Adobe Acrobat Sign alternative
Refrendo vs Adobe Acrobat Sign
Adobe Acrobat Sign sits inside Adobe's PDF products, and makes most sense if you edit PDFs regularly. Refrendo does one job, getting documents signed, with approvals when you need them, and charges one price for the workspace.
Side by side
| Refrendo | Adobe Acrobat Sign | |
|---|---|---|
| How you pay | One price for the workspace, month to month, with senders included. Cancel from your billing page any time. | Per user. Team plans are sold on an annual subscription. |
| Sending allowance | A monthly pool the whole team shares, so an occasional sender doesn’t need an allowance of their own. When it runs out, new requests wait for the next month, or you add a pack. There are no overage charges. | User licences include 150 transactions per user per year, and the allowance sits with the individual rather than the team. Adobe does not publish an overage rate. |
| Approvers and signers | Never pay, and never need an account. How many people can be on one request is set by your plan. | Recipients sign free without an account. |
| Approval steps | Approve, reject or ask for changes, on every plan including the free one. | Approval roles and workflow options vary by plan. |
| Routing | In order on every plan. Everyone at once or any one of them on Team and above, and a quorum such as any two of three directors on Business and above. Steps that apply only when the sender’s details call for them on Business and above. | Sequential, parallel and hybrid routing. |
| After a change | Revise and resend, and approvals given on the old version never carry over to the new one. Every version keeps its own fingerprint. | Documents can be corrected and resent; check how that affects approvals already given. |
| Evidence | Completion certificate, SHA-256 fingerprints of the original and the final PDF, and an audit trail where each record is hash-chained to the one before. | Audit report for each agreement. |
| PDF editing | Not offered. Refrendo starts from the PDF you already have, whether it came from Word, Google Docs, Canva or your accounting system. | Full PDF creation and editing, which is what Acrobat is for. |
| Community groups | Volunteer-run not-for-profits under $500,000 a year can apply for free access, whether or not they are a registered charity. | Nonprofit pricing requires recognised charitable status in your country, and excludes some organisations. |
| Integrations | REST API and webhooks on Business and above. | The Adobe ecosystem and many third-party integrations. |
Adobe Acrobat Sign details are from its public website as of September 2026 and may have changed, so check their current plans. Adobe Acrobat Sign is a trademark of its owner; Refrendo is not affiliated with it.
Where Refrendo is strong
These are the areas where Refrendo is designed differently from Adobe Acrobat Sign.
No licence per sender
You pay one price for the workspace, not a PDF suite for each person who sends. Everyone who sends shares its allowance.
The allowance is the team’s
One monthly pool, shared. Nobody’s unused allowance is stranded on their own licence, and a quiet month for one person covers a busy month for another.
Approvals on every plan
Approve, reject and ask-for-changes are on every plan, including free. The sign-off is a step in the same request, not a separate tool.
Approvals belong to the version approved
When a document changes, approvals given on the earlier version do not carry over, and every approver reviews the new one.
Evidence built for later
A certificate naming everyone, SHA-256 fingerprints of the original and the final PDF, and a hash-chained trail where a later edit is detectable.
Australian, in Australian dollars
Built here, billed in AUD and written in Australian English. No currency conversion on the statement.
Questions
Do I still need Acrobat to create PDFs?
You need some way to make the PDF, and almost everything makes one: Word, Google Docs, Pages, Canva, your accounting system. Refrendo takes over from there. If you also edit PDFs regularly, keep Acrobat for that.
What happens when we run out of requests?
Everything already sent carries on and nobody is blocked from signing. New requests wait for the next month, unless you buy a pack of extra requests or move up a plan. There is never a surprise overage charge.
Can signers use Refrendo on their phone?
Yes. The signing page works in any modern browser on a phone, tablet or computer, and signers can type, draw or upload a signature.
Does Refrendo do certificate-based digital signatures?
No. Refrendo offers electronic signatures, which Australian law recognises for most business documents.
Try Refrendo alongside Adobe Acrobat Sign
Run your next few requests through Refrendo while your current subscription runs out. No card needed to start.