Legalesign

Legalesign Limited was incorporated on 28 May 2012, is registered in Glasgow as SC425013 and works from the St John's Innovation Centre in Cambridge. Its persons-with-significant-control register lists three individuals each holding between 25% and 50%: no corporate parent and no private equity, which in a category currently being consolidated is a genuine distinction rather than a marketing line.

It is also the cheapest and the most flexible on price. Pay as you go costs £1.50 per document sent with nothing to subscribe to, and it is the only tool here billed purely on what you send.

Otherwise Solo Basic is £10 a month, Solo Pro £25, and Team £15 per user per month for two to five users, all excluding VAT, with five or more seats and Enterprise quoted. A fourteen-day trial asks for no card. Legalesign has held ISO 27001 since 2016 and Cyber Essentials Plus.

The reason it sits last here is jurisdiction and infrastructure, the two things this directory weighs first.

The United Kingdom is outside the EEA and covered by an adequacy decision rather than intra-EEA processing, so a buyer with a hard EU-establishment rule stops at that line.

And Legalesign runs on Amazon Web Services, an American provider, without naming a region — while its claim that all data is stored and processed in the UK appears on a marketing comparison page rather than in the privacy policy or the data processing agreement, which is the wrong document for a commitment of that kind. QES, when needed, is issued by Digidentity rather than by Legalesign.

What Legalesign does well

• Pay as you go at £1.50 per document sent, with no subscription
• Owned by three individuals, with no corporate parent or private equity on the PSC register
• ISO 27001 since 2016 and Cyber Essentials Plus
• Published prices from £10/month, the cheapest entry point here
• Fourteen-day trial without a credit card
• Incorporated in 2012, working from Cambridge

Where Legalesign falls short

• UK jurisdiction: outside the EEA, under an adequacy decision
• Runs on Amazon Web Services, a US provider, with no region named
• The UK-only storage claim sits on a comparison page, not in the privacy policy or DPA
• QES is issued by Digidentity rather than by Legalesign
• Prices in pounds, and five-plus-seat pricing is on request

Standout feature. £1.50 a document with nothing to subscribe to — the only tool here that bills purely on what you send.