The best e-signature app for property managers: residents, owners and vendors
A property manager's signatures come from three directions. Residents sign applications, leases, addenda and renewals. Owners sign the management agreement. Vendors sign service contracts and owe you a certificate of insurance. Property management software handles the resident side well, sometimes for a fee per document; owners and vendors are where a separate signing app earns its keep. We compared five options from each company's own pages as of November 2026. SignMaster is ours, and it doesn't keep a rent ledger.
Updated November 9, 2026 · 4 min read
On this page
Three kinds of signer
- Residents: rental applications, a lease signed by every adult in the unit, pet and parking addenda, renewals in batches, and move-in and move-out condition reports.
- Owners: the property management agreement, fee changes, approval for repairs over the spending limit, and the termination notice if it comes to that.
- Vendors: service agreements with landscapers, cleaners and plumbers, and a current certificate of insurance before anyone gets keys.
How they compare
| App | Pricing | E-signatures | Best at |
|---|---|---|---|
| SignMaster | Free for 3 envelopes a month; Crew $49 a month for 5 people | Unlimited on paid plans, any document | Owner and vendor paperwork, and leases if you don't use PM software |
| AppFolio | Core from $1.49 per unit a month; 50-unit minimum and a minimum spend | Lease and renewal offers e-signed on any mobile device | Large portfolios that want leasing, accounting and maintenance in one system |
| Buildium | Essential from $65 a month, Growth from $202, Premium from $420 | $5 per document on Essential, $1 on Growth, unlimited on Premium | Mid-size managers who want accounting with leasing |
| DoorLoop | From $2.50 per unit a month; minimums apply | Unlimited eSignatures and templates | Managers who want signing inside the per-unit price |
| DocuSign | Standard $30 per user a month, annual plan billed monthly | 100 envelopes per user a year; bulk send on Business Pro | Commercial leases where the other side already uses it |
The five options
AppFolio: one system for a large portfolio
AppFolio is priced per unit: Core from $1.49 a unit a month, Plus from $3.20 and Max from $5.00, with a 50-unit minimum on Core and a minimum spend on every plan. Its leasing page says you can create branded lease or renewal offers and have an applicant e-sign on the spot on any mobile device, set a default renewal offer that updates dates and rent automatically, and send renewals to a large group of residents at once. Its pricing and leasing pages talk about resident documents; they don't describe signing owner or vendor contracts.
Buildium: watch the per-document fee
Buildium prices e-signatures by plan: $5 per document on Essential (from $65 a month), $1 per document on Growth (from $202) and unlimited on Premium (from $420). Growth and Premium require Buildium's onboarding service. The platform covers accounting, an owners portal, work orders and tenant screening at $17 a screening. If you sign a few hundred leases and renewals a year, compare Essential's fee against the cost of moving up a plan.
DoorLoop: signing included in the unit price
DoorLoop lists unlimited eSignatures and templates, online rental applications, owner and tenant portals and maintenance tracking. DoorLoop One starts at $2.50 a unit a month, and as low as $1.50 a unit above 100 units, with a minimum spend, and its page says the platform is the same on all three plans. With no per-document charge listed, it's the easiest of the three platforms here to budget for signing.
DocuSign: when the other side brings it
A commercial tenant's attorney, an institutional owner or a lender may insist on DocuSign. Standard is $30 per user a month on an annual plan billed monthly, with in-person signing and 100 envelopes per user a year. Business Pro at $45 adds bulk send, signer attachments and web forms. It's a signing tool only, so lease details are typed in or synced from your property software through an integration.
SignMaster: the owner and vendor side
SignMaster isn't property management software: no rent, ledger or listings. It handles signatures that sit outside the resident workflow. A property management agreement goes to each owner with their fee and spending limit filled in. Vendor agreements can include a file upload field, so the vendor attaches a current certificate of insurance as they sign. The move-in report gets signed in person on your phone in the empty unit. A manager without PM software can run leases and bulk-sent renewals through it as well.
Which one fits
- Hundreds of units and one system for everything: AppFolio.
- Accounting and leasing together at moderate volume: Buildium, after checking whether Growth's $1 a document or Premium's unlimited signing costs less for you.
- E-signatures with no per-document fee: DoorLoop.
- Commercial leases where counsel insists on DocuSign: DocuSign.
- Your PM software covers residents and you need owners and vendors signed: SignMaster, next to it.
Onboarding a vendor in SignMaster
- 1
Build one vendor packet
Put the service agreement and your insurance requirements in one template, with fields for the vendor's company, rates and license number.
- 2
Ask for the certificate as they sign
Add a file upload field for the certificate of insurance, so it arrives with the signature instead of three emails later. See collect files from signers.
- 3
Keep the list in one table
On paid plans, the Responses table shows every vendor's answers to the template in one place, with CSV export for your compliance tracker.
Questions? Answers.
Can a lease with several tenants and a guarantor be e-signed?
Yes, in all five. Each adult gets their own link and signs their own fields. See how to get a lease signed by multiple tenants.
Which of these charges per signed document?
Buildium, on Essential ($5 a document) and Growth ($1). AppFolio's and DoorLoop's pages list no per-signature fee, DocuSign counts envelopes against an allowance, and SignMaster's paid plans have unlimited envelopes.
Is an e-signed lease enforceable?
In the US, generally yes: federal and state e-signature laws treat it like a paper lease, with exceptions for some notices. See are electronic signatures legal.
How current is this comparison?
We read each company's pricing and product pages in November 2026 and used US list prices. AppFolio and DoorLoop add minimums they don't publish, so get a quote for your unit count.
Sources
- AppFolio pricing · appfolio.com
- AppFolio marketing and leasing · appfolio.com
- Buildium pricing · buildium.com
- DoorLoop pricing · doorloop.com
- DocuSign eSignature pricing · ecom.docusign.com