Zoho Sign pricing in short: free, £10 to £22 per user, or already in your bundle
Zoho Sign pricing starts with a free plan for one user and five signed envelopes a month. Paid plans are listed at £10 to £22 per user per month on Zoho's G-Cloud 14 listing for Zoho Sign. If you already pay for Zoho One, Zoho Sign is included, so buying a standalone licence means paying twice.
Licences are only part of the bill. Documents sent through the Zoho Sign API consume Zoho Sign Credits. A Zoho Sign Credit is a prepaid add-on that you buy on top of your licences. The same credits pay for SMS and for some third-party signing features.
Two questions therefore decide what you pay:
- How many people in your organisation need to send documents for signature?
- How many documents go out automatically, through the API or automations, rather than by hand?
The first question decides your licence count. The second decides your credit spend. Firms already on Zoho One or Zoho Contracts often need only credits, or nothing extra. You can see how we set up signing for clients on our Zoho Sign implementation page. The rest of this post works through each option in turn.
The Zoho Sign free plan: one user and five signed envelopes a month
The Zoho Sign free plan allows one user per organisation and five signed envelopes per month. Zoho's own product page describes the same limit as signing, storing and managing up to five documents a month for free. Sign-up needs no credit card details.
The free plan suits a sole trader or a single manager who signs the occasional supplier agreement or NDA. It does not suit a sales team. Once a second person needs to send documents, the one-user limit stops you.
Support on the free plan is slower. Zoho's G-Cloud listing gives an average response time of 24 hours for free users, against 8 hours for paid users. That gap matters if a stuck contract holds up a deal.
The free plan is also where a lapsed paid account lands. When a subscription expires, the account moves to Free. If the Free account then stays inactive for 6 months, Zoho emails you twice and then deletes the account and its data. If you cancel a paid plan, export your signed documents first.
Before you rely on the free tier, test the paid features you think you need. Zoho offers a 14-day free trial, and an Enterprise trial of the same length for the higher-tier features.
Paid Zoho Sign plans: what the per-user licence buys
Paid Zoho Sign plans are sold per user per month, at £10 to £22 on Zoho's G-Cloud 14 listing. Zoho names the licensing plans Standard, Professional, Enterprise and API. You pay for each person who sends documents, not for each signer.
Zoho lists these features across Zoho Sign:
- templates for documents you send repeatedly
- self-service SignForms that people complete and sign on their own
- bulk send, for the same document to many recipients
- in-person signing on a device
- REST APIs for sending from other systems
Check the current plan comparison on Zoho's price page to see which tier carries each feature. The per-user price range tells you the tiers differ, and the feature you need decides the tier you buy.
Support levels and the 25-licence threshold
Support improves with spend. Paid users get an average 8-hour response, and premium support responds in 1 to 4 hours, 5 days a week. Enterprise support adds an account manager and 24*7 support. It requires at least 25 user licences on the Enterprise plan.
A firm with ten senders cannot reach that level by buying Zoho Sign alone. Weigh that before you assume round-the-clock help comes with the top plan.
Zoho Sign Credits: the usage cost on top of the licence
Zoho Sign Credits are a prepaid add-on that pays for features and integrations with an extra cost to Zoho. They replace the older API credits and SMS credits add-ons. Zoho stated that the change would not alter pricing or cost.
Each credit costs 0.1 USD. You buy them in blocks of 500, so 500 credits cost $50. Add-on prices follow regional conversion rates for local currencies, so a UK invoice may differ slightly from the dollar figure.
These actions consume credits:
- documents sent through the Zoho Sign API, at an effective 0.5 USD per document signed
- SMS messages, at an effective 0.05 USD each, down from 0.2 USD under the old add-on
- signing through third-party digital signature providers
- digital timestamps from timestamping authorities
At 0.5 USD per document, one 500-credit block covers 100 API-sent documents. That is the figure to compare against your monthly volume.
Leftover API or SMS credits from the old add-ons are used first. You buy Zoho Sign Credits from Accounts > Admin > Subscription details. You can set reminders at a low and a critical threshold, so automated sends do not fail unnoticed. Credits are available to organisations on any paid Zoho Sign licence and to bundles that include Zoho Sign.
Zoho One already includes Zoho Sign, plus free automation credits
Zoho One includes Zoho Sign, so a Zoho One organisation does not need a separate Zoho Sign licence. Zoho's credits announcement lists Zoho One among the bundles that include Zoho Sign. A customer quoted on Zoho's contract-signing page also names the inclusion in Zoho One as a reason for choosing it.
Zoho One subscribers also get automation credits. Automation credits are complimentary credits, not add-ons, given each month to Zoho Sign Enterprise and Zoho One organisations in proportion to their licensed user count. They pay for automations without a purchase.
Automation credits have a ceiling. Once an organisation runs out, it needs Zoho Sign Credits to keep its automations running. A small Zoho One team with a high volume of automated sends can therefore still face a credit bill. A larger team, with more users, gets a larger free allowance.
The practical rule is simple. If you are on Zoho One, never buy standalone Zoho Sign licences. Budget only for credits beyond your monthly automation allowance, and set the low-balance reminders.
If you are still weighing the suite itself, our guide to what Zoho One includes and when the suite makes sense covers the wider decision. Signing alone rarely justifies moving to Zoho One, but it adds to the case when you need several apps.
