Written and maintained by CASRAI Editorial Board
Last updated
The short answer: PandaDoc’s free trial is 14 days of full Business-tier access, and PandaDoc’s own trial materials state no credit card is required to start it. That trial is not the same thing as a permanent free plan — PandaDoc also runs a separate, indefinite free eSign-only tier that stays free forever but strips out the generation/template features the trial is built to show off. Whether you need to pay anything once the 14 days end depends entirely on which of those two products you were actually trying out.
Tip: try code CASRAI at checkout for 15% off, if the offer is currently active for this program — codes vary by vendor and aren’t guaranteed.
This page covers what the trial actually includes, what happens the moment it ends, and — because a large share of the people searching this exact phrase are evaluating PandaDoc for signature routing rather than document generation — where Sign.Plus is the honestly cheaper tool for that narrower job. We also cover the case where it isn’t: PandaDoc genuinely wins for offices building documents from templates, and we say so plainly rather than steering around it.
PandaDoc free trial length
14 days. Per PandaDoc’s own trial-guide page, the trial gives full access to Business-plan features for that period — document creation, sending, tracking, legally binding e-signatures, and your key integrations — capped at roughly 50 documents sent during the trial window. Two things are explicitly excluded from the trial even though they exist on the paid Business plan: hyperlinks inside sent documents, and bulk send. If your evaluation depends on either of those, budget for the paid tier before you judge the product on the trial alone.
PandaDoc trial credit card requirement
No card is required to start the 14-day trial, per PandaDoc’s own published trial materials (checked August 2026). That is worth confirming for yourself at signup, since trial terms are the kind of detail vendors change without much notice — but as of this writing PandaDoc frames the trial as no-card, evaluate-first, and states plainly that you are only billed if you actively choose to continue on a paid plan afterward.
What happens after the PandaDoc trial ends
Nothing is charged automatically. PandaDoc’s own position is that you pay only if you decide to keep using it — there is no silent auto-conversion to a paid card charge the way some SaaS trials work. What PandaDoc does not publish is a granular breakdown of exactly what stays visible or exportable in your account once the 14 days lapse and you haven’t added a payment method. If you’re mid-workflow on documents that matter — a signed subaward, a live proposal — do not let the trial clock run out before you either commit to a paid seat or export everything you need. Confirm current retention behavior in your own account dashboard or directly with PandaDoc support before day 14, rather than assuming.
For the fuller cost picture once you’re past the trial question — what each paid tier actually costs at 5 and 50 users, and where the per-seat math stops making sense for a research or grants office — see our PandaDoc pricing guide, which breaks down the paid tiers in detail.
PandaDoc trial vs. the Sign.Plus alternative
The table below is for one specific decision: you’ve run the trial (or you’re about to), you’ve confirmed you only need signature routing rather than document generation, and you want to know what the cheaper, narrower tool actually costs. Sign.Plus pricing verified from the vendor’s own pricing page, August 2026.
| Dimension | PandaDoc | Sign.Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Free trial length | 14 days (Business-tier features) | No time-limited trial — a permanent free tier instead |
| Credit card required to start | No, per PandaDoc’s own trial materials | No |
| What the free trial/tier actually includes | Full Business feature set, capped ~50 documents sent; no hyperlinks-in-documents or bulk send | 3 signature requests total (not monthly), 1 template — permanent, not time-boxed |
| What happens when it ends | No auto-charge; you choose a paid plan or lose access to generation/template features | Nothing “ends” — the free tier stays free indefinitely, just capped |
| Cheapest paid seat | REPORTED ~$19+/user/mo (vendor pricing page rate-limited our checks, Aug 2026) | $14.99/mo, or $9.99/mo billed annually |
| Unlimited signature requests | Bundled into a higher generation-focused tier, not sold standalone | Professional: $29.99/mo, or $19.99/mo billed annually |
| HIPAA support + signed BAA | Reported enterprise-only; not independently vendor-confirmed at time of writing | Enterprise only: $79.99/mo, or $49.99/mo billed annually |
| API access | Enterprise tier only, custom quote (reported, not vendor-confirmed) | Not the focus of this comparison — evaluate separately if needed |
| Best fit | Teams generating proposals, quotes, or award letters from templates | Teams whose real need is routing an already-finished document for signature |
Where PandaDoc genuinely wins
We’d be overselling Sign.Plus if we stopped at the table above. PandaDoc genuinely wins for offices that need templated document generation, not just signing — a grants office building award-letter workflows from reusable blocks with merge fields and approval routing, a sponsored-programs team assembling subaward packets, anyone quoting or proposing on a repeatable structure. That is the job PandaDoc’s per-seat price is actually paying for, and its trial is specifically designed to demonstrate it. Sign.Plus does not compete on that broader use case at all — it is a signature tool, not a document-assembly platform, and it doesn’t pretend otherwise. If your real workflow is “build the document,” stay on PandaDoc and use the trial to test generation, not signing. If your real workflow is “sign the document someone else already built,” the trial is telling you almost nothing useful, and that’s exactly the case Sign.Plus is priced for.
