PandaDoc Pricing: Plans & Feature Review
JAN 9, 2025 | LAST UPDATED ON JAN 9, 2025 BY ANGELICA NAIDU
Finding the right proposal software can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. However, PandaDoc has managed to build quite a reputation.
PandaDoc is the go-to tool for freelancers and growing businesses for creating, approving, tracking, and e-signing a proposal. It caters to a variety of needs and budgets with its 4 different plans. It also offers a 14-day FREE trial so you can test out its features without spending a dime.
Let’s be honest, picking the right plan can be confusing. That’s why we are here to break it down for you.
Key Takeaways
- PandaDoc has 4 plans: Free, Starter, Business, and Enterprise. The free plan caters to Startups. The other 3 plans cater to growing businesses.
- The Starter Plan might be cost-effective but it lacks important features like custom branding. The Business and Enterprise plans have much more advanced features for growing businesses but they are not without its limitations.
- PandaDoc provides a range of features but they come at a high cost, making it not ideal for businesses with small budgets. Also, many features require additional cost.
- In comparison to PandaDoc, Super Proposal is a much more cost-effective and user-friendly solution with similar features.
Things don’t just boil down to the price of choosing a plan. It’s also about whether it helps you work smarter, close deals faster, and hit your needs and goals efficiently.
PandaDoc has 4 plans that aim to give you the perfect combination of the right features, flexibility, and value for your budget.
Continue reading to explore each plan in detail.
Free e-Sign Plan
Price: Free
User Limit: 1 User
Proposal Limit: 5 document sends per month
Key features:
- You can only upload and sign PDFs, Word Docs, and Excel with up to 2 recipients.
- Payment feature is available upon signature via a credit card, PayPal, or ACH payment.
Who’s it best for: Freelancers or small businesses looking for a basic, no-cost solution to e-sign their documents legally. It’s ideal if you’re just starting out, have to sign documents sometimes, and don’t have any need to create proposals.
Starter Plan
Price
- Billed Monthly: $35 per user per month
- Billed Annually: $19 per user per month
Key Features
- Usage: Upload, legally e-sign and send unlimited documents, whether uploading or editing a template.
- Mobile App: Check and manage things with PandaDoc’s Mobile app.
- Reuse Documents: Reuse your own documents to prepare for signature
- Bulk Import: Import your documents in bulk for easy location.
- Document editor: Document editor makes it easy for you to create, edit, or change fields in documents.
- Templates: You can choose up to 5 templates from 1000+ available.
- Embedded Videos: Make it visually appealing with videos or animated gifs.
- Chat: Send private to your team and public messages to your recipient.
- Inline Comments: Add comments in the document for more efficiency.
- Signing Order: Send the document and get it signed in a particular order by the recipient.
- Inbuilt Organisation: Organise your documents with folders and tags to make them easy to find.
- Search and Filters: You can even search a document with filters to find it quickly.
- Auto-expiration: You can set an auto-expiration date to complete a document. (Additional cost add-on)
- Track and Monitor: Monitor the status of the document with real-time notification and audit trails.
- Recipient Analytics: Understand the recipient’s behaviour with analytics.
- Productivity: Productivity integrations are available for signing and sending documents from Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Word or Slack.
- Security and Compliance: Ensure security and compliance with signature certificate, two-factor authentication, SOC 2 Type II compliance, GDPR compliance, eIDAS, and U.S. ESIGN Act of 2000.
- User Management: Add members to your account to create documents collaboratively.
- Support: Get PandaDoc’s support with its Help Center, web ticket and email support 24/7, and chat support. Premium support is available but additional cost is required.
Who’s it best for: Small businesses, startups and freelancers with collaborative teams looking to create quality documents easily and efficiently. The annual billing plan is much more cost-effective in comparison to the monthly plan.
It is noteworthy that if you want to incorporate your brand elements, then you need the business plan.
Business Plan:
Price
Billed Monthly: $65 per user per month
Billed Annually: $49 per user per month
Key Features
- The Business Plan includes everything included in the Starter Plan.
- Custom Branding: Add your brand elements and themes to the document.
- Content Library: You can store reusable content.
