Published 2026-10-05 · 11 min read

Signable vs SignNow for Landlords (2026): Lease E-Signing on Two Budgets

Signable vs SignNow for Landlords (2026): Lease E-Signing on Two Budgets

The lease-signing decision most landlords agonize over isn't really about signatures — it's about how you're billed for them. Signable and airSlate SignNow are the two most landlord-friendly challengers to the DocuSign default, and they take opposite approaches to the same problem: Signable charges by the envelope, so you pay for what you send, while SignNow charges by the user, so your team size sets your bill.

For a rental business that sends a few dozen documents a year — leases, addenda, renewals, move-in/move-out paperwork — the pricing model matters more than the feature list. This comparison walks through both platforms' pricing, limits, team economics, and workflow fit so you can pick the cheaper route for your volume.

Affiliate disclosure: we're a Signable affiliate — we earn 10% commission on any plan purchase for up to 1 year, paid out monthly via PayPal or Stripe. Our link carries a 90-day cookie, refreshed if you click again, with no minimum payout threshold. SignNow is covered here as a plain reference; we have no affiliate relationship with them.

General information only — not legal advice. Electronic-signature validity rules vary by state and document type; confirm your state's requirements before going fully paperless.

The Short Version

(Pricing: Signable lists prices in GBP and updates them periodically — figures above are from its current plan structure checked October 2026, with VAT extra in some listings; SignNow figures are from its published 2026 pricing. Both vendors change prices; verify the current price on each provider's pricing page before you buy.)

Signable: Pay for Envelopes, Not Seats

Signable is a Bristol-based e-signature company built around a simple idea: you shouldn't need a seat license to send a document. Its plans count envelopes (documents sent for signature), not users — every plan includes unlimited users and unlimited templates, which is genuinely landlord-friendly when a spouse or property manager sends documents too.

Pay As You Go (~£1–£1.50 per envelope): no subscription, no commitment, pay only for documents you send. For a landlord signing a handful of leases a year, this is the cheapest legitimate e-signature route on the market — five leases a year costs roughly five envelopes, not a monthly subscription.

Small (~£29/mo or ~£319/yr): 50 envelopes per month, unlimited users and templates, custom branding, and API access. Fifty envelopes a month is far more than most small landlords need — it covers leases, addenda, renewals, and move-in/out paperwork with room to spare.

Medium (~£69/mo or ~£759/yr): 150 envelopes per month, plus team collaboration tools and bulk sending — one document to many recipients, useful for sending the same renewal offer or notice to dozens of tenants.

Large (~£169/mo, 400 envelopes) and Corporate (~£299/mo, 750 envelopes): growing-portfolio territory, with concierge onboarding, IP allowlisting, and dedicated account management at the top end. Bespoke plans cover anything above that.

Feature-wise, Signable covers the essentials: full audit trail on every document, sequential and parallel signing orders, document expiry dates, one-click reminders to slow signers, password protection, multi-factor authentication, and full legal compliance under eIDAS and the U.S. ESIGN Act. Signers never need an account — they get an email, click, and sign on any device. A 14-day free trial with no credit card lets you run a real lease through it before committing.

The honest caveats: Signable is a signature tool, not a document-management suite — it doesn't draft your lease or store a template library of state-specific legal forms. Its template and integration ecosystem is smaller than the giants', and pricing in GBP means U.S. landlords absorb currency fluctuation.

Try Signable's pay-as-you-go or a paid plan here — the 14-day free trial needs no credit card.

SignNow: The Budget Per-Seat Alternative

SignNow is airSlate's e-signature product and the best-known budget challenger to DocuSign's per-user model. It flips Signable's logic: instead of counting documents, it sells seats. Everyone on your team gets unlimited signature requests under one subscription, which is a different kind of simplicity — the bill never changes no matter how many leases you send.

Business (~$8/user/mo billed annually, ~$20/mo month-to-month): unlimited signature requests, unlimited templates, document routing, and signing-order controls. "Unlimited signature requests" is the key phrase — unlike platforms that cap envelopes per user per year, SignNow's entry plan doesn't count your documents. A landlord doing 200 leases a year pays the same $8 per seat as one doing 20.