Zoho CRM users: count signing volume before buying Zoho Sign licences
Zoho CRM users should count how many documents leave the CRM for signature each month before buying Zoho Sign licences. Zoho Sign integrates with Zoho apps, including CRM, but the integration does not settle the licence question for you. Who sends, and how, decides the cost.
The sources behind this post do not set out what each Zoho CRM edition includes for signing. Check your own edition's feature list and Zoho's current price page before you buy anything. If your edition already covers the signing you do, a separate subscription adds nothing.
At Svennis, when a Zoho CRM client asks us to add signing, we first list every document type that goes out and whether a person or an automation sends it. That list usually shows the client needs fewer licences than expected, and that credits drive most of the cost.
The distinction matters because of how Zoho charges. A salesperson who sends a quote by hand needs a sending licence. A document sent through the Zoho Sign API, for example from a custom script or another system, consumes credits at an effective 0.5 USD each. A busy automated process can cost more in credits than in licences.
If you are still shaping the CRM itself, our intermediate Zoho CRM guide covers the workflows that typically trigger documents for signature.
Zoho Contracts includes Zoho Sign, for firms that need contract management
Zoho Contracts is a contract management product that includes Zoho Sign, and it costs £48 to £63 per user per month on its G-Cloud 14 listing. That is several times the Zoho Sign price. You pay the difference for managing agreements, not for signing them.
Zoho's credits announcement lists Zoho Contracts as a bundle that includes Zoho Sign. A Zoho Contracts organisation can buy Zoho Sign Credits in the same way as a Zoho Sign customer, so API sends and SMS still carry a usage cost.
The Zoho Contracts free version allows up to 3 users. One of those users can send contracts for signing, create five contracts a month and store up to 10 contracts. That is enough to trial the product, not to run a legal or procurement team on it.
Choose Zoho Contracts when your problem is the life of an agreement: drafting, review and storage. Choose Zoho Sign when your problem is only getting a finished document signed. Paying Contracts prices for signature collection alone is the common overspend here.
Support on the Contracts listing is different too. The SLA first response is 4 hours, with support 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. There is no phone support, and web chat runs 9 to 5 UK time, Monday to Friday.
Comparing the four ways to pay for Zoho Sign
The four ways to pay for Zoho Sign differ in licence cost, in who can send and in how usage is charged. The table below sets them side by side, using the figures from Zoho's G-Cloud listings and its credits announcement. Zoho One's own price is outside the sources used here, so check it on Zoho's site.
| Option | Licence cost | Senders | Usage charges | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoho Sign free plan | Free | One user | Five signed envelopes a month | Occasional signing by one person |
| Zoho Sign paid plan | £10 to £22 per user per month | Each licensed user | Zoho Sign Credits for API, SMS and third-party signing | Teams that need signing but not a suite |
| Zoho One | Included in the bundle | Licensed Zoho One users | Free automation credits, then Zoho Sign Credits | Firms already using several Zoho apps |
| Zoho Contracts | £48 to £63 per user per month | Licensed Contracts users | Zoho Sign Credits for extra-cost features | Firms that need contract management |
Read the table from your situation, not from the price column. A firm on Zoho One should start in the third row and stop there. A firm with only Zoho CRM should compare the first two rows against its document volume. The same suite logic applies to other Zoho apps, as our posts on Zoho Projects pricing and Zoho One and Zoho Creator pricing show.
Costs and limits beyond the Zoho Sign price list
Zoho Sign carries some costs and limits that the per-user price does not show. Most of them come from Zoho's own G-Cloud listing, and each can affect whether a plan fits your firm.
Account expiry and data deletion
An expired subscription drops to the Free plan. After 6 months of inactivity on Free, Zoho deletes the account and its data, after two email notices. Keep a copy of signed agreements outside Zoho Sign if you might lapse.
Deployment and data location
Zoho Sign is cloud only, with no on-premise option. Data is stored and processed in the European Economic Area. Documents are encrypted at rest with AES-256 and moved over the web with SSL encryption.
Mobile and accessibility limits
The mobile apps cover only the core functions, not everything in the web application. Zoho also states that Zoho Sign is not yet compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA and has not been tested with users of assistive technology. If your signers include people who rely on assistive tools, test with them before you commit.
Legal exclusions
Zoho states that electronic and digital signatures are legally valid across most regions, but some documents still need wet ink. Those exclusions vary by country. No plan choice removes them, so confirm your document types before you budget for full digital signing.
Next steps: work out your signing volume, then pick the plan
Your next step is to write down your signing volume, because volume, not the price list, decides which Zoho Sign option is cheapest. Work through these steps in order:
- Check whether you already have Zoho One or Zoho Contracts. If so, you already have Zoho Sign and should not buy standalone licences.
- List the people who send documents for signature. That is your licence count for a paid Zoho Sign plan.
- Count the documents sent each month by hand and by automation or API. Multiply the automated count by 0.5 USD to estimate credit spend.
- Add SMS verification if you use it, at an effective 0.05 USD per message.
- Check your Zoho CRM edition's feature list and Zoho's current price page for anything already included.
- Run the 14-day trial with your real documents before you buy.
- Once on a paid plan, set the low and critical credit reminders in your account.
If your numbers point towards several Zoho apps rather than signing alone, compare the suite before you commit. If you are new to the CRM side, the basics of Zoho CRM is a sensible starting point before you add signing on top.
