Approvals are the part most tools bolt on
Most signing starts with a sign-off: Finance checks the purchase order, Legal reads the contract, a manager agrees to the policy. In many e-signature tools that part happens in email threads before the document is sent, or it needs a higher plan.
In Refrendo it is the same request. Add an approval step for Finance, a signing step for the supplier and a countersignature for your Director. Each person is emailed only when it is their turn. Approvers can approve, reject or ask for changes; if they ask for changes, you revise the document (or resend it as it is) and the request starts again on the new version. Anything approved on the old version stays on the record against the old version and does not carry over.
Pricing based on who sends
Refrendo plans are set by the number of named senders and a monthly allowance of requests shared by the whole team. Approvers and signers are never charged, whether they are colleagues or outsiders. A company with one person sending contracts pays for one sender, however many people sign.
When you reach your allowance, nothing already sent is affected. Everyone can still approve and sign. New requests wait for the next period unless you add a pack of extra requests or change plan. There are no surprise overage charges. Work out what your workload would cost.
Evidence you can hand to a lawyer
Every request keeps SHA-256 fingerprints of the original and the signed PDF, an audit trail where each event is chained to the one before (so an edit after the fact is detectable), and a completion certificate listing who approved and signed, when and how they were identified. The exact consent wording each person saw is kept in the audit trail.
What you give up
DocuSign is a large platform with features Refrendo does not have: certificate-based digital signatures, SAML, ID-document verification and hundreds of pre-built integrations. If your organisation depends on those, stay where you are, or ask us what is planned.
Details about other products are from their public websites as of September 2026 and may have changed. DocuSign and Adobe Acrobat Sign are trademarks of their owners; Refrendo is not affiliated with them.