ToroDocs
An e-signature platform we built, launched and now run ourselves, and why putting a signature on a PDF turned out to be the easy tenth of the job.
Visit ToroDocsAnyone can draw a signature. Proving it is the product.
From the outside, e-signature looks like a solved problem: show a document, capture a signature, send a PDF back. That part takes an afternoon. What a business is really paying for is what happens months later, when somebody asks whether the document in front of them is the one that was signed, and who signed it, and when.
In the United States the ESIGN Act and UETA make an electronic signature as binding as ink, but only when you can show the signer meant to sign, agreed to do it electronically, and that the record ties their signature to that exact document. A tool that cannot produce that record has sold its customers a drawing.
And every signer has to manage it without instructions, usually on a phone, often without an account, and without ever having heard of the product that sent it to them.
Where the engineering actually went
A document that can prove it is unchanged
Every completed document is sealed and fingerprinted, and anyone holding a copy can check it against the record. A signed PDF is only worth as much as the ability to show nobody touched it afterwards.
An audit trail that tells the whole story
Who was invited, when they opened the document, when they agreed to sign electronically and when they signed are recorded as they happen, and travel with the document in a certificate of completion.
Signing order that follows the real process
Some documents go to everyone at once; others must be signed by the client before a manager countersigns. Each signer is invited at the right moment, and reminders keep chasing so nobody has to.
Built for the signer who never signs up
The person signing is not our customer and will not read a help page. Signing works on any phone with no account, while the heavier work of preparing a document stays on a larger screen where it belongs.
An API other software can lean on
Other products send documents through ToroDocs automatically, so the API has to be predictable: scoped access, retries that can never send the same document twice, and notifications that keep trying until they are received.
Usage that is counted, not estimated
Plans include a monthly allowance and charge per document beyond it, so every send has to be counted exactly once and agree with what the payment provider billed.
What this proves, and what it does not
ToroDocs is live and run day to day by us: billing, support and the invitation emails that have to land in a signer’s inbox rather than their spam folder. As with anything we own, the launch was the start of the work, not the end of it.
What it means for a project of your own is not that we would build you an e-signature tool. It is that records which must stand up later, workflows where the order of the steps matters, and screens used by people who never asked to use them are problems we have already had to get right somewhere real.
If you are weighing up whether to build something, the most useful conversation we can have is about the parts that stay invisible until they get expensive. Tell us what you are considering and we will be straight with you about what it involves, including when the answer is that you should not build it.
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Tell us about your business and we will come back with a straight answer on what it needs, what it costs, and how long it takes.