The electronic signature API for your product.
20 endpoints and 33 operations for sending documents for signature, tracking them to completion, and pulling back the audit trail. Every completed document carries an AATL-backed seal — the same one the dashboard produces.
Signing, as an endpoint.
The whole lifecycle is addressable — not just the send. What comes back is what you need to prove the thing happened.
Send an envelope in one call
POST /envelopes/send takes the document, the recipients and the field layout, and returns the envelope id you track it by. The signer gets a link; they need no account and no app.
Place fields programmatically
Signature, initials, date, text and checkbox fields are set through the API rather than dragged in a UI, so a document assembled by your code arrives ready to sign.
Reusable templates
Store the layout once and send against it. Field positions travel with the template, so your code sends a payload rather than a page design.
Webhooks on state change
Delivered, viewed, signed, completed, declined and voided. You react to the event instead of polling for it — though the status endpoint is there when a reconciliation job needs it.
The audit trail is part of the API
The certificate of completion and the full event log — signer identity, UTC timestamps, IP, device, authentication method — come back through the API, not only through the dashboard. That is the artefact that matters if an agreement is ever challenged.
Test and live keys
Keys are prefixed ps_test_ and ps_live_, so a staging environment cannot accidentally send a real signature request to a real customer.
Metered by what you send, not who sends it.
An integration is one sender making many requests. On a per-seat platform that is the cheapest possible account making the most expensive possible use of it, and the allowance that matters is usually attached to the seat. PearSign’s allowance belongs to the account: 10 envelopes a month free, 250 on Starter at $15, 1,000 on Professional at $39 — with API access and webhooks from Starter up, rather than behind a sales call.
Before committing to any e-signature API, two questions are worth asking of every vendor: what the send after your allowance costs, and whether automated sends are metered differently from human ones. The answers vary far more than the sticker prices do, and they are rarely on the pricing page. The platform comparisons work through each one with the vendor’s own figures.
Before you build.
Is there an API for electronic signatures on PearSign?
Yes. PearSign publishes a REST API at /api/v1 with 20 endpoints and 33 operations covering envelopes, documents, templates, fields, audit logs and key management. The full OpenAPI specification is served at /api/v1/openapi.json and rendered at /docs, so it can be checked or imported directly rather than taken on trust.
Which plan includes API access?
API access and webhooks start on Starter at $15 a month. They are not reserved for an enterprise contract and not sold as a separate add-on. The free plan (10 envelopes a month, no card) is for signing through the app; building against the API means a paid plan, and $15 is where it begins.
How do I authenticate?
Two ways, for two different situations. A bearer API key in the form ps_live_xxx.secret authenticates your own server. OAuth 2.1 with PKCE authenticates a third-party application acting for a PearSign user, with scopes for reading envelopes, creating them, reading templates and reading the audit log — so an integration asks for only what it needs.
Are documents sent through the API legally binding?
They carry the same evidence as documents sent through the dashboard: an AATL-backed digital certificate, a SHA-256 hash of the completed file, and a certificate of completion recording the signing events. Nothing about the sending method changes the standing of the signature under ESIGN, UETA or eIDAS — the conditions those regimes attach are about intent, consent, attribution and retention, all of which the API captures.
What are the rate limits?
Requests are limited per API key over a rolling 60-second window, and every response carries the limit, the remaining allowance and the reset time in standard RateLimit and X-RateLimit headers. A limited request returns 429 with the same headers, so a client can back off precisely instead of guessing.
Do envelopes sent by the API count against my plan?
Yes — an envelope is an envelope however it was sent, and the monthly allowance is per account rather than per user. That is the part worth comparing: platforms that meter per seat make an automated integration expensive in a way that has nothing to do with how much you actually send. PearSign's allowance is stated on the pricing page and does not change because the sender is a script.