How to get an NDA signed online (fast, and legally binding)
Before a pitch, a hire, or a vendor deal, you need an NDA signed today. Here's how to send one for electronic signature in minutes and make it hold up later.
The non-disclosure agreement is the document that has to get signed before the real conversation can start — the investor pitch, the contractor kickoff, the vendor demo. Which means the slowest part of an NDA is almost never the drafting; it's the signing. Printing, scanning, or mailing an NDA can add days to a deal that everyone wants to move on today. Here's how to get one signed online in a few minutes, and how to make sure it actually holds up if you ever need it to.
Start from a finished PDF
Whatever you use to draft the NDA — a template from your lawyer, a standard mutual NDA, a one-way agreement — export it to a PDF first. What you upload is exactly what the other party sees and signs, so lock the terms, the parties' names, and the effective date before you send. Then upload it to Signed and it opens in the field editor; the first-run setup is in getting started.
Place the fields the NDA needs
Most NDAs need a small, predictable set of fields per party:
- Signature — the binding action for each party.
- Printed name — a text field for who's signing.
- Title / company — a text field, for NDAs signed on behalf of a business.
- Date signed — fills automatically the moment each party signs.
Drag each onto the document and assign it to the right signer. If it's a mutual NDA, both sides get their own signature and name fields; a one-way NDA usually just needs the receiving party. The full field reference is in Sending & signing.
Add both parties — and a signing order if you want one
Enter each party's name and email. For a mutual NDA you can let both sign in parallel, or set a signing order so one side signs first and the document then routes to the other. Turn on automatic reminders so a busy counterparty gets a nudge without an awkward follow-up email, and set an expiration if the NDA needs to be signed before a specific meeting.
Send it — the other party doesn't need an account
This is the part that makes online NDAs fast. Your counterparty gets an email with a secure link, opens it in any browser on any device, with no account and nothing to install, reviews the terms, and signs. An investor can sign your NDA from their phone between meetings. There's no sign-up wall standing between you and the conversation you're trying to have — and receiving-and-signing is always free for them; only the person *sending* needs a seat (Billing & plans).
Make sure it will actually hold up
An NDA is only useful if it's enforceable, and enforceability comes down to proof: who signed, that they intended to, and that the document hasn't changed since. In the US, electronic signatures carry the same legal weight as ink under the ESIGN Act and UETA — the full explainer is in are electronic signatures legally binding?. Signed captures each party's consent to sign electronically and logs every event — sent, viewed, signed — with email, timestamp, and IP, then seals it into a tamper-evident Certificate of Completion attached to the final PDF. That certificate is your evidence file if a confidentiality dispute ever surfaces; what it contains is detailed in the audit trail explainer. (This is general information, not legal advice — for a specific agreement, ask a lawyer.)
If you send NDAs constantly, template it
Founders, agencies, and anyone doing business development send the *same* NDA over and over. Set it up once as a reusable template with the fields placed and signer roles defined; each new send is then: pick the template, type the counterparty's email, send. What took ten minutes the first time takes thirty seconds every time after — the same trick real estate agents use for their standard forms.
What it costs to send unlimited NDAs
Signed is one plan — $20 per seat per month, unlimited documents, month-to-month, no annual contract. Send one NDA a quarter or forty a month; the price is the same and nothing is capped. That's the whole pitch against the incumbent's tiers and envelope limits — the breakdown is in DocuSign pricing explained, with the side-by-side on pricing and the DocuSign comparison page.