Is DocuSign free? What it actually costs in 2026
DocuSign has no free plan. Personal is $11 a month for 5 envelopes a month; Standard is $30 per user a month for 100 envelopes a year.
The eSignature pricing page lists paid plans only and does not mention a free plan or a trial.
What the free tier actually includes
- No free plan on the pricing page
- Personal: 5 envelopes a month
- Standard and Business Pro: 100 envelopes per user per year
Where the wall is
Envelope six. Personal is priced for the occasional signer; anyone sending a contract a week is on Standard, and Standard's 100 a year runs out at two a week.
After that: Personal $11 a month ($132 a year, billed monthly); Standard $30 per user a month ($360 a year); Business Pro $45 per user a month ($540 a year).
Can you self-host DocuSign? No — cloud only
DocuSign is hosted only. DocuSeal is the self-hosted e-signature tool compared here and has no envelope cap.
What it actually takes to run one yourself
Real RAM against the documented minimum, monthly cost, setup time, and the one thing that catches people out.
When paying is still the right call
Stay if signature volume is genuinely high and the process is complex — sequential routing, conditional recipients, notarisation and payment collection are areas where DocuSign is clearly ahead. Stay if your counterparties expect it: sending a DocuSign envelope to an enterprise legal department raises no questions, and an unfamiliar tool sometimes does. Stay for the compliance envelope — 21 CFR Part 11, eIDAS qualified signatures and the audit record enterprise counsel already accepts. And stay if the legal risk of getting this wrong exceeds the licence cost, which for many contracts it does.
What you are locked into
Low on documents, higher on process. Signed documents download as PDFs with their audit certificates and remain valid — the signature's legal weight does not depend on DocuSign continuing to exist, which is worth knowing. What binds you is the surrounding workflow: templates, routing rules, CRM integrations and any API calls embedded in your product. Teams sending documents by hand leave easily; teams that wired signing into Salesforce or their own application are migrating an integration.
If you would rather not pay: Documenso
Documenso
Open-source signing with real cryptographic signatures and no envelope cap.
Free and open source to self-host, with no envelope limits. Documenso Cloud is paid.
See all 5 DocuSign alternatives comparedCompare the free options head-to-head
Read from DocuSign's own pricing and documentation on 2026-09-24 — 40 days ago. Vendors change prices without notice; confirm before you commit.