The Client Has Had the Contract for Eight Days. Now What?

Drop your document here and sign it now. PDF, Word and Excel all work: a .docx or .xlsx is laid out in your browser exactly as it was written, so there is nothing to convert first. Add a signature, a date, a company stamp or a watermark, then download it sealed. Free to start, no account, and the file is never uploaded to do it.

The proposal was accepted on the call. The contract went out the same afternoon. That was eight days ago and there has been nothing since, and you are now composing the third follow-up email and trying to make it sound relaxed. About eight days is the industry figure for a paper contract to come back, and here is the uncomfortable part: it is usually not doubt. It is friction, and almost all of it is yours to remove.

What actually happens to a contract sent as an attachment

It arrives while they are on a phone. They open it, see six pages, realise they cannot sign it there, and think "I will do that at my desk". At the desk it is eleven emails down. On Friday they see it again and think "Monday". By Monday it has stopped being a live thing and become a task, and tasks lose to whatever is on fire.

Nothing in that sequence is about your terms. Every step is about the document being harder to act on than it is to postpone.

The three points where contracts stall

The signing wall. The other side is asked to create an account before they can sign. This is the single biggest killer, because a person who came to spend two minutes is being asked to make a password. If your signing tool asks the recipient to register, you are paying for it in signed contracts.

The device. Most people open documents on a phone first. If signing works badly there, you have converted a two-minute job into "later", and later is where deals go to die.

The length. A long contract signals "read this properly", and reading properly needs a clear hour that never comes. This is not an argument for hiding terms, it is an argument for putting the essentials in two pages and the detail in a schedule.

What to do about the one that is already sitting there

Do not resend the same attachment. It failed once. Send a signing link instead, with the fields already marked, so the message reads "tap here, sign, done" rather than "please find attached".

Say the deadline as a fact rather than a nudge: "the pricing on this holds until Friday, after that I have to requote". A soft chase invites a soft response. A date invites a decision.

Offer to do it live. Fifteen minutes on a call, screen shared, signed while you are both there, has closed more agreements than any follow-up sequence.

How to stop the next one stalling

Send it as something signable, not as something to print. A link the recipient opens and signs on the phone they are already holding, with no account, no app and no password.

Mark the fields yourself. Do not make them work out where to sign, what to initial and what to date. Every decision you leave in the document is a reason to put it down.

Turn on reminders so you are not the one chasing. An automatic reminder on day two is a system doing its job. You emailing on day two is you looking anxious, and looking anxious costs you negotiating room.

Watch what happens. Knowing that they opened it twice and stopped on page four is worth more than any guess about their intentions, and it tells you what to say when you call.

The part nobody says out loud

A contract sitting unsigned is not neutral. It is your cash flow, your project start date and your team’s schedule, all held in somebody else’s inbox. Removing the friction is not an administrative nicety, it is the difference between getting paid this month and next.

Drop the agreement into the box at the top of this page, mark where each person signs, and send the link. They need no account, it works on the phone in their hand, and you get a completed file with an audit trail rather than a scan of a scan.

Questions people ask about this

Can I add a company stamp before sending it?

Yes. Add a stamp to a PDF or to the Word file directly, which for clients who expect a company mark removes one more reason to put the document down.

Should I watermark the draft while we are still negotiating?

It helps. A draft watermark stops a working version being read as final, and it becomes part of the page so it survives being forwarded.

How do I get a client to sign a contract faster?

Send something signable rather than something to print. A signing link the client opens on the phone they are already holding, with the fields marked, no account and no app, removes the three places contracts stall: the signing wall, the device, and not knowing where to sign.

Does the other person need an account to sign?

No. They open a link, sign, and submit. The completion record still names them, timestamps the signature and logs the address it came from. A signup wall is where most signature requests quietly die.

How do I send a document for signature for free?

Upload it, mark where each person signs, and send the link. Placing everything is free and the charge is at download, $1.50 for one document or $15 a month for unlimited, with no per-seat pricing and no envelope allowance.

Can I send a Word document for signature without converting it?

Yes. Drop the .docx or .xlsx in and it is laid out exactly as written, so the client sees the document rather than a converted approximation of it.

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What PDF Verified is, and what it is not

PDF Verified is a tool for preparing, signing, stamping and checking documents. It is not a law firm, a compliance service or a forensic examiner, and nothing here is legal, financial or compliance advice. Requirements differ by country, by document type and by the party asking, so check what applies to your document before you rely on it, and take advice where the document matters. You are responsible for the documents you create, sign and send, and for having the authority to do so: signing or stamping in somebody else name, or as an organisation you do not represent, is forgery whatever tool is used. To the extent the law allows, we accept no liability for how a document made with this tool is used or relied on. The full position is in our terms of service.

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