Documentation
How everything in Docracy actually works, in one place.
Sending a document (free)
Go to Prepare a document, upload a PDF, add signers in the order they should sign, and place fields for each one — signature, initials, text, date, checkbox, or dropdown. Free accounts support chains of up to 2 signers, no login required. You can also add up to 2 CC viewers, decline or cancel a pending document, and optionally text signing links to US mobile numbers (see below). Once you send it, the first signer gets an email with a link — no account needed on their end either. Each signer gets their turn automatically; the document (and all its data) is deleted 9 days after creation, or as soon as everyone's signed and the final copy has gone out by email — whichever comes first.
Have a Google Doc instead of a PDF? Paste its link on the same screen — free, no account needed — as long as it's shared as "Anyone with the link can view." Word documents aren't supported directly; export to PDF first (File → Download → PDF), then upload that.
Field types
- Signature / initials — drawn in the browser; email and date are stamped automatically.
- Text / date — single-line text or a date picker.
- Checkbox — required or optional.
- Dropdown — you define the options when placing the field; the chosen value is burned into the PDF.
SMS signing links (free, US)
On Prepare, check Also text signing links and add each signer's US mobile number plus carrier (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, or US Cellular). Docracy sends the link through your carrier's email-to-SMS gateway using the same Resend email stack — no separate SMS vendor or per-text fee. Delivery isn't guaranteed (some carriers block automated gateway mail). US numbers only — signers outside the United States receive email invites instead; there is no international SMS option today.
Signer attachments (paid)
When preparing a document on a paid account, enable Require signers to upload attachment(s). Each signer must upload at least one PDF or image before they can complete signing. Preparers download uploads from the document status page or Dashboard → Documents → Files.
Free templates
642 ready-to-use templates — NDAs, offer letters, freelance agreements, leases, and more — with fields already placed. Pick one, fill in the bracketed details, and send it the same way as an uploaded PDF.
Paid account ($10/month)
Signing stays free. A free account lists sends on the dashboard until the 9-day TTL deletes the PDF — it does not keep the file. Paid ($10/month) keeps signed PDFs until the next April 15 or 13 months, lets you attach your own PayPal/Stripe/Mercado Pago link after they sign (no Docracy cut), WhatsApp cobro without a signature, a 1099-season CSV for your CPA, plus unlimited signers, reusable templates, PIN-protected links, team accounts, white-label branding, webhooks, MCP/Zapier, AI tools, Dropbox/OneDrive/Box/Google Drive auto-upload, and the workflow features below. The US and LATAM contractor kits are free to start. Full comparison on Pricing.
Get paid after they sign (paid)
On a paid account, prepare can attach your own https checkout — PayPal.me, Stripe Payment Link, Mercado Pago, or similar — plus an amount and currency. After everyone has signed, the signer sees a pay button, completion email includes it, and if you sent the invite over WhatsApp they get the signed+pay page on WhatsApp too. Docracy never takes that money; the $10/month plan is how we get paid, not a percentage of yours.
Shareable signed + pay page
Every document has a /signed/… (Spanish: /es/firmado/…) URL that outlives the signing tab. Anyone with the link can download the completed PDF and open the sender's checkout. It lasts as long as the archive (9 days on Free, tax-year vault on Paid). Copy it from the status page, dashboard, or the sent confirmation. If you invited over WhatsApp, they get this page on WhatsApp again after everyone signs.
US contractor kit (free)
Three existing free templates sent one PDF at a time: mutual NDA, IRS W-9, then independent contractor agreement. Open /packets/us-contractor (Spanish: /es/kit-contratista). Attaching a payment link on those sends still requires Paid. US contractor kit.
US ↔ LATAM contractor kit
Wizard over existing free templates: mutual NDA, independent contractor agreement, then Paid cobro so you can get paid abroad. There is no W-8BEN in the catalog — we do not invent IRS forms. US persons still use the US kit (NDA, W-9, agreement). Open /packets/latam-contractor (Spanish: /es/kit-contratista-latam). LATAM contractor kit.
