DocuSeal Alternative: Everything a Business Needs, Nothing to Host
DocuSeal's free plan is fine for the odd document. Use it for real work and you soon run into Pro: reminders, sending from your own email, team roles and webhooks all sit behind it, billed per user in dollars. NomaSign puts all of that in one plan for R99 a month.
14-day free trial · No credit card required · Cancel anytime · Sign in with your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace
The Pro Features You'll Actually Use
We went through DocuSeal's plans and picked out the paid features an ordinary business ends up needing within a month or two. All of them come standard with NomaSign.
Unlimited signature requests
Included in R99Ten request emails a month sounds like plenty until you onboard three new people and send out company policies in the same week. A policy sign-off on its own can mean a hundred requests at once.
DocuSeal: Free plan: 10 request emails a month. Pro removes the cap.
Automatic reminders
Included in R99People mean to sign. Then your email sinks under twenty others. Reminders do the follow-up for you, so the contract doesn't sit there for a fortnight.
DocuSeal: Pro only.
Invitations from your own email
Included in R99A request from an address your client knows gets opened. One from a platform they've never heard of gets ignored, or ends up in spam.
DocuSeal: Free plans send from a DocuSeal address. Connecting your Gmail or Outlook, and adding your logo, are Pro features.
Team roles
Included in R99As soon as more than two people send documents, you'll want a say in who can send on the company's behalf and who runs the account.
DocuSeal: User roles and multiple teams are Pro.
Webhooks
Included in R99A signed contract should land in your CRM or HR system by itself. Nobody wants to spend their afternoon downloading PDFs and uploading them somewhere else.
DocuSeal: Pro only on DocuSeal Cloud.
An API without a toll
Included in R99Once signing is wired into your own systems, you shouldn't pay a fee on every document that passes through it.
DocuSeal: $0.20 (about R3.34) per completed document, on top of a Pro seat.
Bulk send
Included in R99Sending the same updated policy to 80 staff should be one job, not 80.
DocuSeal: Pro: 50 a month included, then $0.20 per signature.
What You Won't Find in Any DocuSeal Plan
Not on the free plan, and not on Pro either. With NomaSign they're part of the same R99 plan.
Signed documents filed in your own cloud
Only in NomaSignWhen the last person signs, the finished PDF goes straight into your OneDrive, SharePoint or Google Drive. It sits with the rest of your business records, under your own retention rules.
DocuSeal: Keeps documents on its own servers in the US or Ireland. Its Google Drive integration brings files in; it doesn't file the signed result for you.
Sealed from the moment you send
Only in NomaSignWe lock the document with an Adobe-trusted seal before the first invitation goes out, then add each signature as its own sealed version. If someone changes the file along the way, Adobe shows it.
DocuSeal: By default, it signs the finished PDF once, after the last signature.
Your own address book
Only in NomaSignStart typing a name and NomaSign searches your Microsoft 365 or Google contacts, so you stop copying email addresses out of old threads.
DocuSeal: Only remembers people you've sent to before.
Send from the PDF you have open
Only in NomaSignLooking at a PDF in Chrome or Edge? The NomaSign browser extension sends it for signing from right there.
DocuSeal: No browser extension.
Made in South Africa
Only in NomaSignPriced in rand, so your bill doesn't move with the exchange rate. Built around the ECT Act, by a team in your time zone.
DocuSeal: Billed in US dollars, hosted in the US or Ireland.
DocuSeal Cloud vs NomaSign
Hosted next to hosted. The free plan covers the basics, and the business features need Pro, which costs more than our only plan.
| Feature | DocuSeal Cloud Free | DocuSeal Cloud Pro | NomaSign |
|---|---|---|---|
| Signature requests | 10 a month | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Automatic reminders | No | Yes | Yes |
| Invitations from your own email | No | Yes (connect Gmail or Outlook) | Yes, always |
| Team roles | No | Yes | Yes |
| Webhooks | No | Yes | Yes |
| API | No | $0.20 per document | Included, no per-document fee |
| Bulk send | No | 50 a month, then $0.20 each | Yes, no extra fee |
| Signed documents stored in | DocuSeal (US or Ireland) | DocuSeal (US or Ireland) | Your own OneDrive or Google Drive |
| Price per user per month | Free | About R278 (annual) or R334 (monthly), billed in dollars | R99 (annual) or R149 (monthly) |
DocuSeal features and prices from docuseal.com and DocuSeal's GitHub README, checked October 2026. Dollar prices shown in rand at R16.69 to the dollar.
