# BoldSign vs Dropbox Sign

> BoldSign scores 70.3 (BB) to Dropbox Sign's 64 (B) for e-signatures. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boldsign-vs-dropbox-sign
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boldsign-vs-dropbox-sign.md (~4,900 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-04

BoldSign scores 70.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Dropbox Sign's 64 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Dropbox Sign leads on agent ergonomics and maintenance & community. Both do e-signatures.

- BoldSign: grade BB, 70.3/100, rank #190 of 1349. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/boldsign.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/boldsign.json
- Dropbox Sign: grade B, 64/100, rank #440 of 1349. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/dropbox-sign.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/dropbox-sign.json
- Best contract, proposal and e-signature APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/e-signatures/index.md
- All 45 e-signatures comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/e-signatures/index.md

## Which one, for what

### BoldSign (BB)

Good for: A product team embedding signing, requesting and templates at a per-envelope price with regional hosting in the US, EU, Canada or Australia, and an agent that sends from templates and tracks status through the hosted MCP server.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 84 against 65
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 25
- Transparency & trust, 77 against 69

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- No incidents deducted, where Dropbox Sign loses 3 points for them

Watch for: API keys carry every scope and the docs say that is not customisable; only OAuth apps get narrower scopes, and there is no Documents.Read scope

### Dropbox Sign (B)

Good for: An agent that sends a prepared PDF or a saved template for signature from one company account and tracks it to completion by webhook or polling, with the signed PDF and audit trail at the end.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 72 against 62
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 78

Watch for: No idempotency keys found in the docs or the spec, so a retried send can create a second signature request


## Why the edge

### Reliability: BoldSign +19

- BoldSign (84): Read with the hosted lines and scored on the REST API v1, the surface the SDKs and the hosted MCP server call. status.boldsign.com on Atlassian Statuspage has Web App and API components for Global, Europe, Canada and Australia plus Docs, with 90-day uptime and an incident history (20). The history feed, read on 3 November 2026, lists four one-hour scheduled maintenances between 19 and 27 September and no incident after a 20-minute partial disruption on 21 July 2026, so the 90 days from 5 August are clean (30). Rate limits are published per account, 2,000 requests an hour live and 50 an hour in the sandbox (15). The rate-limit page says 429 is returned with messages and usage is tracked in response headers, and the guide recommends webhooks over polling. No Retry-After is documented and there are no idempotency keys (6 of 15). No SLA document was found. security.txt advertises a 99.999 per cent uptime SLA, the terms disclaim uninterrupted service and refer to a support SLA available on request (3 of 10). v1 is the stable version with beta endpoints under v1-beta (10). 20 + 30 + 15 + 6 + 3 + 10 = 84.
- Dropbox Sign (65): Read with the hosted lines and scored on the public REST API at api.hellosign.com, the surface an agent would call. status.hellosign.com on Statuspage lists 9 components in four groups (Core, Web, API, Integrations) with incident history (20). The history feed, read on 1 November 2026, has in the 90 days an unannounced emergency maintenance on 21 October 2026 that took the service offline "due to vulnerabilities in PHP" from 07:19 to 09:13 PDT (1 h 54 min), affecting every component including Send signature requests and API callbacks, read as one major. File upload problems on 31 August (54 min) were partial. The 21 August Salesforce integration fault doesn't touch the API and isn't counted, and the 22 September and 13 October windows were announced maintenance (10 of 30). Rate limits with numbers, 100 requests a minute standard, 25 on 17 higher-tier endpoints and 10 in test mode, although the header table describes the limit as hourly (15). The docs describe 429 with `X-Ratelimit` headers, tell clients to respect Retry-After and back off, and the error catalogue marks each error retryable or not. No idempotency keys or safe-retry guidance for sends were found (10 of 15). The terms supply the service as is and as available, and no SLA was found (0). The API is at v3 and generally available (10). The 7 October reading came from the Statuspage /api/v2/ path, which status.hellosign.com's robots.txt disallows. It is struck and replaced by history.atom.