- Smart Content: Set rules to automatically personalize content as per customer. (Additional cost add-on only for annual plan)
- Content Locking: Lock content and restrict editing to avoid unapproved changes. (Additional cost add-on)
- Web Forms: Collect information using web forms. (Additional cost add-on)
- Efficient Collaboration: Collaborate more efficiently by suggesting edits and approval workflows.
- Rooms: Create digital spaces (up to 3) for resource sharing, negotiation, and better collaboration.
- In-person Signing: You can accept in-person signatures.
- Sending Documents: Email whitelabeling and bulk-sending documents are available. (Additional cost add-on)
- Interactive Pricing Tables: Include interactive pricing tables so recipients can add optional services or add-ons themselves.
- Collect Payments: Collect payments and pre-configure what your team can market.
- Product Catalog: Easy to manage product catalog to avoid copying and pasting your product details every time.
- Auto-expiration: Unlike the Starter Plan, auto-expiration of documents and auto follow-up reminders do not come at an additional expense.
- Renewal Notifications: Send contract renewal notifications automatically on a specific date. (Additional cost add-on)
- Reports: Get reports for overall workflow and team performance for better decision-making. (Additional cost add-on)
- Automation: You can internally automate manual tasks, but not with other apps.
- CRM Integrations: CRM integrations are available with over 10 providers like HubSpot.
- Integrations: Salesforce and Zapier integration is available but at an additional cost.
- Security and Compliance: Secure signing with Qualified Electronic Signature (QES) (10 per year), recipient verification, and HIPAA compliance. (Available only with annual plan)
- Verifications: Verifications like passcode verification, SMS verification (10 per month), and KBA + ID check (12 per year) are also available.
- Admin and User Management: Admin and user management tools like SSO and team workspaces are available. (Additional cost add-on)
- Support: You can even get a dedicated customer success manager but conditions apply.
Who’s it best for:
Growing medium-sized businesses that need advanced features, integrations, and the ability to bulk send documents. The main focus of this plan is to prioritize efficient collaboration, automate small repeated tasks, and better client interactions.
Enterprise Plan:
Price: Per seat per month
Key Features
- The Enterprise Plan includes everything included in the Business Plan.
- Smart Content and Content Locking: Unlike the Business Plan, smart content and content locking don’t require an additional cost.
- Rooms: You can have unlimited collaborative digital spaces to personalize the buyer’s journey.
- Email White labelling: Email white labelling is availing, meaning you can send documents from a custom email address and subdomain.
- Configure Price Quote: You can quickly configure price quotes and sync data directly to your CRM system. (Additional cost add-on)
- Tracking and Monitoring: Features like renewal notifications and reports don’t require additional costs.
- Automation: You can automate tasks internally and externally with other apps.
- Webhooks: You can stay updated about events in your account with Webhooks.
- API: Use API to create custom e-signing and document workflows. (Additional cost add-on)
- Security and Compliance: Flexibility to choose (between EU and US) where your document gets stored and processed.
- Admin and User Management: You can create unlimited team workspaces and sign user roles.
Who’s it best for:
Big companies who have complex document flows and need advanced automation. The best part about this plan is that you can only pay for the documents you create, making it a great option if you don’t use the tool regularly. The number of seats you choose will have a significant impact on the price as well. If you want to save more money and use the tool for a long time, contact their team and go for the annual plan.
One noteworthy feature of this plan is the ability to choose whether your document gets stored and processed in the EU or US. The data residency feature offers you much flexibility and support for full compliance.
Pricing Conditions
Some features in PandaDoc are hidden behind pricing conditions or additional costs. So, you must consider the pricing conditions before you select a plan:
- Add-ons: Features like auto-expiration, advanced reporting, integration with platforms like Salesforce, and many more are available as optional add-ons in the plans.
- Annual Plan Exclusives: Certain compliance features like Qualified Electronic Signatures (QES), recipient verification, and HIPAA compliance, are exclusive to annual plans in the Business and Enterprise tiers. Choosing the annual billing option can give you access to these features and save up to 46%.
- API Pricing: While Pandadoc API access is available as an add-on in the business plan, full API capabilities, including custom integrations and advanced workflow automation, are mainly for enterprise plan users. The price for this depends on usage and customisation.
