Choosing an e-signature platform
Most comparison pages are written to win. This one is written to be used against us too.
Every vendor in this category can put a signature on a PDF. Comparing feature checklists will not tell you much, because the checklists converge. What separates these products is what happens at the edges — when a signature is challenged, when you want to leave, when you need to build on top.
Here are the questions we would ask. Ask them of us too.
1. What do I hand a court in seven years?
Ask for a completed agreement's evidence package and try to check it with the vendor's website closed. If verification needs their site to be up and your account to still exist, it is not verification — it is a lookup.
Our answer: a folder with the checker inside it. Download one and run it offline.
2. Is the audit trail tamper-evident, or just a list?
A list of events in a database is a list. Ask whether each entry carries a hash covering the one before it, and whether you can recompute that chain yourself.
Our answer: hash-chained, and the chain ships with the package.
3. Can I do everything through the API?
If any workflow is only possible by hand in their web interface, you will hit that wall the week you try to automate.
Our answer: anything the console does, the API does — that is a rule we test, not an aspiration.
4. What does the sandbox actually simulate?
A sandbox that behaves differently from production teaches your team an integration that does not work.
Our answer: a sandbox is a workspace, not a mode. Nothing it sends is delivered and nothing it is billed, and it behaves identically in every other respect.
5. What does a signer need?
Ask whether a counterparty needs an account, an app, or a modern browser. Then ask whether it works with JavaScript disabled — not because many people disable it, but because the answer tells you how the page was built.
Our answer: no account, no app, and yes. We test at 390 pixels with scripting off.
6. What do the webhooks carry?
Webhook payloads land in systems the vendor cannot see. Ask whether document content or field values are in them.
Our answer: identifiers, status and hashes. Never content, values or links.
Where we would not recommend us yet
This is early access, and some of these answers are better than our coverage:
- No SOC 2. If you need it now, we are not your vendor yet
- Pactlyra PDF is in build. No editing, converting, merging or OCR
- Flow is one approver step with single-condition routing; deeper branching is not here
- Enterprise governance — SSO, retention policy, legal hold, data residency — is entitlement strings and not enforcement
If a checklist matters more to you than the evidence questions above, an established vendor will serve you better today. If those six questions are the ones keeping you up, we would like to talk.
Last reviewed 2026-09-21. Pactlyra produces a detailed evidence record for every completed document. Electronic signature validity depends on your jurisdiction, the document type, and how the transaction is carried out; nothing here is legal advice.