E-signature & audit trail
The e-sign motion works, but every viewer or approver in the chain needs a paid seat and the legal audit log is locked inside PandaDoc's storage.
What people actually say
✕PandaDoc charges per user and counts anyone who needs to send, edit or approve documents — operations, finance and marketing people who only touch the workflow still need a paid seat.
Source: Alex Berman, PandaDoc pricing guide ↗✕Removing PandaDoc branding from documents requires the Business plan or higher, forcing teams sharing investor or board materials to upgrade from $19-$35/user to $49-$65/user.
Source: Peony, PandaDoc pricing breakdown ↗✕A recurring pattern in BBB complaints involves charges continuing after attempted cancellation, or unexpected auto-renewals — the same playbook customers report on DocuSign.
Source: Peony, PandaDoc renewal complaints ↗
Postgres-backed envelope store, Next.js signing UI, SES/Resend for delivery and a tamper-evident hash chain for the audit log (eIDAS and ESIGN compliant). Approvers, viewers and legal reviewers are just user rows — no seat charge per stakeholder. PDFs and Certificates of Completion sit in your own S3 with whatever retention you choose.