You have ten creators lined up for a seeding campaign, one usage agreement drafted, and a free e-signature account you signed up for in ninety seconds. The question that decides this is almost never answered on the landing page: when you send that one agreement to ten people, does the vendor count it as one document or as ten?
Why a ten-creator campaign is where the free tier breaks
Most free e-signature tiers were sized around a different shape of work. The assumed user is a freelancer sending a statement of work to one client. A handful of documents a month covers that, and the limit never bites. A creator seeding campaign inverts the pattern. The document is identical every time. What multiplies is the number of separate people who each need their own copy, their own signature, and their own countersigned record for the day someone asks whether you had rights to run that clip as an ad. Ten creators is a small campaign, and already three times the monthly allowance on some free plans.
There are two broad ways to meter this. Some vendors count the document, or what others call the envelope: one prepared file, sent once, potentially carrying several signers inside it. Under that model an agreement countersigned by you and a creator is one unit, not two. Others count the send itself, one per recipient, whether they label it a signature request, a request email, or a signed document received. Then ten creators is ten units. A free tier of five is generous under the first reading and nearly useless under the second, and the plan card rarely says which you are getting.
What counts as a document, by vendor
Every figure below comes from the vendor’s own pricing page, fetched 3 September 2026. Where a page does not answer a question, that is recorded rather than filled in.
| Vendor | Free or entry tier, as published | Unit metered | Multi recipient treatment |
|---|---|---|---|
| SignWell | Free at $0: 1 sender, 1 template, 3 documents a month. Light at $10 per month billed yearly, $12 monthly: 5 templates per sender, unlimited documents. | Documents per month on Free. | One document, sometimes called an envelope, can contain multiple files, signers and signing steps. The FAQ answers “Do you charge per envelope or per document?” with no, and paid plans include unlimited signing requests. |
| eversign, now published as Xodo Sign | eversign.com/pricing resolves to the Xodo Sign page. Free: up to 5 documents per month, stated as 1 every 7 days. Basic: $20 per user per month, $10 billed yearly, unlimited documents, 3 templates. Professional: $32 per user per month, $16 billed yearly, unlimited templates, 10 bulk sending credits. | Documents per month on Free, with a pacing rule. Seats on paid plans. | Seats are user accounts that send and manage documents. External recipients and signers need no seat and sign at no additional cost. Bulk sending is metered separately, as credits. |
| DocuSeal | Basic at $0 per user per month: 10 request emails per month. Pro at $20 per user per month: unlimited signature requests. | Signature request emails, 10 per month on Basic. | The clearest per recipient model of the six: each creator you email consumes one request. Templates and folders are unlimited on both tiers. Bulk send from a spreadsheet is a Pro feature, absent from Basic. |
| signNow | [EVIDENCE NEEDED: signnow.com/pricing returned HTTP 200 but served a client rendered shell titled “Payment | signNow” with no plan text.] | [EVIDENCE NEEDED] | [EVIDENCE NEEDED: a signNow page stating in server rendered text what a plan’s allowance counts] |
| Jotform Sign | Starter, the free plan, at $0: 10 signed documents per month. Bronze at $39 per month: 100 signed documents per month. | Signed documents received per month. | The glossary defines the limit as the total number of e-signature documents you receive on your account every month. Receive, not send, so an agreement a creator never returns is a different accounting event from one that comes back. |
| Signaturely | The FAQ states the free account lets you send 1 document for free every month, and request 1 document for e-signature per account. Personal at $25 per month: 5 signature requests, 1 template. Business at $50 per month per user: unlimited requests and templates. | Signature requests per month. | The unit is signature requests rather than documents, and the page does not define whether one request can carry several recipients. [EVIDENCE NEEDED: a Signaturely page stating whether a multi recipient send consumes one request or one per recipient] |
The bulk-send trap: one agreement, many creators
Bulk send, sometimes called mail merge, turns one saved template into a batch of individually addressed agreements. It is where the counting question gets decided, the only workflow in which one action by you produces many separate signable copies. The vendors that document it treat it as its own metered thing. Xodo Sign sells bulk sending as credits and includes ten on Professional, a strong hint that a run is priced by recipient rather than by the template it came from. DocuSeal lists bulk send from a spreadsheet as a Pro feature, sending signature requests in bulk from an XLSX or CSV file, with the plural doing quiet work. SignWell describes template links, where each person who clicks gets their own separate copy to sign, without stating whether those copies draw down the three document free allowance. [EVIDENCE NEEDED: first party SignWell documentation stating whether template link or bulk send copies each count against the monthly document limit]
The second trap is that templates and sends are two separate meters. SignWell’s free tier gives one template and three documents a month. Xodo Sign Basic does the reverse: unlimited documents against three templates, roomy for volume and tight if you run several agreement variants. DocuSeal inverts it again, unlimited templates with the whole constraint on ten request emails. Both numbers matter, and they constrain different halves of the same workflow.
