Get a PDF signed — properly.
Create a free account, upload the PDF, and drop signature, date and text fields onto the pages where they belong. Then sign it yourself, or send each signer their own link. Everyone ends up with the same sealed copy and a Certificate of Completion.
Free account — no credit card No watermark on the signed file
Upload, place, sign
Upload the PDF
Sign up free with just your email, start a signature request and upload your PDF — PDF only, up to 4 MB. Every page is rendered in the builder so you work on the real document.
Drop fields where they belong
Drag signature, initials, date, name, email, text and checkbox fields onto the pages, assign each one to the person who must fill it, and mark what's required.
Sign it, or send it
Sign in your browser, or send every signer their own link. When the last signature lands, tuyaform seals the PDF and issues the Certificate of Completion.
What happens to the PDF you upload
Uploads are PDF only, up to 4 MB. That ceiling isn't arbitrary: the file is posted through our server, and the platform we run on caps a single request at roughly 4.5 MB, so 4 MB is the number we can promise honestly. Contracts, leases and reasonably compressed scans sit well under it; if yours doesn't, re-exporting the PDF at a lower image quality usually gets you there.
Once it lands, the file is stored in a private area that belongs to your account — reachable only through short-lived signed links, never a public URL — and the page count is read from it on the server so the builder knows how many pages to lay out. There's no page limit; a thirty-page agreement is as welcome as a one-page release.
Your original is never rewritten. When signing finishes, tuyaform fills a copy of it and seals that copy, which is why the finished file looks exactly like your document rather than a re-typed imitation of it. While the request is still a draft you can replace the source with a corrected version; once it has been sent, the file is frozen so nobody can swap the document out from under a signature.
- PDF only, up to 4 MB — no page limit
- Stored privately; served through signed links, never a public URL
- Your original is preserved — the sealed copy is generated from it
- Replaceable while it's a draft, frozen once it's sent
Placing fields on the page, not in a form
The difference between a signed PDF and a scanned mess is where the marks land. In the builder you drag a field out of the palette and drop it onto the rendered page, exactly over the printed line — page three, the second signature block, the little date box beside it. What the signer opens is the same page with the same field in the same place, on a phone as much as on a laptop.
Seven field types cover a signature request. Each one can be marked required, and each can carry a short placeholder or a line of instructions, so nobody has to guess what you meant by a blank box.
- Signature — drawn, typed or uploaded by the signer
- Initials — for per-page acknowledgements
- Date signed — filled in automatically at signing
- Full name — the signer's printed name
- Email — the address on record for that signer
- Text — any short answer you need typed in
- Checkbox — agreement and consent lines
Fields are assigned per signer, and every signer gets their own color on the canvas, so a two-party contract stops being a guessing game about which block belongs to whom. tuyaform won't let you send until every required field has an owner and every signer has something to do — that check exists because the most common way a signature request stalls is a field nobody was asked to fill.
Signing it yourself, or sending it to someone else
If you're the only signer, add yourself, place your fields and sign in the browser. Nothing is emailed, nothing is metered, and there's no cap on how many documents you handle this way — self-serve signing and sharing by link are free forever, which is precisely the part most competitors put behind a monthly plan.
When somebody else has to sign, each signer gets their own link, tied to them alone. You decide whether they sign in order — useful when a manager approves before the client ever sees the document — or all at once. You can require a per-signer access code that you share through some other channel, nudge a quiet signer with a reminder, and follow who has opened the document and who has actually signed.
Emailed invitations are the only metered part, because each email costs real money to deliver. The free plan includes 30 emailed sends a month; Starter is $8/month for 3,000 and Growth $19/month for 10,000, with non-expiring credit packs at $5 for 1,000 sends or $15 for 5,000. Paid plans also drop the small tuyaform credit from your signing pages. They don't remove ads — ads are what keep the free tier free.
Every signature arrives with a record
Signing your own PDF is free and unlimited. The moment another party is involved, what matters is not the mark but the evidence around it — who opened the link, when, from where, and whether the document changed afterwards.
- Add multiple signers and set the order they sign in
- Give each signer a unique link, plus an optional access code
- Track views and signatures as they happen
- Receive a sealed, tamper-evident PDF and a certificate
What you actually get back
When the last signer finishes, the document is sealed. tuyaform fills your original PDF with everything the signers placed, computes a SHA-256 hash of the finished file, and cryptographically signs that hash so the fingerprint itself can be verified later. Change a single byte of the sealed PDF afterwards and the hash no longer matches — that is what tamper-evident means in practice.
Alongside it comes the Certificate of Completion, a separate PDF that is the evidence file. It lists every signer with their email address, how they were authenticated, when they first viewed the document, when they signed, the IP address they signed from and the device their browser reported. Under that sits the audit trail — created, sent, viewed, signed, completed, sealed, plus any reminders or declines — each entry stamped in UTC. At the foot of the page is the document hash, so the certificate and the document can always be checked against each other.
Both files are yours to download, and everyone who signed receives the completed copy by email. The signed PDF carries no watermark and no tuyaform branding on any plan, free included. (Free accounts do show a small “Secured by tuyaform” line on the signing page itself; any paid plan removes it.)
Fill-and-sign, or a full signature request?
Fill-and-sign is the quick job: a PDF that needs your details and your mark before you send it back — a tax form, an onboarding sheet, a permission slip. Upload it, place your own fields, sign, download. It takes a couple of minutes and nobody else is involved, so nothing gets emailed and nothing counts against an allowance.
A signature request is the other job. The document has a counterparty and the record is the point: you add signers, choose the order, optionally set access codes, and what comes back carries the audit trail and Certificate of Completion that still mean something months later, when someone asks whether the thing was really signed and when. Same upload, same visual placement — a different level of proof.
Signing a PDF — answered
Do I need an account to sign a PDF here?
To upload and sign your own PDF, yes — a free account, created with just your email and no credit card. You don't need one when somebody sends you a tuyaform document: you sign straight in the browser. And the pad on this page needs no account either, but it only makes a signature image, not a signed PDF.
How large can the PDF be, and which formats work?
PDF only, up to 4 MB per document. There's no limit on pages inside that — a thirty-page lease that compresses well is fine, while a six-page scan of photographs may not be. If a file is rejected for size, re-export it at a lower image quality and try again.
Does the other person need an account to sign?
No. Signers never create an account. They open the link you sent, see the same pages you placed fields on, fill in what's theirs and sign in the browser — phone, tablet or desktop. If you set an access code, they enter that first.
Will the signed PDF have a watermark?
No. The sealed PDF carries no watermark and no tuyaform badge on any plan, free included. The only branding anywhere is a small “Secured by tuyaform” line on the signing page, which any paid plan removes.
Is a PDF signed this way legally binding?
Electronic signatures are recognised under the ESIGN Act and UETA in the U.S. and eIDAS in the EU, and a signature made here is a simple electronic signature under those frameworks. Whether a particular document holds up depends on the document, the parties and your jurisdiction — some categories, such as wills and certain family-law papers, are excluded. What tuyaform contributes is the evidence: intent, attribution, timestamps and a tamper-evident seal.
Can I change the document after sending it?
No, and that's deliberate. Once a request is sent the source file and its fields are frozen, so nobody — including you — can alter what a signer already agreed to. If something is wrong, void the request and send a corrected one.
Upload your PDF and sign it — free.
Create a free account, place your fields on the pages, then sign or send. Sealed PDF, audit trail and Certificate of Completion included on every plan.