PandaDoc API pricing
Treat any specific PandaDoc API price you see quoted online with caution. PandaDoc’s own pricing page returned an automated rate-limit response (HTTP 429) to repeated fetch attempts in our August 2026 research for this page, so we could not independently confirm current figures directly from the vendor at time of writing. What’s consistently reported across third-party pricing aggregators: API access is bundled only with PandaDoc’s top-tier Enterprise plan, sold via custom quote rather than a published self-serve price, and per-document API usage is metered separately from seat-based document sends. Specific per-document dollar figures circulating on aggregator sites vary from source to source and are not vendor-confirmed — if API pricing is a real requirement for your evaluation, get a written quote from PandaDoc directly rather than budgeting off a third-party number.
Frequently asked questions
How long is the PandaDoc free trial?
14 days, with full access to PandaDoc’s Business-tier features, capped at roughly 50 documents sent during that window.
Does PandaDoc’s free trial require a credit card?
No, per PandaDoc’s own trial materials — you can start the 14-day trial without entering payment details, and PandaDoc states you’re only billed if you choose to continue on a paid plan afterward.
What happens after the PandaDoc trial ends?
Nothing charges automatically. You either pick a paid plan to keep the Business-tier features (document generation, templates, bulk send), or your account reverts toward PandaDoc’s separate, permanently free eSign-only tier. PandaDoc doesn’t publish granular detail on exactly what stays accessible once the trial lapses — export anything time-sensitive before day 14, or confirm current behavior directly with PandaDoc.
Is the PandaDoc free trial the same as its free plan?
No. The 14-day trial demonstrates the paid Business tier’s document-generation features. PandaDoc also runs a separate, indefinite free eSign-only tier for basic signature routing — it doesn’t expire, but it also doesn’t include the templates, merge fields, or approval workflows the trial is built to showcase.
Does PandaDoc charge for API access separately?
Reportedly yes — third-party pricing aggregators consistently place API access on PandaDoc’s top Enterprise tier only, sold via custom quote rather than a published self-serve price. PandaDoc’s own pricing page rate-limited our automated checks in August 2026, so treat any specific per-document API figure you see elsewhere as unverified until PandaDoc confirms it directly.
If I only need e-signatures, is PandaDoc’s trial worth running?
It tells you less than it looks like it does. The trial is built to showcase document generation — templates, merge fields, quoting — not pure signing, which is the cheapest, least differentiated part of the product. If signing is genuinely all you need, a signature-only tool like Sign.Plus (from $14.99/mo) answers the real question faster than a 14-day trial of a broader platform will.
Still deciding between the two tools for a research, grants, or clinical-operations office specifically? Compare the fuller field in our SignNow vs DocuSign comparison and our HIPAA-compliant eSignature guide if a signed BAA is a requirement rather than a nice-to-have — on both PandaDoc and Sign.Plus, BAA coverage sits on the top paid tier only, not the tier the free trial or free plan puts you on.
