Pixasign vs DocuSign
DocuSign is a good product with a feature set we do not come close to matching. It is also priced per person, which is the wrong shape for a small UK firm where several people send paperwork. That is the whole comparison, and the rest of this page is the detail behind it.
Comparison pages written by the challenger are usually worthless, because the incumbent gets drawn as a bumbling overpriced dinosaur and the reader can tell. So: everything below about DocuSign was read on DocuSign’s own pages on 15 September 2026, and where we could not verify something we left it out rather than guessed.
The short version
Buy DocuSign if you need the depth — the integration catalogue, bulk sending, payment during signing, document generation inside Salesforce, or identity checks beyond an email link. Those are real capabilities, listed on DocuSign’s own plan comparison, and we do not have them.
Buy Pixasign if the people who send paperwork outnumber the people you would ever buy a seat for, if you would rather the advertised price were the price, and if what you want is evidence that holds up afterwards rather than workflow automation.
What DocuSign is genuinely better at
From DocuSign’s UK plans page, read 15 September 2026: it describes “1,000+ integrations”, names workplace integrations including Slack, Teams, Zoom and Stripe, puts bulk send and collecting payment during the signing process on Business Pro, and puts Salesforce document generation and stronger signer authentication — SMS and phone authentication, knowledge-based checks and ID verification — on its Enhanced tier.
Pixasign has none of those. We send a document to an email address, the recipient signs it on a phone, and we seal the result. That is the entire product.
There is also the part that appears on no feature list. DocuSign is the name your client’s solicitor has heard of, and if a procurement team keeps an approved supplier list, DocuSign is on it and we are not. We are small and new, and that costs a buyer something.
Where Pixasign is the better fit
DocuSign’s UK page prices Standard at £20 a month per user and Business Pro at £33 a month per user, both at the annually billed rate, and describes the allowance on both as “Send a total of 100 envelopes per user per year for signature”. Personal is £8 a month for one user and 5 envelopes a month.
So picture a firm with five people who send paperwork: a director, two project managers, an office manager and whoever covers holiday. On Standard that is five seats, committed annually. Pixasign’s Team plan is £59 a month, flat, for as many senders as you like, and £59 is what you pay, because our prices include VAT. The DocuSign figures carry no VAT statement on the page either way, so treat that comparison as before whatever tax is applied at checkout.
The units differ, and it matters: an envelope can hold several files to several signers as one unit, while we count documents sent per month. Do the arithmetic against your own month rather than ours.
Side by side
| Pixasign | DocuSign | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing shape | Flat monthly fee, unlimited senders, priced on documents per month | Per user per month on both business plans, with an envelope allowance |
| VAT | Included. £29, £59 and £99 are what you pay | The UK plans page states no VAT treatment either way |
| Commitment | Monthly | Per-user headline prices are the annually billed rate |
| Integrations | None to speak of | Page describes “1,000+ integrations” |
| Bulk send | No | Listed on Business Pro |
| Payment at signing | No | Listed on Business Pro |
| Signer identity checks | Email link only, with IP, approximate location and device recorded | SMS and phone authentication, knowledge-based checks and ID verification listed on Enhanced |
| Adobe Reader shows a green tick | No. It shows a warning, because our signing certificate is our own | Ask them, and ask any provider you shortlist, whether the certificate chains to Adobe’s Approved Trust List |
| Signature standard | PAdES B-T (ETSI EN 319 142), RSA-3072 with SHA-256 | Not something we are going to characterise for them |
| Independent timestamp | RFC 3161, issued by DigiCert, on every signature, on every plan | Ask them what is included on the plan you are buying |
| Public verifier, no account | Yes, at /check | Ask them |
| Signer needs an account or app | No. A link in an email, live for 14 days | No, as a rule |
| Where it runs | Hetzner Nuremberg, backups Reykjavík. Nothing in the United States | DocuSign, Inc. gives its address as 221 Main Street, San Francisco |
| Track record | Small and new | Two decades and the name everyone knows |
The row we lose that people actually notice
Open a Pixasign-sealed PDF in Adobe Reader and you get a warning rather than a green tick. We would rather you heard that here than from a client.
