recommendations for the right apps to use. I considered and tested almost 40 electronic signature apps, and these are the six best—for everyone on both sides of the paperwork. (Seriously, if you hire freelance writers, please use a good app. Please.)
As with all things legal, definitions matter. When talking about online document signing, electronic signatures and digital signatures are slightly different things.
An electronic signature is just your typed, drawn, or otherwise computer-added signature on a document. You can make one with almost any app, from Microsoft Word to Adobe Photoshop. It's still legally binding, but because anyone could easily forge it, you might have a harder time enforcing its validity in a contentious court case. If the other lawyers can convincingly argue that your erstwhile business partner left their iPad on their coffee table and a small child decided to draw a squiggle on the open document and hit send without realizing, then you might be out a lot of money.
A digital signature is a special kind of electronic signature that uses cryptography to protect the document and also embeds details like email addresses, when and where people signed any documents, and the serial number and identifying details of the device they use to do it. This creates both a "fingerprint" that makes the document unique and a paper trail that can be independently verified. If there ever was a court case, it would be a lot harder for anyone to claim they weren't the one to actually sign the document—the kid hardly squiggled in their email address. For official purposes, digital signatures are a lot more secure and legally recognized around the world—and you need a dedicated eSign app to add them.
We use the terms interchangeably—in common usage, they basically are—but it's worth keeping that distinction in mind as you do your research.
While you can digitally sign a document with dozens of different tools, the apps on this list are all dedicated eSign apps that make it super easy to do. If you've been sent a document you need to sign electronically, start with one of these apps, or scroll to the end to see some other options.
Our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. Unless explicitly stated, we spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it's intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We're never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.
The problem with business app categories like this is that often the people paying for the app (or deciding which one to get) aren't the ones who have to use it every day. And while there are lots of eSignature apps out there that will get the job done, a lot of them are awful to use.
To make this list, the document signing software had to be nice to use but also provide all the features that small and medium businesses need. For me, a great eSignature app has to meet a few criteria:
I started out with a list of almost 40 eSignature apps. That was too many to meaningfully test, so I cut it down by checking out their websites and excluding any that obviously didn't meet the criteria, were clearly aimed at enterprise clients, had generally poor user reviews, or otherwise didn't look like a good fit. It's worth noting that I don't think any of the apps that didn't make the list aren't capable of signing documents—it's just that they aren't as nice to use, cost more, or otherwise didn't warrant a place on a best apps list. If you use one of them and are happy with it, that's great, but if you're looking for an app to start using, try the ones on this list first.
For the remaining apps (which I've now tested four times over the past few years), I created an account, uploaded a Super Important Contract as a Word file and a PDF, and sent it to a second email address. I then signed the contract both as the sender and the recipient, which gave me a good sense of the overall workflow. Most apps that didn't make the list were cut at this stage, as the process for either the sender or the recipient wasn't up to my standards. The document still ended up signed—I just didn't do it with a smile on my face.
For those apps that passed, I spent more time exploring the interface, trying any headline features they claimed to have, and making sure they met the rest of the criteria. Based on all that, here are the six best eSign apps.
Best for
Standout feature
Pricing
