Choosing a plan: Free vs paid lanes

Inkpacket publishes four lanes: Free, Starter, Growth, and Agency. The desk is the same on every lane — upload, template, bulk send, sequential or parallel routing, access codes, embed, reminders, expiry, void, correct, resend, API, webhooks, audit. Envelope caps do not always rise with the paid lane. What Starter actually grants over Free is more published Web Forms. Seat counts are published planning numbers. Listed prices are proposals. Checkout and the customer portal are not open. Workspaces start on Free. No payment method is required to run the product today.

That status is intentional and it is repeated everywhere it matters: Pricing, More on plans and pricing, and the FAQ. This guide is how to choose a lane anyway — so when charging is turned on, you already know which ceiling matches how you send.

The lanes

Free — $0 while you evaluate

5 packets a month. 1 published Web Form. 1 published seat. The copy is “try Inkpacket on a single workspace.” Use Free to send real PDFs — including a sequential or parallel envelope — copy a signing link, and file a completed copy. If you only evaluate with a dummy file and never send, you have not tested the desk. Free’s envelope ceiling is lower than Starter’s; Starter lists more envelopes than Free.

Starter — $29 per month

20 envelopes per month. 3 published Web Forms. 3 published seats. For a small team that needs more envelopes than Free and extra public forms. You pick Starter when a second and third published Web Form matter, or when 5 packets a month is not enough. Invite does not refuse extra people on Free — seat ceilings are planning numbers, not a live invite gate.

Growth — $79 per month

100 envelopes per month. 10 published seats (planning). Pricing marks this as the lane for most teams — operators who live in the desk all day. If you bulk send cohorts, or several people in the workspace send their own envelopes, this is the published default. Invite still does not refuse when a workspace is over that published count.

Agency — $199 per month

500 envelopes per month. 50 published seats (planning). For agencies running many client workspaces, or an in-house team that issues envelopes at volume. Isolation is still per organization: Agency does not merge client files. You still open a workspace per tenant. Seat counts are not a live invite gate.

What every lane includes

Do not pick a lane to unlock features. Features are not gated that way in this pass. Every published lane includes:

• PDF upload and field placement.
• Reusable document templates.
• Bulk send from a template to a recipient list.
• Reminder cadence and auto-expiration.
• Optional signer access codes.
• Embedded signing iframe for host pages.
• Public REST API and signed webhooks.
• Void, correct, resend, and signer decline.
• Sequential and parallel multi-signer routing on one envelope.
• Signing links without a signer account.
• Completed PDF plus an audit log.
• Owner / admin / member roles.
• S3-compatible file storage.

The features page is the same list without prices. Out of this pass on every lane: notary, knowledge-based authentication, qualified electronic signatures, and CRM sync. In-envelope payments are as coming soon — Payments not live / not configured until Checkout is unlocked. Google Drive archive is in — it reports Drive not configured when OAuth or service-account credentials are missing. Text-message (SMS) reminders are coming soon, and reminders go out by email today. Inkpacket does not text a signing link.

How to choose

Count last month’s real sends and the people who need a seat. Ignore brochure matrices.

1. If you are evaluating, stay on Free. Send a few real envelopes, including one with two signers. That is the product.
2. If you need extra published Web Forms and volume stays modest, Starter’s 20 envelopes / 3 Web Forms is the published fit — forms, not extran envelopes.
3. If several operators send daily, or you bulk send cohorts, Growth’s 100 / 10 is the published fit.
4. If you run many workspaces or a high monthly volume, Agency’s 500 / 50 is the published fit.

Envelope count is monthly and checked at send — including API send and each row of a bulk job. A declined or voided envelope still used a send. A reminder does not use a second envelope. A resend does not mint a second envelope and does not use a second envelope. The five-minute send is how a single envelope gets used; bulk send is how a list uses many.

Published, not charging

Stripe checkout is off. The customer portal is not open. Workspaces stay on Free. You can open a workspace, invite teammates (invite is not blocked by published seat counts), and run the full desk without a card. When charging is configured, changing lanes is the point of the pricing headline: pick a lane, change it later. Until then, the numbers are a planning document.

What happens when you hit a limit

Send checks the monthly envelope count. If the workspace is at the ceiling, the desk and the API refuse the next send until the month rolls or the lane changes. A bulk job that would exceed the remaining count should be split or postponed — each unique email is one envelope. Published Web Forms are a separate ceiling: Free allows 1, Starter 3. Seat counts on Pricing are planning numbers — invite does not refuse when a workspace is full.

Until checkout is live, that refusal is still the honest model. A 4-row cohort fits Free’s 5-envelope month; a 6-row job does not. Prove the template and the list mapping, then pick Growth or Agency on the pricing page when billing is turned on if Web Forms or volume need to move. The home page states the same loop without the lane math.

If you want the category explanation first, read what electronic signature software is. If you already know you will send, open a workspace or sign in. The useful comparison is not Free versus a logo on another site. It is fifty envelopes and one Web Form versus Starter’s twenty envelopes and three Web Forms — paid is not always more volume.