The reason is narrow, and often misread as the signature being broken. Our signing certificate is issued by our own certificate authority, which is not in Adobe’s Approved Trust List. Adobe is not saying the signature is bad; it is saying it has not been told to trust the issuer. The cryptography underneath is a standard PAdES B-T signature and it verifies normally.
If a green tick in Adobe Reader is a hard requirement — and for some clients and regulated processes it genuinely is — we are not the right fit. Ask every provider you shortlist the same question: does your signing certificate chain to the Adobe Approved Trust List? It is a yes or no, and it will sort your list quickly.
What you are left holding
This is the part we would rather be judged on. Every signed document comes back with an evidence certificate: who signed, the address it went to, their IP and approximate location, the device, the timeline to the second, and SHA-256 fingerprints of the file before and after sealing. The events are hash-chained, so each locks in the one before it — alter a character of the history and every seal after it breaks.
A sealed PDF is an ordinary signed PDF, inspectable in normal PDF software, and we run a free public checker anyone can use without an account: a client, an insurer, a solicitor, someone who has never heard of us. Evidence that only works while you keep paying a supplier is not evidence you control.
Where each one runs
Pixasign is built and run by Pixacomms Ltd, registered in England and Wales no. 15861826, in Cardiff. The application runs on Hetzner in Nuremberg, backups sit in Reykjavík, and there is no US subsidiary, no US hosting and no US backup. The detail is on our security page.
DocuSign, Inc. gives its address as 221 Main Street, San Francisco, on its investor site, read 15 September 2026. Large providers generally offer regional data residency options and what applies depends on your account, so ask them rather than assume. If your data protection officer asks where the documents physically sit, that is a question for them, not for us.
Send one and compare the evidence
Seven days free, no card. Send a real document, sign it on a phone, and read the evidence certificate that comes back. Then put it next to whatever your current tool gives you.
Start free trial UK-built and UK-run. Unlimited users on every plan, VAT included.Questions
Is a Pixasign signature as legally valid as a DocuSign one?
Validity under UK law does not come from the brand of software. Electronic signatures are valid and enforceable for the vast majority of business documents, and what decides a dispute is the evidence you can produce about who signed, what they signed and when. Our documents carry a PAdES B-T signature and an independent RFC 3161 timestamp from DigiCert, plus a hash-chained evidence certificate, which is a strong answer to all three questions. A few categories of document carry special formality requirements, so for land, wills or statutory declarations take proper advice rather than any supplier’s word for it, ours included.
Why does Adobe Reader show a warning on a Pixasign document?
Because our signing certificate is issued by our own certificate authority, which is not in Adobe’s Approved Trust List. Adobe is saying it has not been told to trust the issuer, not that the signature is invalid. The signature itself is a standard PAdES B-T signature and verifies normally, and the timestamp on it comes from DigiCert rather than from us. If a green tick in Adobe Reader is a hard requirement for your clients, we are not the right fit and you should ask every provider you shortlist whether their certificate chains to that list.
Will the people I send documents to notice the difference?
Not really. They get an email, they tap a link, they read the document and sign it by typing or drawing on whatever phone they have. No account, no app, no download. The link stays live for fourteen days, which is usually the difference between getting something back and chasing it. What they will not see is a name they recognise, and with an unfamiliar client that occasionally costs you a phone call.
Are you actually cheaper than DocuSign?
It depends entirely on how many people send. For one sender, a single seat somewhere is cheap and the answer may be no. For three or more senders, a flat fee with unlimited users wins and keeps winning as you hire. Our plans are £29 a month for 50 documents, £59 for 200 and £99 for 500, VAT included. Work it out against your own month rather than against an example on a vendor’s website, ours included.
What happens to my documents if I stop paying?
Nothing is deleted. Your account becomes read-only, so you can still view and download everything already signed, and sending pauses until you pick a plan again. The sealed PDFs and certificates you have downloaded stay valid regardless, because verifying them does not depend on us being here.