WhatsApp cobro (paid)
Send a PDF with your own https checkout — no signers. The recipient gets email and/or WhatsApp with a page that has the file and your pay button. Optional 30-day ping until you mark it paid. Docracy never takes the money. Open /cobro (Spanish: /es/cobro). Get paid on WhatsApp.
1099 season locker (paid)
Paid accounts can open /1099-season (Spanish: /es/temporada-1099) and download a CSV of every completed document from a calendar year: title, counterparties, emails, amount, currency, payment URL, paid/unpaid for cobro, archive date, signed-page URL. We do not OCR TINs or e-file 1099s with the IRS. The CSV is an index of what you already sent through Docracy. 1099 season locker.
Income proof packet / constancia (paid)
Paid accounts open /es/constancia (English: /income-proof), type the name they want shown, and copy a HMAC URL for that calendar year. The public page lists titles, dates, counterparty names (no emails), amounts they typed, and signed-page links. Totals are by currency. It is not a W-2, bank letter, employer certificate, or SAT/IRS filing. Spanish is the lead language. Income proof / constancia.
Trades job packet
Work order and change-order templates (free), then Paid cobro with your Square/PayPal/Venmo URL. We do not ship a mechanic's lien waiver valid in your state. Open /packets/trades. Trades job packet.
Intra-LatAm commercial kit
Sales agreement and purchase order, then cobro. Honest: not packing-list software, not a certificado de origen, not aduana filing, not freight quotes. Open /es/kit-comercio. LATAM commercial kit.
Request a W-9, NDA, or RFC PDF
You are the sender: W-9 and mutual NDA are free templates. For RFC / Constancia de Situación Fiscal, they upload their own PDF — Docracy does not publish an SAT form. Open /packets/collect. Request W-9 / NDA.
Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, and Google Drive (paid)
Connect cloud storage from Dashboard → Tools → Connectors. After a document finishes signing, Docracy uploads the final PDF automatically — no manual download step. Available on Paid and Enterprise.
- Dropbox
- OneDrive (Microsoft)
- Box
- Google Drive
Bulk send (paid)
From the Dashboard (Templates → Bulk send, or /bulk-send), pick a saved template and send it to many recipient groups at once — one document per row. Paste a list of names/emails or fill the form; each row becomes its own signing chain with the same field layout. Optionally set a custom expiry (see below). Paid only.
Tax-year archive (paid)
Free documents always expire after 9 days (or sooner once everyone has signed and the final copy is emailed). On a paid account the default archive is the later of 13 months or April 15 of the next calendar year — long enough for a W-9 until 1099 filing, or a one-year lease. You can still pick a shorter window (1 day up to that vault) when preparing or bulk-sending.
Verifying a completed document (free)
Every document Docracy completes is fingerprinted with a SHA-256 hash of its exact final bytes, and that fingerprint is kept on record indefinitely — even after the document itself is deleted at the end of its retention window. Anyone with the finished PDF, or the certificate's QR code, can run Verify a documentto confirm it matches an untouched, genuinely-completed document — free, with no account needed. Uploaded files are hashed in the browser and never sent to Docracy; only the resulting fingerprint is checked.
This confirms the document's content and completion date — not the signer's identity. Docracy's default signature is a Simple Electronic Signature (SES), which isn't identity-verified.
Blockchain timestamp (free, automatic)
Every completed document's hash is also submitted, automatically and for free, to the OpenTimestampsprotocol — a public network of calendar servers that batch everyone's hashes into a single Bitcoin transaction. There's nothing to turn on: it happens in the background the moment a document completes, at no cost to you.
This is a second, independent proof on top of Docracy's own verification record above — checkable with any standard OpenTimestamps tool, even if Docracy itself were ever unavailable. A freshly-submitted proof is "pending" for a few hours until the network's next batch confirms on-chain; the download link on the verify page works either way.
Embedded signing (paid)
Host the signing UI inside your own product via an iframe. From the Dashboard, open a pending document and click Embed to create a short-lived URL — or call POST /api/embed/sessions (cookie session or API key). Body includes docId, signerOrder, optional allowedOrigins, returnUrl, and ttlSeconds. The response gives an embedUrl to load at /embed/sign/…. Origins not on the allowlist are rejected.
