signNow ROI: The economic impact of signNow’s eSignature solution for teams and businesses

Choosing the right electronic signature solution for your business can be challenging, especially with how saturated the eSignature market is. Whether you’re looking to introduce eSigning into your day-to-day processes or switch to an alternative eSignature solution — both are equally tough business decisions to make. And yet, the juice is worth the squeeze when it comes to the return on investment delivered by eSignature technology.

We surveyed our existing customers across different industries to assess the economic impact of signNow’s eSignature solution. Using the data collected, we’ve launched a signNow ROI calculator to help teams and businesses determine the estimated return on investment they stand to receive by adopting signNow.  

It only takes a few clicks to add your data to the signNow ROI calculator. Just keep in mind that this formula does not account for the amount of value-added work you’re able to get done after digitizing your routine business processes. When it comes to calculating the business value of an eSignature investment, the following three elements need to be considered:

• Cost savings (paper, ink, printing, delivery)
• Productivity benefits (document turnaround speed, work hours saved)
• Revenue increase (expected value of investment)

In this blog, we’ll explore the economic impact of signNow’s eSignature solution for teams and businesses. This analysis is based solely on the data received from our customers across a range of industries.

What percentage of documents get signed as time passes?

The speed of signature collection is one of the factors forcing businesses to transition to paperless signing. Research shows that eSignature and differences in the amount of time it takes to obtain signed documents is 37 minutes vs. 5 days. According to the surveyed data we collected from our customers, it takes 10 seconds and a minimum of 2 clicks to sign a single document in signNow. Hence, the percentage of documents signed within the first hour increases to 15%.

“Within 15-20 minutes we had the form out there… I like it because the automation with OneDrive makes it nice and easy to get the data back. I’m able to go on the website and quickly see how many [eSignatures] we have per month.”

— Jason Frame, 
Chief Information Officer at South Nevada Health District

Get paid faster

Many signNow customers sign while on the phone with sales reps or immediately afterward. This shortens the average time to sign from 6-14 days to minutes, reducing the payment cycle by a similar amount.

Close more deals

signNow lowers the amount of friction for a signer to close a transaction by making it simple for them to do so from anywhere, using any device. On average, signNow improves deal closing rates by more than 5%.

Maximize efficiency

Employees spend a lot of time handling documents – signNow gives them time back for more valuable work.

“The ability to just put a request in through signNow and have it come back, and if I need to set up reminders for that, it just makes it so much more efficient than the old wet-ink signature: printing it out, signing it, scanning it, and emailing it. It’s just so much more efficient, such a time saver.”

— John Treder,
IS Contracts and Software Assets Manager at Integra LifeSciences

signNow eliminates the need to use traditional signing methods, including the need to print, email, or fax documents, as well as being physically present to sign in pen and ink:

• Printing, attaching sticky notes, and mailing paper documents is expensive, slow, error-prone, and labor-intensive. With signNow, businesses used to the traditional way of handling paperwork can save up to 20 minutes. Not to mention savings on paper, ink, and delivery services.
  
• Businesses used to emailing or faxing documents for signing often face security issues — it’s difficult to track document changes and edits, as well as keep sensitive data safe. On top of that, emailing or faxing documents still implies extra work from signers — once the document is signed, it needs to be scanned and sent back. In this particular case, signNow allows for saving up to 10 minutes because it eliminates the need to scan and email documents. 

• The process of signing documents in person is typically slow, time-consuming, and can be difficult to schedule for all signers. With signNow, businesses can save between 30 minutes to 3 hours — no need to sign documents in person when you can do that on the go, using a mobile device.

Cut unnecessary costs

As of 2022, the average costs associated with physical paper are around 32 cents per document and $27 per document if sent elsewhere. The most common costs are to print, send, and store documents. The average cost per document page can reach $30, depending on the signing method. This does not include any of the costs associated with replacing documents, correcting errors, and other pitfalls in the signing process. These are the most costly aspects of any signing transaction.