Questions to ask before picking a tool for a creator program
- Does the entry plan count a multi recipient send as one document or one per recipient? Find the vendor’s own definition of its unit. If a vendor names the unit “signature requests” and never defines it, treat ten creators as ten units until proven otherwise.
- Is there a separate cap on saved templates? Count the agreement variants you need. A photography usage agreement, a video usage agreement and a paid ad whitelisting addendum are three templates, exactly the cap on Xodo Sign Basic.
- What happens at the cap? Xodo Sign’s FAQ states that if you reach the free plan limit you can upgrade to keep sending documents that month, which describes a block rather than overage billing. [EVIDENCE NEEDED: first party statements from SignWell, DocuSeal, Jotform Sign and Signaturely on whether hitting the limit blocks the send or triggers a charge]
- Do unused allowances roll over? None of the five readable pricing pages state a policy either way. [EVIDENCE NEEDED: rollover language on any of these vendors’ own pricing or billing pages]
What this does not cover
This piece is about metering. It says nothing about whether any creator usage agreement you send through these tools is legally sufficient or enforceable, which is a question for a lawyer working from your actual campaign terms. It is also not a ranking. Six vendors are listed because six pricing pages resolved, not because they are the six best. No vendor here is recommended over another.
Before you send the first agreement
Open the pricing page of the tool you are leaning toward, find the sentence that defines its unit, and multiply by your creator count. If no sentence defines it, that absence is information too.
FAQ
Does sending the same agreement to ten creators count as one document or ten on a free e-signature plan?
It depends entirely on the vendor, and it is the single most important thing to check first. DocuSeal meters signature request emails, so ten creators is ten against a Basic allowance of ten per month. Jotform Sign meters signed documents received, ten on the free Starter plan. Signaturely meters signature requests, five per month on Personal, without defining whether one request can carry multiple recipients. SignWell states a single document can contain multiple files, signers and signing steps, a per document model rather than a per signer one. Xodo Sign gives five documents per month on Free, paced at one every seven days.
Is a template limit the same as a document limit?
No, and they are frequently capped separately. A template is the saved, reusable version of your agreement with the fields already placed. Documents or signature requests are the individual sends made from it. SignWell’s free tier allows one template and three documents a month. Xodo Sign Basic allows unlimited documents but three templates. DocuSeal lists templates as unlimited while capping request emails. Check both numbers against your own workflow.
Sources
- SignWell pricing, fetched 3 September 2026.
- eversign pricing, resolving to the Xodo Sign page, fetched 3 September 2026.
- DocuSeal pricing, fetched 3 September 2026.
- Jotform Sign pricing, fetched 3 September 2026.
- Signaturely pricing, fetched 3 September 2026.
Prices and plan limits verified 3 September 2026 against each vendor’s own pricing page. signnow.com/pricing returned HTTP 200 on the same date but served no readable plan text, so no signNow figure is stated above. This is not Watchdog data and it is not on the re-verification schedule. followedapp is published by the team behind RecurPost.