### Payments & pricing: BoldSign +15

- BoldSign (40): Read with the hosted rubric. No x402, MPP or L402 (0). The Enterprise API plan is public at $30 a month with 40 envelopes and $0.75 per additional envelope, and add-ons are priced per unit (20). The free sandbox gives full API access with no credit card, and the 30-day trial also needs no card per the pricing page (20). A person signs up in a browser and mints the key or registers the OAuth app in the web app (0). 0 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 40.
- Dropbox Sign (25): Read with the hosted rubric. No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices are public, Essentials at $900 a year from 50 requests a month and Standard at $3,000 a year from 100, with larger volumes on a selector and Premium by quote. That is plan pricing, not a per-request price (10 of 20). Test mode is free on every endpoint from a free account, but its requests aren't legally binding, and the pages we read don't say whether signup needs a card (15 of 20). A person has to create the account and copy the key from the web app, and production needs a paid plan (0).

### Agent ergonomics: Dropbox Sign +10

- BoldSign (62): List calls take Page and PageSize and document properties return the full object; no field selection was found. The hosted MCP server has 14 compact tools, but the REST API is the graded surface (14 of 25). Page and PageSize on document, template, contact, user and team lists, with search, status, date, label and team filters on documents (16 of 20). The troubleshooting page gives a cause and a fix per status code, 401 covers a region mismatch, and 422 carries validation detail (14 of 20). No idempotency keys. Draft send and the sandbox make trial calls safe, and the MCP docs ask for a human confirmation before send, reminder and revoke, but the tools' annotations couldn't be read (5 of 20). A send needs files or a template, a title and signers with fields, and the SDKs cover .NET, Node, Python, Java and PHP (13 of 15). 14 + 16 + 14 + 5 + 13 = 62.
- Dropbox Sign (72): List calls take `page_size` from 1 to 100 (default 20), and files are fetched by separate calls as binary, data URI or URL, so status checks stay small. No field selection was found (15 of 25). Page-number pagination with totals in `list_info`, and a `query` search language over title, signer, sender, dates, completion state and metadata. The docs warn of a short indexing delay after creation (18 of 20). Errors carry `error_name` and `error_msg`, with 20 documented names, a remediation line each and a retryable flag, plus warnings in successful responses (20). No idempotency keys in the docs or spec, so a retried send can create a duplicate. Cancel returns 200 when queued and confirms by event. The retryable flags are the only safe-retry aid (4 of 20). A template send needs only `template_ids` and `signers`, `test_mode` is a single flag, and official SDKs cover six languages (15).

### Transparency & trust: BoldSign +8

- BoldSign (77): Closed service under Terms of Use effective February 2025 that name Syncfusion, Inc. and North Carolina law. The SDKs and the deprecated MCP package are MIT (17 of 30). The privacy policy (July 2026) keeps personal data as long as necessary with no number, the terms keep signed documents and audit trails at least three years and schedule inactive accounts for deletion after six months, sandbox documents go after 14 days, and the terms say customer data is used for nothing but performing the agreement. A subprocessor list is linked and no DPA was found on the pages read (20 of 30). No deprecation policy. The terms let Syncfusion modify or discontinue BoldSign at its discretion, and the changelog labels breaking changes without a notice period (6 of 20). The privacy policy links the subprocessor list, and the security page names Google Cloud and Azure regions in US East, the EU, Canada and Australia (16 of 20). 17 + 20 + 6 + 16 = 59.
- Dropbox Sign (69): The service is closed under terms effective 7 January 2025. The spec repository is Apache 2.0 and the SDKs are MIT (15). The terms let Dropbox delete customer data any time after 30 days from termination. The data processing agreement, dated 25 October 2021, promises deletion within a commercially reasonable period on request and still points to a hellosign.com sub-processor address. The privacy policy of 14 January 2025 gives no retention period. The documents agree but stay vague (18 of 30). Prior SDK major versions are patched for 12 months and the API returns a `deprecated_parameter` warning, but no API deprecation policy with notice periods was found (8 of 20). The privacy policy links a Sign sub-processor list and the agreement promises advance notice of new sub-processors with a 60-day objection window. The list itself returned only its title to our reader, so names and locations are unconfirmed. Data residency is a Premium option (10 of 20).