Business Premium (~$15/user/mo billed annually, ~$30/mo month-to-month): adds conditional logic, bulk invites (one document to many recipients), advanced fields, and shared team workspaces. Bulk invites are the landlord-relevant feature — one renewal notice to 50 tenants in a single send.

Enterprise (~$50/mo and custom): higher compliance tiers, organization-level administration, and enterprise integrations for larger operators.

SignNow covers the compliance bases — ESIGN and eIDAS compliant, audit trails, SOC 2 certification, signer authentication options — and offers mobile apps on iOS and Android so tenants can sign from their phones. Its free trial lets you test the full workflow, and the mobile apps allow limited free e-signing without a paid plan (the web platform is subscription-based).

The honest caveats: it's per-user pricing, so a landlord, a spouse, and a property manager are three seats — the bill scales with headcount, not with how many documents you actually send. SignNow also lacks a no-subscription option entirely: if you sign four leases a year, you're still paying a monthly seat. Brand recognition sits below DocuSign's, and its feature depth in compliance certifications and advanced workflow trails the market leader.

Head-to-Head: The Landlord Workflow

The volume math: which pricing model wins?

This is the whole comparison. Work out your annual document count — leases, renewals, addenda, notices, move-in/move-out forms — then price it both ways.

• Under ~30 documents a year: Signable's Pay As You Go wins by a mile. Roughly £30–£45 a year total. SignNow's Business plan costs ~$96 a year per seat on annual billing (or $240 month-to-month) regardless of volume, so you're paying for seats you barely use.
• 30–150 documents a year: Signable's Small plan (~£29/mo) or PAYG versus SignNow Business (~$8/user/mo annual). At one seat, SignNow is cheaper per month; at three seats, Signable's envelope model pulls ahead. Do the seat math honestly — count everyone who sends documents, including a spouse.
• 150+ documents a year with a team: SignNow's unlimited-requests model shines. A three-person team sending 300 documents pays ~$24/mo on SignNow Business annual (three seats, unlimited documents) versus Signable's Large plan at ~£169/mo. High volume plus multiple senders favors per-seat unlimited.

The crossover point depends entirely on your headcount. If you're a solo landlord, Signable wins at low volume and SignNow wins at high volume. If your spouse and a manager also send documents, Signable's unlimited-users-on-every-plan structure is the value play across the board. For how these two compare against the market leader, see our Signable vs DocuSign comparison.

Signing a new lease

Both handle this identically well. Upload the lease PDF, place signature and initial fields, send — the tenant signs on any device without creating an account. Signable gives you a 14-day no-card trial to run a real lease through; SignNow offers a free trial plus limited free e-signing in its mobile apps. Neither platform drafts the lease — you still need your lease source — they handle the "get it signed" step.

Renewal season and bulk sends

Renewal season is the one workflow where these two differ structurally. Ten renewals plus five addenda is 15 signing requests in a month. On Signable's Small plan, that's a rounding error inside 50 monthly envelopes; on PAYG it's about £15–£22. On SignNow Business, it's included in your unlimited requests — but bulk invites (one document to many recipients) require Business Premium (~$15/user/mo annual). If you send the same renewal notice to dozens of tenants at once, Signable includes bulk send from its Medium plan (~£69/mo, no per-user fee); SignNow gates it behind its second tier. If renewals are your recurring headache, our lease renewal playbook covers the strategy side.

Teams: spouse, manager, virtual assistant

Count your senders. Signable's unlimited users on every plan means your spouse, property manager, and assistant all sign in free — on the £29 Small plan or even PAYG. SignNow's per-user pricing multiplies: three people on Business is ~$24/mo annual (or $60/mo month-to-month). The per-seat model punishes teams; the envelope model doesn't care about headcount. This single factor decides the comparison for most multi-person landlord operations.

Templates and automation

Both offer unlimited templates, so your lease, application-consent form, and pet addendum become one-click starting points. Signable includes API access from its Small plan up — notably generous, useful if you ever want to trigger signature requests automatically from your property-management software. SignNow's API and advanced workflow features (conditional logic, bulk invites) concentrate in Business Premium and Enterprise. For automation-minded landlords, Signable's lower API bar is the better fit; for document-collection intake logic beyond signatures, see our Jotform vs DocuSign comparison.