“Using signNow, we feel the savings mostly in the time aspect. Reduction in labor hours previously spent on printing and scanning multiple documents during and after the patients’ visits is enormous! Also, we simply LOVE Kiosk Mode! It made our office life so much easier!”

— Alicia,
IT Project Manager at Zionsville Eyecare

Avoid costly errors

Documents are often signed incorrectly which can result in additional expenses. According to our customers, the average cost for having to review errors in a single physical document is $1.83. This may not seem like a lot until put into perspective — if you need to review 100 physical documents a day, the cost becomes $183.

Despite the fact that these expenses can never be completely eliminated, using an eSignature platform allows for saving a significant amount of time and money by editing online. Electronic editing can reduce the costs of review to as little as $0.17 per document. By digitizing their document workflows, businesses can save a daily minimum of $166 on revising alone.

“With signNow, there are fewer points of failure. We went from not getting it done right the first time about 20-30% of the time to pretty much always right the first time.”

— Lionel Gore,
Managing Director, Financial Firm

signNow dramatically reduces the risk of costly errors with its fillable fields – a very useful tool for collecting data. Users can send out documents that have Required fields, meaning that recipients cannot complete and eSign a document if they haven’t filled out certain parts of it.

There are also Smart fields that label sections of a document; indicating exactly what data has to be entered by a recipient. A detailed Audit Trail allows signNow users to track who signed a document and when. In the case of multiple signers, the same mechanism tracks every document operation and shows every entry.

Eliminate lost files

Physical documents can get lost or become hard to authenticate. signNow eliminates the stress and inefficiency of retrieving lost files.

Never lose a file again

For an average company, a staff member will spend up to 40 hours per year searching for lost documents. This is almost a full workweek. At the national average hourly wage of $27(Trading Economics, 2022), this is an actual lost cost of over $1,080 per employee per year.

This means that each lost document ultimately costs over 25 hours and $675 to recreate. Not only are lost documents one of the most painful experiences to deal with, but they are also extremely expensive. signNow makes it easy to find your documents electronically, in seconds.

Authenticate documents much more easily

People do not often consider how important it is to be able to prove whether someone signed a document until a costly event occurs. In one example, two owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers were disputing ownership of the team. Each owner had different signed and notarized versions of an ownership contract. Because it was done on paper, there was no way to determine which was valid. This confusion cost millions in a deal worth over $1B.

signNow makes it easy to prove exactly which version was signed.

signNow’s eSignature empowers you to save time, cut costs on paper, and deliver a seamless signing experience

signNow is designed to solve business problems and accelerate the rate at which you do business. Our global customer base has used signNow to save millions of staff hours and refocus that time on their core business objectives.

With signNow, you can:

• Reclaim up to 40 hours per year for value-added work

Save time searching for a contract signed years ago. Securely save, access, manage, and organize your documents online, from any desktop or mobile device.

• Collect signatures 24x faster

Reduce signature cycles from 2 days to 1 hour. It’s easy with reminders for signers, real-time tracking, role-based signing orders, and the ability to add signatures in seconds in-person or remotely.

• Save up to $30 per document

Printing, scanning, faxing, and delivering paper documents consumes a significant portion of your budget. Imagine being able to spend it on productivity apps with a long-term perspective instead.

• Reduce document errors by 90%

Spend less time preparing documents with reusable templates. Collect accurate information from signers using a predefined signing order, fillable fields with validation rules, and automated signing guidance.

• Improve customer satisfaction by 127%

Delight your clients with an innovative and intuitive method for collecting approvals. Your stakeholders no longer need to meet in person or complete time-intensive signature processes, making you easy to work with.

• Mitigate compliance risks (and save thousands of dollars in penalties)

signNow helps businesses deliver, update, and save documents in accordance with global compliance regulations like HIPAA, GDPR, 21 CFR Part 11, and SOC 2 Type II. Plus, every agreement you send with signNow is backed with a court-admissible Audit Trail.