Far more than just the cost of implementation and selling that, they're also selling the incredible savings of not having to track and sign documents manually.
For a company with a heavy legal, purchasing, or HR department, all of which are very document heavy, having everything automated and electronic saves a ridiculous amount of people-hours and effort.
Actual signed contracts need physically storing (securely), especially in regulated environments, they need passing around, they need to be discovered. Just searching for old contracts is a terrible waste of time and money.
Moving to an all electronic environment allows big savings in not needing a bureaucracy around that document management. Regular members of those departments can get docs distributed, signed, stored, and recalled trivially.
After a year of companies all working remotely, the savings alone of not physically mailing documents around must be a huge chunk of that estimate. If you've ever bought a house, gotten through immigration work with lawyers, signed corporate purchasing agreements, etc. you'll have seen the thick wads of paper that need over-nighting between companies at crazy expense.
Having looked at both DocuSign and HelloSign recently, DocuSign seems to have the better integrations into more corporate systems, and was preferred by our docs heavy departments.
Personally I use Preview on macOS and have never had anyone reject my signature for anything.
>incredible savings of not having to track and sign documents
True that. The technical debates on HN on miss the point of why people feel the need to use DocuSign. If only two parties are involved, I will print, put my signature and send the scan. This is what I will do despite having a DocuSign account.
multi party agreements and especially the ones where you are the one needing others signatures (e.g. share holder agreement) and DocuSign are a match made in the heaven. It can send reminders to parties, show you who to nudge and let you download the final version. Compare that to print and put signature workflow.
For a company with a heavy legal, purchasing, or HR department, all of which are very document heavy, having everything automated and electronic saves a ridiculous amount of people-hours and effort.
Actual signed contracts need physically storing (securely), especially in regulated environments, they need passing around, they need to be discovered. Just searching for old contracts is a terrible waste of time and money.
Moving to an all electronic environment allows big savings in not needing a bureaucracy around that document management. Regular members of those departments can get docs distributed, signed, stored, and recalled trivially.
After a year of companies all working remotely, the savings alone of not physically mailing documents around must be a huge chunk of that estimate. If you've ever bought a house, gotten through immigration work with lawyers, signed corporate purchasing agreements, etc. you'll have seen the thick wads of paper that need over-nighting between companies at crazy expense.
Having looked at both DocuSign and HelloSign recently, DocuSign seems to have the better integrations into more corporate systems, and was preferred by our docs heavy departments.
Personally I use Preview on macOS and have never had anyone reject my signature for anything.