### Maintenance & community: Dropbox Sign +7

- BoldSign (78): Read as a closed service. The API changelog's newest entry is 16 October 2026, and the PHP SDK repository was pushed the same day, Java and Python on 13 October (30). Changelog entries on 13 August, 19 August, 7 September, 23 September, 8 October and 16 October 2026 (20). Support site, knowledge base and support@boldsign.com, with a public changelog. GitHub issues on the SDK repositories were not read (8 of 15). Five official SDKs, Node at 3.3.4 since August 2026. The hosted MCP server is not in the official MCP registry (15). The Node SDK clone shows no CI workflow and the deprecated MCP package stopped at 0.0.5 (5 of 10). 30 + 20 + 8 + 15 + 5 = 78.
- Dropbox Sign (85): Python SDK 2.0.0 was tagged on 21 October 2026 (with 1.14.0 on 12 October and 1.14.1 on 20 October) and Node SDK 1.15.0 on 13 October, and the spec repository had commits through 27 October (30). Dated changelog entries on 19 August, 3 September and 6 October 2026, plus SDK 1.13.0 on 10 September and the October releases (20). A closed service with a public changelog, an API support address (apisupport@hellosign.com), a help centre and public GitHub issues, nine open on the spec repository per the 7 October check. We didn't test response times (11 of 15). Current official SDKs for Python, Node, PHP, Java, Ruby and .NET, with every generator moved to OpenAPI Generator 7.26.0 between 13 and 26 October (15). CI in the spec repository builds the spec and each SDK and fails on uncommitted generated code (9 of 10). Release dates are from the SDK repositories' tags. The 7 October PyPI reading used a JSON path pypi.org disallows and is struck.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | BoldSign | Dropbox Sign | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 84 | 65 | BoldSign +19 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 88 | Dropbox Sign +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 72 | Dropbox Sign +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 63 | 65 | Dropbox Sign +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 25 | BoldSign +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 78 | 85 | Dropbox Sign +7 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 69 | BoldSign +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **70.3 · BB** | **64 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | BoldSign | Dropbox Sign |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Syncfusion, Inc. | Dropbox, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.boldsign.com/v1` | `https://api.hellosign.com/v3` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| Price for e-signatures | $0.25 per transaction | not published |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted service under the BoldSign Terms of Use. The five official SDKs and the deprecated local MCP package on GitHub are MIT | Proprietary service under the Dropbox Sign terms of service. The OpenAPI spec repository is Apache 2.0 and the official SDKs are MIT |
| Tools exposed | 14 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-16 | 2026-10-21 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-02-01 | 2025-01-07 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-01 | 2025-01-14 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 1 stars | 22 stars, 150k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (4) |

## How the scores have moved

### BoldSign

No score change since it was listed.

### Dropbox Sign

- -5.0 on 1 November 2026: reliability, correction
- +0.1 on 27 October 2026: checklist

## Verdicts

**BoldSign.** A public OpenAPI file, llms.txt, 20 OAuth scopes, published rate limits, a free sandbox and a clean 90-day status history. API keys carry every scope, there are no idempotency keys, the 2,000-an-hour account limit is low for bulk work, and the hosted MCP server's 14 tools include sending and revoking with no confirmation step of their own.

**Dropbox Sign.** A public OpenAPI 3.0.3 spec, llms.txt, six official SDKs and a free test mode let an agent build the flow before paying. Production sends need a paid plan from $900 a year, the API key has full account access, no idempotency keys were found, and unannounced maintenance took every component offline for almost two hours on 21 October 2026.