Contacts & signer reassignment (paid)
Save contacts under Dashboard → Tools → Contacts. Their names and emails autocomplete on Prepare and when reassigning. For a pending document, reassign a signer to a new name/email from the Dashboard — the old link stops working and the new person gets the turn. You can also void a pending document from the Dashboard so the chain is cancelled.
Enterprise
Enterprise includes everything in Paid, plus invoice/annual billing, premium (SLA-backed) support, volume discounts & custom onboarding, and optional SSO or multi-workspace setup. Contact [email protected] or upgrade from the Dashboard subscription tab.
AI tools (paid)
Four AI features, available once signed in on a paid account:
- Auto-detect fields — upload a PDF and it places signature/date fields for you, instead of placing them by hand.
- Plain-English explainer — a 3-bullet summary of what each party is agreeing to, no legal jargon.
- Risk & clause highlighter — flags one-sided terms (long non-competes, vague payment terms, etc.) before you sign.
- Generate with AI — describe an agreement in a sentence on the Prepare page (e.g. "a simple web design contract for a $2,500 fixed-price project") and get a ready-to-sign PDF back, with fields already placed.
Connect an AI assistant (MCP)
Docracy runs an MCP server so Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, Perplexity, or an IDE agent like Cursor can check signing status and search your documents from a chat. Requires a paid account — copy your personal connector URL from Dashboard → Connector & API key. Full setup instructions: AI & MCP.
Zapier & webhooks
On a paid account, the same API key that powers the MCP connector also works with Zapier — trigger a Zap on Document Created, Signer Signed, or Document Completed; send a saved template out for signature; or bulk send a template to many recipient rows in one action.
Zapier Free compatibility note: set up a simple 2-step Zap (one trigger + one action) and avoid adding extra steps for best compatibility with the Free-tier limits. Webhooks let your own systems subscribe to those same three events directly, without Zapier in between.
- Best Free-plan pattern: one Docracy trigger + one destination action.
- Keep tasks low: use Docracy's own bulk-send action instead of fanning one Zap into many action steps.
- If you outgrow Free: prefer Docracy's direct API or your own webhook consumer rather than building around extra Zapier steps.
REST API reference
Everything Zapier does above is also a plain REST API you can call directly with the same API key (Dashboard → "MCP connector & API key") — useful if you want to integrate without Zapier in the middle.
Base URL: https://api.docracy.io. Authenticate with Authorization: Bearer <your-api-key> (or a ?token= query param). All responses are JSON.
| Method & path | What it does |
|---|---|
GET /api/zapier/auth-test | Verifies the API key. Returns { email, workspaceId }. |
GET /api/zapier/templates | Lists your saved templates: [{ id, name }]. |
POST /api/zapier/documents | Sends a saved template for signature. Body: { templateId, signers: [{ name, email }] } — the number of signers must match the template. Returns { docId, statusToken, statusUrl }. |
POST /api/zapier/documents/bulk | Bulk send a template. Body: { templateId, recipients: [{ signers: [{ name, email }], title? }], customSubject?, customMessage? }. Returns { batchId, documents: [...] }. |
POST /api/zapier/hooks/:event | Subscribes a URL to an event. :event is one of document-created, signer-signed, document-completed. Body: { target_url }. Returns { id }. |
DELETE /api/zapier/hooks/:id | Removes a webhook subscription created above. |
POST /api/embed/api-token/sessions | Creates an embedded-signing session (paid). Body: { docId, signerOrder, allowedOrigins?, returnUrl?, ttlSeconds? }. Returns { embedToken, embedUrl, expiresAt }. Also accepts the workspace API key. |
This is the same surface Zapier itself calls — nothing here is Zapier-exclusive. Webhook deliveries are HMAC-signed the same way regardless of whether the subscription came from Zapier, the Dashboard, or this API directly.
Privacy & identity
Docracy doesn't verify who's actually signing — anyone holding a document's link can sign as the name on it. The audit trail proves what was signed and when, not who a signer really is. See Trust & security, Privacy, and Terms for the full picture.