Where paper signing quietly costs you money
Few businesses have a budget line called “signatures”. The cost of paper signing is spread across a dozen other lines — stationery, equipment leases, postage, couriers, storage, and above all staff time — which is exactly why it’s easy to underestimate. A single contract might be printed, signed, scanned, emailed, printed again by the other side, posted back and filed. Each step looks free. None of them is.
| Cost category | What drives it with paper | What changes with SignPe |
|---|---|---|
| Paper | Every page of every copy, plus reprints after a change | Documents are uploaded and signed on screen |
| Toner and ink | Printing drafts, final copies and signed copies | Nothing to print at any stage |
| Printers and scanners | Purchase or lease, servicing, repairs and replacement parts | A phone’s camera can scan the occasional paper original |
| Postage | Sending originals out and having them returned | Signers receive an email with a Review & Sign Document button |
| Couriers | Urgent or signed-for delivery when post is too slow | The link arrives in seconds, wherever the signer is |
| Scanning | Digitising the signed copy so it can be emailed or archived | The signed PDF is produced and emailed automatically |
| Filing space | Cabinets, folders and the floor space they take up | Completed documents live under the Signed filter |
| Physical storage | Archive boxes, off-site storage and retrieval requests | Documents are kept in encrypted cloud storage |
| Staff time handling | Printing, collating, posting, chasing, filing and finding | Sending, reminding and tracking take a few taps |
| Re-sends after errors | A missed initial or blank date means the whole pack goes out again | Every field is placed and assigned before sending |
The biggest saving is usually time, not paper
Paper and postage are the costs you can see on an invoice. The larger one is the hours spent handling documents: walking to the printer, finding the right version, writing cover notes, chasing signatures by phone, and searching the cabinet months later when someone asks for a copy. SignPe removes most of that handling.
- No chasing by hand. The Remind button emails every signer who hasn’t signed yet, and signers with the app also get a push and in-app notification. See signing reminders.
- No hand-offs to arrange. With Set signer order, the next signer is emailed automatically as soon as the one before them signs.
- No “did you get it?” calls. Each document shows whether it was Sent, Received, Opened, Saved, Signed or Declined, with the date and time of each step. More in document status tracking.
- No hunting for the signed copy. When the last signature is added, everyone is emailed the signed copy, and it stays in your Documents list under Signed.
- No retyping signer details. Fields such as Full Name, Email, Company and Designation are filled in by the signer, on the document itself.
Faster signatures also bring money in sooner. When a quote, order form or engagement letter is signed the same day rather than after a round trip by post, the work — and the invoice that follows it — can start the same day too.
Errors and re-sends cost more on paper
A paper agreement that comes back with a missing initial or an unsigned page has to be printed and sent again, often with a courier the second time because the deadline hasn’t moved. Each error doubles the cost of that document.
In SignPe you place every Signature, Initials, Date and Text field before the document goes out, and assign each one to the signer who should complete it, so signers are guided to exactly what they need to fill in. If you do send the wrong version, the creator can void the document: every signer is told it was cancelled, the signing link stops working, and you send a corrected request — with nothing printed and nothing posted.
Drafts are free
A document isn’t counted until it is sent or self-signed. You can build it, choose Save Draft, come back and change it as often as you like without using a document from your allowance — see save documents as drafts.
Using less paper, without the exaggeration
Signing on screen means fewer sheets printed, fewer envelopes posted and fewer courier trips made. That is a real, modest environmental benefit, and it adds up the more agreements you handle. It also means less paper waste from drafts that were printed only to be marked up and thrown away.
We won’t put a number of trees on it — the honest figure depends entirely on how many pages you used to print, how many copies each document needed and how far they travelled. If sustainability reporting matters to your organisation, the paper and postage lines in the next section are the place to start counting.
Paperless doesn’t mean giving up on paper you’ve already been handed, either. When a signed original arrives by post, the mobile app’s Scan option uses your phone’s document scanner with automatic edge detection, up to 20 pages per scan, so it can join the rest of your documents instead of a filing cabinet. See import from photos and the cloud.
How to work out your own savings
You don’t need a consultant to estimate what paper signing costs you. Take a typical month and fill in a simple table for the documents you send for signature:
| What to count | Where to find it | How to turn it into a cost |
|---|---|---|
| Documents sent for signature | Your sent mail, contract log or sales records | The number every other row multiplies against |
| Pages printed per document | A typical contract, counting every copy | Pages × your cost per page for paper and toner |
| Documents posted or couriered | Postage and courier invoices | Total spend for the month |
| Pages scanned back in | Signed copies you digitised | Time per scan × staff hourly cost |
| Time spent chasing signatures | Ask the people who do it | Hours × staff hourly cost |
| Documents sent a second time | Re-sends after missing signatures or wrong versions | Repeat the costs above for each one |
| Storage | Cabinets, archive boxes, off-site storage invoices | Monthly share of the space or service |
Add the rows up and multiply by twelve for an annual figure. Then compare it with what you would pay to sign the same documents electronically — see current prices. The guide to the operational cost of paperwork goes deeper into which workflows to digitise first.
Count staff time honestly
Time is the row people leave out, and usually the largest. Even a few minutes of printing, posting and chasing per document becomes noticeable across a year of agreements.
Start free and test it on real agreements
The simplest way to check the savings is to try it on documents you actually need signed. The free plan gives you 3 documents, one-time rather than monthly, with no credit card needed to start.
- Real documents, not samples. Each free document has unlimited pages and unlimited signers.
- Only what you send counts. A document is counted when it is sent or self-signed; drafts don’t use one.
- Signing other people’s documents is free. When someone sends you a document to sign, it costs you nothing.
- Your signers pay nothing either. Recipients without an account sign in their browser as guests, with no download.
- One file is one document. However many pages or signers it has.
Read more about the free e-signature plan, or see how SignPe works from upload to signed copy. E-signatures are recognised under the US ESIGN Act and UETA, the EU’s eIDAS regulation and India’s IT Act 2000 — the legality guide covers India in detail.
How to sign your next agreement without printing it
Upload the document
Add a PDF, Word file or image up to 20 MB, scan a paper original with your phone, or import it from Drive, OneDrive, Box or Dropbox.
Add your signers
Choose “I’m the only signer” to sign it yourself, or “Set signer order” to request signatures from others, and add any observers.
Place the fields
Drag Signature, Initials, Date and other fields onto the page and assign each one to the right signer.
Send it
Each signer is emailed a Review & Sign Document link they can open on a phone or computer — no envelope, no courier.
Keep the signed copy
When everyone has signed, the signed copy is emailed to all parties and stays under the Signed filter with its audit trail.