- User-Based Pricing: The cost of all 3 plans depends on the number of users and in the case of the enterprise plan, the number of documents too.
- Premium Support: All plans include standard support options. However, premium support and access to a dedicated customer success manager require additional costs and come with conditions.
- Verification Limit: Secure signing with Qualified Electronic Signature (QES) (10 per year) and verifications like SMS verification (10 per month), and KBA + ID check (12 per year) come within the Business and Enterprise Plan. However, additional cost is required to go beyond this limit.
Note: You can contact the sales team to gain access to optional features.
What could PandaDoc do better?
While PandaDoc appears to be an excellent tool for proposal making, it is not without its limitations.
- Limited Customization for Complex Needs: You need PandaDoc’s Business plan to incorporate your brand elements into your proposal. This creates an issue and unnecessary expense for you if you want the Starter Plan only. Additionally, its overall customisation options are restrictive for businesses with complex document workflows.
- Integration Limitations: PandaDoc integrates well with major CRMs like HubSpot, but the same can’t be said for others. If your team is relying on various technologies, you may face friction, leading to an increase in manual workloads.
- Steeper Learning Curve for Advanced Features: The software is a bit confusing and it takes a while to understand, especially when it comes to advanced features. So, you might need to put in some extra time to understand.
- Performance Issues with Large Documents: If you are working with large or complex documents, the loading time is slower and there are occasional glitches. This is less than ideal for businesses with high-pressure work environments.
- Spam Problem with Emails: PandaDoc’s emails are being flagged as spam by the recipient’s email services. This comes in the way of smooth and efficient communication, which is not good for time-sensitive proposals.
Is PandaDoc worth the investment?
PandaDoc is worth the cost if your business heavily relies on streamlining documents and workflows, optimizing team collaboration, and improving proposal quality. The pricing is not ideal for a business with a small budget.
It has some excellent security and advanced features but you must carefully weigh the costs against the expected ROI. Do factor in the steep learning curve, occasional glitches and spamming problems with emails, which has a significant impact on efficiency.
An Alternative To PandaDoc: Super Proposal
For those who find PandaDoc’s pricing or limitations restrictive, Super Proposal is the best alternative:
- Unlimited Proposals: Super Proposal lets you create and send unlimited proposals.
- Custom Branding: PandaDoc allows you to incorporate your brand elements only in the Business and Enterprise Plans, which costs you $49 per user per month or higher. However, Super Proposal offers the same at $19 per user per month.
- Ease of Use: PandaDoc comes with a steep learning curve, requiring you to invest time in understanding how it works. In contrast, Super Proposal has an intuitive and user-friendly design.
- Premium Support: With PandaDoc, you’ll need to pay extra for premium support and access to a dedicated customer success manager. However, Super Proposal offers it at no additional cost, ensuring you get the help you need without worrying about hidden fees or delays.
- Value for money: Super Proposal’s features come at a low cost of $19 per use per month, billed annually, but PandaDoc plans cost you way over this amount and they also charge extra for many add-ons.
Conclusion
PandaDoc is a solid proposal-making software with great features, but it comes with its limitations like a steep learning curve, restricted customization, integration issues, and performance issues. Many features are hidden behind additional costs.
The overall cost is less than ideal for businesses with a small budget. If you’re looking for a more affordable and user-friendly alternative, Super Proposal offers similar features at a better value.
Read more guides:
Pricing Pricing Plans: FAQs
What is PandaDoc?
PandaDoc is one of the best proposal-making software. It allows you to create, approve, track, and e-sign a proposal with ease.
Is PandaDoc free?
PandaDoc has a Free e-Sign Plan that allows 1 user to upload and sign 5 documents per month and collect payments. You need to buy one of its plans for access to more features.
Can I customize my proposals with PandaDoc?
Yes, PandaDoc allows you to customize your proposal templates but within limits. For instance, you can’t add your brand elements unless you have a Business or Enterprise Plan.
Do PandaDoc offer digital signatures?
Yes, all PandaDoc’s plans include a digital signature feature.
Does PandaDoc have a proposal app?
Yes, PandaDoc offers a mobile app for managing and signing documents.
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