## Before you call either

### BoldSign

1. Send `X-API-KEY: $BOLDSIGN_API_KEY` to the regional base URL (api.boldsign.com, api-eu, api-ca or api-au); a key from one region fails on another, and the MCP endpoint must match too
2. Build against a Sandbox key first. Sandbox documents are watermarked and deleted after 14 days, and the sandbox allows only 50 requests an hour
3. Stay under 2,000 requests an hour per account in production and use webhooks instead of polling `document/properties`; on a 429 wait for the window to reset
4. Don't retry a timed-out `document/send` blindly. There is no idempotency key, so list documents by title or search before sending again
5. Verify `X-BoldSign-Signature` (HMAC-SHA256 with the endpoint secret) on every webhook before acting on its payload
6. On the MCP server, start with `list_templates` and `get_document_properties`, and confirm with the person before `send_document_from_template`, `send_reminder_for_document_sign` or `revoke_document`

### Dropbox Sign

1. Send `test_mode=true` while building. Test requests are free, watermarked and not legally binding, and are limited to 10 requests a minute
2. Don't blind-retry a send after a timeout. No idempotency key exists, so list requests by `metadata` or title first to check whether it was created
3. Authenticate with HTTP Basic, the API key as username and an empty password. Keep the key out of URLs, although the docs show that form
4. Answer every webhook with HTTP 200 and the body `Hello API Event Received`, and verify `event_hash`. Ten consecutive failures clear the callback URL
5. Treat a 200 from cancel as queued only. Confirmation arrives later as a `signature_request_canceled` event
6. Give every signer in a `grouped_signers` group a unique email address. Duplicates are rejected since 6 October 2026

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, BoldSign or Dropbox Sign?

BoldSign scores 70.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Dropbox Sign's 64 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Dropbox Sign leads on agent ergonomics and maintenance & community.

### Do BoldSign and Dropbox Sign need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call BoldSign and Dropbox Sign without installing anything?

Yes. BoldSign has a hosted endpoint at https://api.boldsign.com/v1 and Dropbox Sign at https://api.hellosign.com/v3.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boldsign-vs-dropbox-sign.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boldsign-vs-dropbox-sign.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "boldsign", "b": "dropbox-sign"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare boldsign dropbox-sign`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/boldsign.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/dropbox-sign.json

## Other comparisons with BoldSign or Dropbox Sign

- [Adobe Acrobat Sign vs BoldSign](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adobe-acrobat-sign-vs-boldsign.md)
- [Adobe Acrobat Sign vs Dropbox Sign](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adobe-acrobat-sign-vs-dropbox-sign.md)
- [BoldSign vs Documenso](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boldsign-vs-documenso.md)
- [BoldSign vs DocuSeal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boldsign-vs-docuseal.md)
- [BoldSign vs Docusign](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boldsign-vs-docusign.md)
- [BoldSign vs PandaDoc](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boldsign-vs-pandadoc.md)
- [BoldSign vs airSlate SignNow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boldsign-vs-signnow.md)
- [BoldSign vs SignWell](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boldsign-vs-signwell.md)
- [BoldSign vs Youtrust](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boldsign-vs-youtrust.md)
- [Documenso vs Dropbox Sign](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/documenso-vs-dropbox-sign.md)
- [DocuSeal vs Dropbox Sign](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/docuseal-vs-dropbox-sign.md)
- [Docusign vs Dropbox Sign](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/docusign-vs-dropbox-sign.md)
- [Dropbox Sign vs PandaDoc](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dropbox-sign-vs-pandadoc.md)
- [Dropbox Sign vs airSlate SignNow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dropbox-sign-vs-signnow.md)
- [Dropbox Sign vs SignWell](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dropbox-sign-vs-signwell.md)
- [Dropbox Sign vs Youtrust](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dropbox-sign-vs-youtrust.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp