A DocuSign alternative for software vendors: how to choose

Un guide de décision pour les éditeurs de logiciel qui veulent intégrer la signature électronique dans leur propre produit.

Published Oct 3, 2026 · 7 min read

For a software vendor, the right alternative depends on one question: do your users sign in a signing tool, or inside your product? If your teams mostly need to send documents internally, an established e-signature suite such as DocuSign is often a sensible choice. If signing has to be part of your software, under your brand, in Arabic, French and English, an embedded engine such as Khatm is worth evaluating.

This guide does not compare advertised features. It gives you the criteria to check with every provider, Khatm included, and a method to test before you commit.

When an established suite is the right choice

DocuSign, Adobe Acrobat Sign and Yousign are established providers used by many organisations. Their strength is a mature, complete product that non-technical teams can use as is. A suite like this often fits in these situations:

• The need is internal: your sales, HR or legal teams send contracts from a dedicated tool, and your customers never sign inside your product.
• Your customers or your procurement team require a specific provider that is already approved in their organisation.
• You need a qualified trust service or a signature level that only a specialised provider can deliver.
• You plan no development work and the look of the tool matters little to your signers.

In these cases, switching providers may add little value. Just check that the plan you choose covers your languages, your market and your volume.

When an embedded engine fits better

Things change when signing is a step in your own product. An HR platform that collects employment contracts, a CRM that gets quotes accepted, a customer portal that completes account opening, property software that gets leases signed: in each of these journeys the signer is your customer, or your customer’s customer, and expects to stay in your interface.

• The signing journey must carry your brand, with your colours, your wording and your domain.
• Your signers read Arabic with a right-to-left interface, as well as French or English.
• Your product must create requests through an API, track their status and fetch the signed PDF automatically.
• You will later need to connect your customer’s certificate, from their PKI, HSM or trust service provider.
• You want to start testing without a contract, then prepare production with a technical counterpart.

Khatm is built for this case. The same engine is available through the web platform, to prepare, send and track documents with no development, and through the REST API v1, to integrate into your product. Embedding e-signatures in a SaaS product

The criteria to check with any provider

Use this table as an evaluation grid. Ask every provider each question, and ask for a demo or test access rather than a written answer. The Khatm column shows what you can verify yourself.

Two points deserve extra attention. The first is the certificate: a PDF can be technically signed in PAdES with a test certificate, but the trust shown by PDF readers depends on the certificate used in production. The second is language: ask to see a complete journey in Arabic, from the invitation email to the final PDF, and not only a translated interface. Self-signed vs trusted certificates PAdES: inside a signed PDF

Questions to ask about pricing

Pricing models vary widely between providers and change over time. Instead of comparing public figures, ask each provider the same questions so the offers can be compared:

• Do you charge per user, per envelope, per signed document or per annual volume?
• Are API access, white label and webhooks included or billed separately?
• What happens when your end customers grow into hundreds of separate accounts?
• Is connecting a local certificate or identity provider supported, and at what cost?
• What does implementation support include?

Khatm does not publish a price list. Cost depends on scope: the application involved, volumes, languages, connections and signature level. A proposal is made after scoping. The cost of integrating e-signatures

How to evaluate in practice

A serious evaluation takes a few days and follows three steps. Apply it to every provider on your shortlist.

1. Test the demo with a real document from your business, such as an HR contract or a quote. Check field placement, the signer journey on mobile and the final PDF. The Khatm demo needs no account and produces a PAdES-signed PDF with a self-signed test certificate, so an “unknown identity” warning in Adobe is expected.
2. Try the API in the sandbox. Create a request, activate it, receive the signed webhook and download the signed PDF and the evidence. Measure how long it takes one developer to get there.
3. Run a limited pilot with one customer or team, on a single document type. Agree in advance on the certificate, retention and branded journey expected in production.

Here is what creating a request looks like in the Khatm sandbox. The PDF and the JSON go in the same multipart request:

curl -sS -H "Authorization: Bearer $KHATM_API_KEY" \
  -F "document=@contract.pdf;type=application/pdf" \
  -F 'request={"client_reference":"crm-quote-1042","signers":[{"reference":"customer","name":"Test Customer","email":"customer@example.com","order":1}],"callback_url":"https://your-app.example.com/webhooks/khatm"}' \
  "$KHATM_BASE_URL/v1/signature-requests"

The sandbox accepts up to 10 signers and 100 fields per request, with a PDF of up to 8 MiB. Fields can be supplied, detected automatically or taken from a template. API documentation Developers

What Khatm does not do

In production, Khatm connects to your customer’s identity provider and to the certificate from their PKI, HSM or trust service provider, with RFC 3161 timestamps when that provider supplies them. The legal value of a signature depends on the certificate, signer identification and context; this guide is not legal advice.

Next steps

PDF signing built into your software, under your brand, in Arabic, French and English. Test in the sandbox; we guide you all the way to production. Start with the demo, read the documentation, then prepare production with us. Try the demo Read the docs Prepare production

General information, not legal advice. Confirm the requirements for your transaction with the appropriate adviser or receiving authority.