E-signatures for small business websites: how they work and if you need them

It connects a signing provider, SignWell is the one I use, to your site so a document you supply can be signed online. The site keeps track of who's signed what and its status, so you're not chasing paperwork by email.

This covers documents you supply as templates. A document that's automatically generated or pre-filled from data already on your site, an invoice built from a project's line items, say, is a different and more involved job, and gets quoted separately. Worth being clear on which one you actually need before you ask for a price.

I integrate the signature provider itself. I don't advise on, or warrant, whether a document signed this way is legally valid or enforceable for your particular use case. That's a question for your solicitor, not your web developer.

The integration plus your first document template starts from £400. Each additional document after that is £100, since the integration is the real work and adding another template is closer to an hour's job. You'll need your own account with the signing provider, since documents signed through your site belong to that account. Because it's an integration that can break, and when it does someone can't sign something, it needs at least the Standard maintenance plan.

If you're printing and scanning the same agreement more than a few times a month, this pays for itself in admin time alone. If you sign one contract a year, it's not worth the setup.