Two ways to pay for signatures

Almost every e-signature tool prices one of two ways. The familiar one is per seat: you pay a monthly fee for each user who can send documents, regardless of whether they send one envelope or a hundred. The other is credit-based (or pay-per-envelope): you buy a balance of credits and spend them as you send, with no per-user fee.

Neither is better in the abstract — they fit different usage shapes. The trouble is that most teams pick the model their first vendor happened to offer and never reconsider, often overpaying for seats that barely send or, less commonly, burning through credits on volume that a flat plan would have covered. This is a plain explainer of how credit-based pricing works, the one rule about it that surprises everyone, and how to tell which model actually fits you. It pairs with the broader question of what to evaluate when choosing a platform — pricing model is one of the axes that matters most and gets examined least.

How credits work

A credit is, in the simplest terms, a unit you spend to send an envelope for signature. You hold a balance — bought as a pack — and each send draws it down. Because the cost attaches to sending rather than to having an account, the model has a few useful properties:

  • Occasional senders cost almost nothing. A colleague who sends two documents a quarter isn't a recurring seat fee; they're two credits.
  • Cost tracks actual activity. Your spend rises and falls with how much you actually send, not with headcount.
  • Adding people is cheap. You can give the whole team the ability to send without each addition raising a fixed monthly bill — useful when many people send rarely.

Note that one envelope can carry several documents and multiple signers and still be a single send. The credit is spent on the envelope as a unit, so bundling related documents into one envelope is both better for the signer and more economical.

The rule that surprises everyone: credits are consumed on send

Here is the single most important thing to understand about credit-based pricing, and the part that catches people off guard: a credit is consumed when you send an envelope, not when the signer completes it.

That means a bounced, declined, expired, or voided envelope still costs a credit. The charge is for the act of sending — the work the platform does to deliver, host, track, and stand ready to seal the document — not for a successful signature at the other end. If you void a document after sending it, or a signer declines, or the request lapses past its expiration window, the credit is already spent.

This isn't a gotcha so much as a thing to plan around. The practical implications:

  • Get the envelope right before you send. Use templates and proofread fields and recipients, because resending a corrected version is a second credit.
  • Use reminders rather than resending. Nudging a slow signer on the existing envelope costs nothing; sending a fresh one costs another credit.
  • Budget for a completion rate below 100%. If a fraction of your envelopes are typically declined or abandoned, factor that into how many credits a month of activity really takes.

Surfacing this clearly up front is the honest thing to do, and it changes how a careful team sends — toward getting it right once rather than firing off drafts.

Which model fits you

The choice comes down to the shape of your sending, not just the volume:

  • Steady, high-volume sending from a stable team tends to favor a flat per-seat (or unlimited-envelope) plan: once you're sending enough, a predictable monthly fee beats paying per send, and you stop counting credits.
  • Spiky, occasional, or widely-distributed sending favors credits: many people who each send rarely, seasonal bursts, or a long tail of light users would each be an underused seat on a per-seat plan but cost almost nothing on credits.
  • A mix is common, and some teams run a flat plan for their heavy senders and credits for the occasional ones.

The test is simple: estimate your real monthly envelope volume (including the ones that won't complete), price it both ways, and pick the cheaper for your pattern — then revisit it when your volume changes, because the right answer moves as you grow. Faster, cleaner sending also lowers the cost either way: the techniques in reducing contract turnaround time mean fewer wasted, resent envelopes.

The takeaway

Credit-based pricing charges for each envelope you send rather than for each user who can send, which makes it cheaper for occasional and widely-distributed sending and lets you add people without adding fixed cost. The rule to internalize is that a credit is spent on send, not on completion — declined, voided, and expired envelopes still cost — so it pays to get each envelope right the first time, lean on reminders instead of resends, and budget for a real-world completion rate. Match the model to the shape of your sending, price both ways against your actual volume, and revisit the choice as you grow. Start with a free trial and see how sending works.

This article is general guidance; check current plan and credit terms for the specifics that apply to your account.