Brand trust with tenants

Neither matches DocuSign's recognition, and it matters less than it sounds. Tenants see your branding and a clean signing page; the legal validity comes from the audit trail, not the logo. SignNow's airSlate backing and longer U.S. presence give it slightly more familiar footing with American tenants than Signable's UK branding, but this is a soft factor — the signing experience is nearly identical. If maximum signer familiarity is the priority, our Signable vs DocuSign breakdown covers the brand-trust end of the spectrum, and our Signable vs Dropbox Sign comparison covers another per-seat alternative.

The legal question

Both platforms produce e-signatures compliant with the U.S. ESIGN Act and eIDAS/UETA frameworks, which covers residential leases in virtually every state — electronic leases are enforceable. Edge cases exist (some states have specific requirements around certain notices, and a few document types like wills are excluded from electronic signing), which is why this article is general information, not legal advice. Keep the audit trail with your lease file either way.

Which One Should You Use?

Use Signable when you send a low-to-moderate document volume and want the cheapest honest price for it. Pay As You Go is the standout value for landlords signing under ~30 documents a year — no subscription, no wasted seats. The Small plan's 50 envelopes a month is generous headroom for growing portfolios, and unlimited users means your spouse or manager signs in free. Start Signable's 14-day free trial and run a real lease through it.

Use SignNow when your document volume is high and steady, and you want one flat per-seat bill with unlimited signature requests. A solo landlord sending hundreds of documents a year on Business (~$8/user/mo annual) is hard to beat on price — the envelope counting never touches you. It's also the pick if you want conditional logic and bulk invites in a per-seat package via Business Premium.

Bottom line: under ~30 documents a year, Signable's pay-per-envelope pricing is dramatically cheaper — roughly £15–£45 a year on PAYG for what SignNow charges ~$96+ per seat per year. Above that, count your senders: solo high-volume landlords lean SignNow, multi-person teams lean Signable's unlimited-users structure. Both are legally valid and easy for tenants to use. Match the tool to your volume and headcount, not to the brand. Try Signable here — and if you're still weighing the giants, our Signable vs Adobe Sign and Signable vs PandaDoc comparisons round out the field.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Signable legally valid for signing leases in the U.S.?

Yes — Signable's e-signatures are compliant with the U.S. ESIGN Act and the eIDAS framework. Residential leases signed electronically are enforceable in virtually every state. Confirm your state's rules for any special notice requirements, and keep the platform's audit trail with your lease file.

How does SignNow's "unlimited signature requests" actually work?

On SignNow's Business plan and up, there is no cap on the number of documents you send for signature — the subscription covers unlimited sending. This is the opposite of envelope-count models. The limit that matters on SignNow is seats: each person who sends documents needs a user on the plan.

Which is cheaper for a landlord signing 10 leases a year?

Signable's Pay As You Go — roughly £10–£15 a year total. SignNow's Business plan would cost ~$96 a year per seat on annual billing regardless of your volume, so you're paying for a subscription to send ten documents. Low volume always favors per-envelope pricing.

Do tenants need a Signable or SignNow account to sign?

No on both. The tenant receives an email link, opens the signing page on any device, and signs — no account creation, no app install required. This is standard for both platforms.

Which is better for a landlord team of three?

Signable, on team economics. All three people get accounts on every Signable plan at no extra cost — the bill depends only on envelopes sent. SignNow charges per user, so three seats on Business is ~$24/mo billed annually (more month-to-month). Unless your volume is enormous, the per-seat multiplier makes SignNow the more expensive team option.

Can either replace my lease-drafting software?

No — neither Signable nor SignNow drafts leases or provides state-specific legal forms. They sign finished documents. You still need your lease source (attorney, lease software, or template library); the signature platform handles the "get it signed" step. See our lease renewal playbook for the document strategy around renewals.

What happens to my documents if I cancel?

Both platforms let you download your signed documents and their audit trails. Download your archive before canceling any subscription — the signed PDFs with certificates of completion are your legal record, and you should store them with your lease files regardless of which platform you use. If you're comparing screening workflows alongside paperwork, see how we compare tenant-screening services.