TL;DR
Documenso is the open-source DocuSign alternative — 12.7k stars, AGPL-3.0 licensed, hosted from $0 to $250/month. The actual product you're paying for at the $250 Platform tier is permission to embed under a non-AGPL license, not features.
- Free forever for low-volume users (5 docs/month, no watermark, no card required)
- Teams at $40/month is the SMB sweet spot — a 20-person company at $160/mo lands well under DocuSign's equivalent
- Platform at $250/month flat is the AGPL escape hatch for embedded or white-labeled use
- Vs. DocuSign per-envelope billing, Documenso wins big at scale (e.g., $250 vs. $25,000+/mo at 50k signs)
- Self-host for internal use only — AGPL still applies if you embed Documenso into a SaaS you sell
Hey, it's Vlad, founder of Beton.
Documenso bills itself as "the open source DocuSign alternative." 12.7k stars on GitHub, AGPL-3.0 licensed, hosted product from $0 to $250/month across four tiers. The most interesting thing about it isn't the prices — it's what AGPL-3.0 does to the buying decision.
This post is a part of series on commercial open source software pricing.
What is Documenso
Open source e-signature. You upload a PDF, drag signature fields onto it, send it, recipients sign, you get a sealed PDF with an audit trail. Same loop as DocuSign, Dropbox Sign, Adobe Sign, PandaDoc — but the source is on GitHub.
- Website: documenso.com
- Pricing: documenso.com/pricing
- GitHub: github.com/documenso/documenso — 12.7k stars
- License: AGPL-3.0 (this matters — see below)
For context: DocuSign does ~$3B/year at a $15B+ market cap. Dropbox Sign and Adobe Sign carve up most of the rest. Documenso is the open source insurgent — not at scale yet, but the only credible "we run the source ourselves" option in the category. Even Google Docs has launched their own e-sign in a "make your complements free" defensive move.
The AGPL-3.0 gate
The license does most of the work the sales team would otherwise have to do.
AGPL-3.0 is the most aggressive permissive-adjacent OSS license in widespread use. It's GPL with one extra clause: if you run AGPL software over a network and let users interact with it, you must release your modified source to those users. Fork Documenso, host it, let your customers sign through your product, and you have to release whatever you built around it under AGPL too.
Self-hosting an internal company instance? Fine — your "users" are employees, and the source is already public. Embedding Documenso into a SaaS you sell to others? Not fine — your product becomes a "derivative work" the moment it links to Documenso's, and most commercial codebases cannot ship AGPL-derived code without becoming legally encumbered.
This is why the Platform plan exists at $250/month. It's not a feature tier — it's the AGPL escape hatch. White-labeling, embedded signing, unlimited API are real features, but the actual thing you're paying $250/month for is permission.
DocuSign and Dropbox Sign extract revenue through per-envelope pricing. Documenso extracts it through licensing. Same destination, different road.
Pricing structure
Hosted plans:
- Free — $0/month. 5 documents/month, up to 10 recipients per doc, no credit card. Free forever, not a trial.
- Individual — $30/month ($300/year, effectively $25/mo annual). Unlimited documents, API access for personal use, email support.
- Teams — $48/month ($480/year, effectively $40/mo annual). 5 included users + $8/mo per additional user. Unlimited documents, embedded signing, API access for automation.
- Platform — $300/month ($3,000/year, effectively $250/mo annual). Unlimited users, documents, API. Embedded signing with white-label, Slack support. This is the AGPL commercial license tier.
- Enterprise — talk to sales. Cloud or self-hosted, advanced compliance, tailored support.
Self-hosted:
- Community Edition (free, AGPL-3.0). Unlimited signatures, no envelope cap, full feature parity for internal use. The catch is you take on AGPL's obligations.
- Enterprise (self-hosted). Custom commercial license for orgs that want self-hosting and commercial-product embedding.
The Free tier is unusually generous
Most signing tools give you a "free trial" — 3 signs, then the wall. Documenso's Free is 5 documents per month, indefinitely, no credit card, no watermark, 10 recipients per doc. DocuSign's free is a 30-day trial. Dropbox Sign's free is 3 docs/month with watermarks. Adobe Sign has none.
That's enough to handle a freelancer's contract flow or an indie founder's NDAs without ever paying. Hit the cap, and the upgrade to Individual at $25 is right there. Product-led growth with the brakes off.
