Key Takeaway
- Who it’s for Small to mid-sized business owners, sales teams, and HR departments who send proposals, contracts, or employment documents regularly and need a professional, trackable process.
- Main result Replaced a chaotic email-print-sign-scan loop across multiple businesses. Proposals and contracts now go out in minutes, signed documents are stored properly, and clients take the process more seriously.
- Biggest strength Templates. Once you build them out, sending a fully branded, professional proposal takes minutes not hours.
- Biggest limitation Not suitable if your clients or industry require “wet ink” (handwritten) signatures due to compliance or regulation. PandaDoc is electronic only.
- Time saving High
- Best alternative DocuSign if you only need signing. Dropbox Sign if you want something simpler and cheaper.
- Rated #1 in proposals, eSignature, and contract management by G2 (as of early 2026).
Quick Verdict
Before PandaDoc, getting a client to sign something involved an email chain, a PDF attachment, a printer somewhere on their end, a pen, a scanner or camera, and then another email back. It was slow, it looked unprofessional, and things got lost. I’ve been running multiple businesses under the Carden group for years, and that process was holding us back.
PandaDoc changed that entirely. I use it to send client proposals across several of my businesses, get contracts signed, and handle internal HR documents including employment contracts and staff handbooks. The whole thing is electronic, tracked, stored, and completed in a fraction of the time.
It is not the cheapest tool on the market. And if your sector requires wet ink signatures for compliance reasons, this is not for you. But for the vast majority of business owners who just need a slicker, more professional way to get things signed and stored — PandaDoc does exactly what it promises.
What PandaDoc actually is (in plain English)
PandaDoc is document management software that lets you create, send, sign, and store business documents electronically.
It is not just an e-signature tool. That is worth saying clearly because a lot of people come to it expecting something like Adobe Sign or DocuSign — tools that let you upload a PDF and collect a signature. PandaDoc does that, but it also lets you build documents from scratch using drag-and-drop templates, track whether recipients have opened or read them, collect payment on the same document, and store everything in one searchable place.
The core use case is proposals and contracts. A client needs a proposal? You pull up a template, fill in the relevant details, send it with a link, and they can sign it on any device. You get a notification when they open it, when they sign it, and a full audit trail is automatically generated.
For anyone running multiple businesses, or managing a team that sends a lot of documents, the time savings are significant. Building a template once means every future document takes minutes, not an hour of formatting and PDF-ing.
Why I use it, and where it fits in my week
The old process was an embarrassment for a business that presents itself as professional. PandaDoc fixed that almost immediately.
Before I moved to PandaDoc, every contract or proposal involved the same painful routine. I’d put a document together in Word or a PDF, email it, and then wait. The client would need to print it, find a pen, sign it, scan it or photograph it, and send it back. Sometimes that took days. Sometimes they’d send a blurry photo. Sometimes they’d email back saying they’d “sort it soon” and it never happened.
Now, across Carden IT Services and the wider group, the process is: open PandaDoc, pull the relevant template, update a few fields, send. The client gets a clean branded document with a big obvious “Sign Here” button. Most sign it within the hour.
I also use it for internal HR documents — employment contracts, staff handbooks, onboarding paperwork. Same principle. Everything is signed, stored, and searchable. No more rifling through email threads to find whether someone signed their contract.
The result: what used to take 30–60 minutes per document now takes under 10. And the documents look dramatically better.
Features and benefits (from basic to advanced)
PandaDoc is built around the full document lifecycle — not just the moment of signing.
| Feature | Benefit | Best use case | Time saving | Setup difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free eSign plan | Test the platform before committing — no card needed | Freelancers, sole traders, very low volume | Low | Low |
| Electronic signatures | Legally binding signatures on any device, no printing required | Any business sending contracts or proposals | High | Low |
| Document templates | Build once, reuse every time — consistent, branded output | Sales proposals, employment contracts, client agreements | High | Medium |
| Drag-and-drop editor | Create professional documents without design skills or outside help | Any team without a dedicated designer | Medium | Low |
| Document tracking & notifications | Know exactly when a document is opened, read, and signed | Sales follow-up, contract chasing | Medium | Low |
| Audit trail | Full timestamped history of every action on every document | Compliance, dispute resolution, HR records | Low | Low |
| Document storage | All signed documents stored and searchable in one place | Businesses with high document volume or multiple staff | Medium | Low |
| Multi-party signing | Assign signing order — document only moves when each party signs | Partnership agreements, multi-signatory contracts | Medium | Medium |
| Approval workflows | Documents go through internal sign-off before reaching the client | Teams where a manager needs to approve before sending | Medium | Medium |
| CRM integrations (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive) | Pull client data directly into documents — no manual re-entry | Sales teams with an active CRM | High | Medium |
| Payment collection (Stripe, PayPal) | Client can pay at the moment of signing — no separate invoice step | Service businesses, retainer agreements | High | Medium |
| CPQ (Configure Price Quote) for HubSpot | Generate accurate, dynamic quotes directly inside HubSpot | Sales teams with complex or configurable pricing | High | High |
The benefits that actually matter
Templates turned a 45-minute job into a 5-minute one
The situation
Across the Carden businesses, we send proposals to prospective clients regularly. IT services, telecoms, digital marketing — each one needs a tailored document that looks professional and reflects the company’s brand.
The friction
Every proposal used to start as a Word document or a copied-from-last-time PDF. Reformatting alone would eat 20 minutes. Forgetting to change a client name from the previous proposal was a constant risk. It looked amateur and it wasted hours each month.
What I did
I built one master proposal template per business inside PandaDoc. Standard sections, correct branding, dynamic fields for client name, company, and pricing. Once the template is right, it is right for every future send.
The result
A proposal that used to take 30–45 minutes now takes under 10. The documents look consistent and professional every time. Client errors (wrong names, wrong pricing format) dropped to zero.
Feature that made it happen: Document Templates + Drag-and-drop editor. The template stores the structure and branding permanently. Dynamic fields handle the personalisation without reformatting from scratch each time.
Caveat: Initial template setup does take time. If you run multiple businesses with different branding, you’re building multiple templates. Worth it, but budget a proper setup session per business.
Clients actually sign things now — and they do it quickly
The situation
Getting a signed contract back used to be the bottleneck at the start of any new client relationship. Work was sometimes starting before the paperwork was done simply because chasing it was exhausting.
The friction
Printing and scanning is a barrier. Clients would say they’d do it “later,” and later sometimes meant never. Chasing up felt unprofessional. Some deals slipped through the cracks entirely.
What I did
PandaDoc sends the document as a simple link. The client clicks it, sees a clean, well-presented document, and signs it with a click on any device — phone, tablet, laptop. No printing. No scanning. No accounts required on their end.
The result
The average time to signature dropped significantly. Most clients sign within the hour of receiving the link, rather than days later. I also receive a notification the moment they open the document, so I know when it’s the right moment to follow up if needed.
Feature that made it happen: Electronic signatures + Document tracking. Recipients can sign instantly on any device. The real-time open notification means follow-up is timely rather than pestering.
Caveat: Occasionally, PandaDoc’s outbound emails land in a client’s spam folder. Worth mentioning to clients to check junk if they don’t receive the link within a few minutes.