Thinking of Self-Hosting DocuSeal Instead?
DocuSeal has two on-premises editions. The open-source one is free, but it leaves out reminders, team roles, branding, bulk send and single sign-on. Those are the same gaps that make the free cloud plan hard to run a business on.
In practice, then, you'd be looking at On-Premises Pro. That's $240 per user per year, roughly R334 a month per person, and it costs more than Cloud Pro on annual billing ($200). So you pay at least the cloud price, and then you run the servers as well.
That leaves one real reason to self-host: control. The useful question is what you actually want control over.
Where your documents live
NomaSign stores them in your own Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. You already decide who can see them, how long they're kept and how they're backed up. That doesn't change.
Who can get in
Your team signs in with their Microsoft or Google work accounts, so the sign-in rules you already enforce, such as multi-factor authentication, keep applying.
Where the email comes from
Invitations go out from your own mailbox. You don't have a mail server to configure, and your clients don't get a platform address they've never seen.
The whole platform
Some organisations need every part of it inside their own environment. That's what NomaSign Enterprise Self-Hosted is for.
When You Need It All In-House: NomaSign Enterprise Self-Hosted
Large organisations sometimes need the entire signing platform inside their own environment. NomaSign runs there too. All data stays in your environment, it works with your own managed identity setup, and you get your own service and customisation team.
You don't inherit a maintenance job. We look after the hosting, the updates and the rollout of new features under a service level agreement, so your installation keeps up with everything we ship.
Pricing isn't per seat. It's based on the number of documents you sign, the service level you need and a once-off setup, so the cost per document comes down as your volume goes up.
DocuSeal's Cheapest Paid Plan Costs More Than Our Only Plan
Cloud Pro works out at about R278 per user per month on an annual plan, paid in dollars. NomaSign is R99, and that already covers everything DocuSeal keeps for Pro.
A team of ten pays R990 a month. That's the whole bill.
Don't Take Our Word for It
Download a real NomaSign-signed document and open it in Adobe Acrobat Reader. The green tick comes from Adobe, checked on your own machine.
Verify a Signed DocumentBuilding Signing Into Your Own Product?
Developers often reach for an open-source tool so they can start without a bill. The catch shows up later. You end up running signing infrastructure next to your own product, and DocuSeal's API and embedding cost $0.20 per document on Pro, on top of the seat.
With NomaSign the API and webhooks come with every account. Start with a handful of documents a month and grow from there, without a signing server to look after while you work out what your volumes really are.
Common Questions
What does the free, open-source DocuSeal include?
The basics: a PDF form builder, signing, email through your own mail server, storage on your own disk or cloud bucket, and a basic API. Reminders, user roles, branding, bulk send and single sign-on need Pro, at $240 per user per year (per DocuSeal's GitHub README).
Is self-hosted DocuSeal cheaper than DocuSeal Cloud?
Not if you need reminders, roles or branding. Those need Pro either way, and On-Premises Pro costs $240 per user per year against $200 for Cloud Pro, before you've paid for a server.
Can I move from DocuSeal to NomaSign?
Yes. We offer a free moving service for qualifying customers: contact support and we'll let you know. Most businesses qualify. Download your completed documents from DocuSeal first, and keep it running until any requests that are still out have been signed.
Can developers start small with the NomaSign API?
Yes. Every account includes the API and webhooks, with no per-document fee. Build and launch on the normal R99 plan with a handful of documents a month, and keep the same setup as your volumes grow.
Can NomaSign be self-hosted?
Yes, through NomaSign Enterprise Self-Hosted. It runs in your own environment and we keep it updated under a service level agreement. Pricing depends on how many documents you sign. Email 
to talk it through.
Is an e-signature legally valid in South Africa?
Yes, for most business documents, whichever reputable tool you use. The ECT Act's exceptions are agreements to sell land, leases of land over 20 years, wills and bills of exchange.
Sources: ECT Act 25 of 2002 (gov.za)
Learn More
Dig deeper before you decide.
Signing that just works, with nothing to host
See it on your own documents. Try NomaSign free for 14 days. You won't need a credit card.