The pricing cliff
Individual ($25) → Teams ($40) → Platform ($250). The first jump is fine. The second is dramatic: $210/month more for "unlimited everything."
In practice, you don't pay Platform because you ran out of seats — Teams scales linearly at $8/extra user and most growing companies could ride it indefinitely. You pay $250 because you crossed a specific Rubicon: you want to embed Documenso into a product you sell.
The marketing copy calls Platform "perfect for builders." That understates it. White-label and unlimited API are window dressing on a license sale. For internal-use companies — even very large ones — Teams is the right answer through hundreds of employees.
Vs. DocuSign: the math depends on volume
DocuSign API plans start around $20/month for 10 envelopes, then scale to $0.50–$2.00 per envelope at enterprise volume. Dropbox Sign runs similar: $99/month base for 200 requests + overage. Documenso Platform is $250/month flat, unlimited.
- 500 signs/month on DocuSign at ~$1/envelope = $500/mo. Documenso = $250/mo flat.
- 5,000 signs/month at $0.50/envelope = $2,500/mo. Documenso = $250/mo flat.
- 50,000 signs/month = $25k+/mo on DocuSign. Documenso = still $250.
For any product team building signing into their own SaaS, the comparison isn't "Documenso vs. DocuSign as e-sig tools." It's "$250/month flat vs. a tax that scales with your customer adoption."
The trade-off: DocuSign's brand, audit certifications stack, and integration surface (Salesforce, Workday, every legal tool ships a connector) are real assets — especially for a SaaS selling into Fortune 500 procurement. For technical buyers with high signature volume, Documenso Platform is the rational choice anyway.
Self-hosting the AGPL way
The repo ships Docker compose and a Helm chart. The stack is PostgreSQL, Redis, the server, and SMTP — smaller than most COSS deployments. Operationally you take on TLS, backups, SMTP, security review, and AGPL obligations if you ever expose it externally.
For internal-use deployments at a single company, self-hosting is right once you're past Teams' break-even or have hard data-residency requirements. For embedding into a commercial product, self-hosting is not a way around Platform — AGPL still applies, and most proprietary codebases can't accept that.
Worth paying for?
Free is genuinely usable for low-volume individuals. 5 docs/month with no watermark is more than most people's actual contract flow.
Individual at $25/month is a clean upgrade if you hit Free's cap and sign more than 5 things a month.
Teams at $40/month is the SMB sweet spot. A 20-person company at $160/mo lands well under DocuSign's equivalent.
Platform at $250/month is the right answer if and only if you're embedding Documenso into a product. The features are valuable; the AGPL escape hatch is the actual line item. If you're not embedding, you're overpaying.
Self-host if you have ops capacity and you only need internal use. Don't self-host as a way to dodge Platform if you intend to embed — AGPL doesn't permit that.
The honest take: Documenso's pricing is built around one strategic bet — that DocuSign's per-envelope billing is the category's biggest weakness for technical buyers, and that AGPL is a clean enough fence to monetize the people who want to escape it. For internal-use customers, Teams is the obvious win. For builders, Platform's $250/month against unlimited envelopes is one of the better deals in dev tools — as long as you understand the actual product you're buying is a license, not a feature set.
How Documenso pricing scales
Documenso's tiers climb gently until the $250 Platform plan — which you pay not for features but for permission to embed under a non-AGPL license.
Documenso pricing by tier. Platform is the AGPL escape hatch, not a feature jump.
I build Beton — open source revenue intelligence for B2B SaaS.
FAQ
Is Documenso open source?
Yes, AGPL-3.0. The full product — UI, API, document workflow, audit trail — ships under AGPL on GitHub. Self-hosting is supported via Docker compose and a Helm chart.
What's the cheapest paid Documenso plan?
$25/month effective on Individual ($300/year prepay), or $40/month effective on Teams ($480/year, 5 users included plus $8/user beyond).
Does AGPL allow embedding Documenso into a commercial product?
No. AGPL requires you to release any product that links to Documenso under AGPL too. Embedded or white-labeled use requires the $250/month Platform plan or a self-hosted Enterprise commercial license.
When does Documenso beat DocuSign on price?
Documenso Platform is $250/month flat for unlimited envelopes; DocuSign charges roughly $0.50–$2 per envelope. The break-even is around 250–500 signatures/month — beyond that Documenso wins, and the gap widens fast at scale.
