Docusign eSignature vs Skribble

Docusign eSignature

All three eIDAS levels are documented by name — simple signatures on every plan, advanced signatures on the higher plans and qualified signatures as an add-on to the e-signature plans — and Docusign names itself as a registered qualified trust service provider in Europe. That is a stronger story than most, but we found no public information on a linked EU Trust List entry, qualified electronic seals, Swiss ZertES coverage, or the signature level being shown in the signed document and its evidence.

Skribble

Simple, advanced and qualified signatures are all sold by name under eIDAS and ZertES with plan quotas spelled out: unlimited simple signatures on every plan, 120 advanced or qualified signatures a year on Pro, and company seals on request for the upper tiers. Skribble states plainly that it is not itself a trust service provider and delivers the certified components through partners, and I found no public information naming the qualified provider with its trust-list entry or showing the level reached in the finished document and its evidence.

Docusign eSignature

Methods are named and modern: one-time passcodes, phone authentication, automatic validation of government identity documents, biometric liveness via video selfies, signers reusing an existing CLEAR or ID.me account, an identity wallet to re-apply a completed verification on later agreements, and a proof file for audits. What the public pages do not show is which method applies to which signature level in which country, who performs the identification, or what happens to ID data afterwards — for a team sending into Germany versus France that is the question that decides cycle time.

Skribble

The ladder is documented and honest: simple is email-access only, advanced unlocks with a mobile number, and qualified runs on an ID scan plus selfie video — with live video ident guided by the partner's trained staff, self-service recording or an on-site visit, a Swiss eID (swiyu) question addressed, and ZertES or eIDAS selectable per identification package. What stalls it: I found no public information on the countries and accepted ID documents per method, on the identification provider beyond partner references and a Swisscom fallback, or on retention and deletion of ID data.

Docusign eSignature

The core of a revenue signing flow is documented: reusable team templates, conditional fields, delegated signing, bulk send, custom branding, mobile-optimized web forms with drag-and-drop building and versioning, signing in 44+ languages, and WCAG 2.0 AA listed on the plans. Signing order only appears in passing (automatic routing in the Word integration), and we found no public information on signer roles, parallel versus sequential routing, substitute signers or a published accessibility conformance statement.

Skribble

Deal velocity is mostly there: sender-set signing order, automatic reminders with an admin-chosen cadence of every three days, weekly or every two weeks on Team and above, bulk document sending on the paid tiers, and a signer experience with no account, no app and no login — invitation by email, link or QR code, signing in the browser in three steps with status tracked throughout. For a sales organisation I still miss the backbone: I found no public information on templates, field placement, conditional fields, delegation or signer accessibility.

Docusign eSignature

An audit trail is automatically generated and stored for every agreement and identity checks compile into a proof file, which is the minimum I need. But we found no public information on what the audit trail records, whether it attaches to or embeds in the signed PDF, whether timestamps are qualified or long-term validation is supported, or how long documents and evidence are retained — the only statement is the generic privacy-policy line that data is kept no longer than necessary.

Skribble

For evidence I can see AATL-conformant signatures on every plan, a paid validation and conversion service, a free E-Signature Validator tool and a guide on which evidential standard fits which document. I found no public information on an audit trail or certificate of completion — contents, timestamps, long-term validation — and the only retention statement on the captured pages is that accounts, data and documents are deleted when the contract ends.

Docusign eSignature

Signing from the systems where revenue closes is well covered: connectors for Word, Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, Power Automate and Dynamics 365, Salesforce and NetSuite named behind a sales conversation, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox and Box on every plan, an App Center with more than 1,000 partner integrations, a free developer account and embeddable web forms with API pre-population. We found no public information on webhooks, SDKs or published rate limits, so I could not confirm from public pages that the API covers every signature level.

Skribble

Signing where the quote lives is real: an open, documented REST API with an immediately testable demo key and all three signature levels, an upload-order-track workflow, and prebuilt connectors for Microsoft 365, Google Drive, Salesforce and SAP on Pro and Scale — Salesforce means my reps close without leaving the CRM. I found no public information on webhooks, embedded signing in our own application, SDKs or rate limits.

Docusign eSignature

The contracting entity is Docusign, Inc. of San Francisco, the privacy policy says data is likely hosted across Australia, the United States, the EU and Canada with transfers to some twenty countries, and EU data residency appears on the pricing page only as a contact-sales line. Proven European elements exist — an EMEA entity in Dublin, a French controller, data centres in three EU countries and Docusign's own EU trust-service-provider status — but we found no public information on ownership, hosting providers or subprocessor locations; the only third parties named are US app-store billing intermediaries and a marketing data vendor.

Skribble

The core is European: you contract with a Zurich AG or a Karlsruhe GmbH depending on the portal, documents are hosted exclusively in German or Swiss ISO 27001 data centres selected at setup, a DPA is published, and the privacy policy names each subprocessor with its location. I found no public information on ownership behind the entities, and several ancillary providers such as Cloudflare, Clay Labs and Make.com are US companies, so the chain is European at its core but not end to end.

Docusign eSignature

Personal at 9 € per month with 5 envelopes per month, Standard at 23 € per user per month with 100 envelopes per user per year and Business Pro at 38 € per user per month are public with the billing period stated, identity checks are listed ab 2,35 € per check, and renewal, overage, the five-business-day cancellation notice and exclusive-of-tax terms are published. A buyer still cannot compute a qualified-signature volume: the QES add-on carries no public price, the Business Pro envelope limit is not stated, the identity-verification page itself says 'contact sales', plans and prices may apply to new customers only, and the captured pages give different figures on refunds.

Skribble

Most of a budget is computable from public pages: Starter at 0 EUR per month pay-per-use with 2 simple signatures free, Pro at 6 EUR per month per user billed annually with unlimited simple and 120 advanced or qualified signatures a year, identification packages at 15,50 € per eIDAS identification or CHF 37 per ZertES identification with a minimum of 50, and billing periods, notice periods and termination fees all in the terms. Scale and Enterprise are on request only, I found no public price for the Team plan on the captured pages, and no per-signature overage price or separate API pricing to cost a full month of volume.