Terms of service

These terms govern use of DrakonSign, an electronic-signature service operated by Drakon Systems Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 16867343), registered office 34 Lumina Way, London EN1 1FS (“we”, “us”). DrakonSign is built for business use. By creating a workspace or subscribing you agree to these terms; if you do so for an organisation, you confirm you are authorised to bind it.

1. The service

DrakonSign lets you send documents for electronic signature, verifies signers by email one-time code, and records a hash-chained audit trail of the ceremony. Only when an envelope completes does DrakonSign produce its signed PDF and a separate certificate of completion, each recorded by SHA-256 fingerprint. We provide the service with reasonable skill and care. We do not provide legal advice: you are responsible for deciding whether an electronic signature is appropriate for a given document and jurisdiction.

2. Your account and keys

You are responsible for keeping your API keys and dashboard credentials confidential and for everything done with them. Tell us immediately at support@drakonsystems.com if you believe a key is compromised; we can revoke and reissue keys at any time.

3. Acceptable use

You must not use DrakonSign to:

• send unlawful, fraudulent or deceptive documents, or impersonate another person;
• send unsolicited bulk mail or use signing emails as a marketing channel;
• attempt to defeat signer verification, tamper with audit records, or probe the service’s security other than via responsible disclosure;
• upload malware or content you have no right to process.

We may suspend accounts that break these rules, with notice where practicable.

4. Plans, billing and cancellation

Subscriptions are billed by Stripe, monthly or annually in advance, in GBP; the price shown at checkout is the amount charged. Each plan includes a monthly envelope allowance (an ordinary draft consumes one envelope when first sent, regardless of signer count; a corrected copy consumes one immediately when created; ordinary unsent drafts remain free; allowances don’t roll over). Documents already out for signature can always be completed and downloaded — an allowance limits new sends, never a signature in progress.

Cancelling. You can change plan or cancel yourself at any time from Account → Manage subscription, which opens the Stripe customer portal; you do not need to email us. A cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you have already paid for. Completed evidence remains downloadable while the workspace stays open; we do not guarantee signature validity or any legal result. Fees already paid are non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise.

Free trial. The Starter plan offers a free trial: nothing is charged for 30 days from checkout or until you consume your third envelope allowance, whichever comes first. Sending an ordinary envelope consumes one allowance; creating a corrected copy consumes another when the copy is created. At that point the subscription price applies (we may end the trial early only under that envelope rule). Cancel during the trial and you pay nothing; completed evidence remains downloadable while the workspace stays open, without any guarantee of signature validity or legal result.

If you are a consumer (buying outside a business), you have a statutory 14-day right to cancel a distance contract under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. Because signing begins as soon as your workspace is provisioned, by subscribing you ask us to start the service during that period; if you then cancel within 14 days we’ll refund you, less a proportionate charge for what you used. This paragraph does not limit any statutory right.

5. Your data, evidence and data protection

You retain all rights to documents you upload. We process them only to provide the service, as described in the privacy notice. Where we act as your processor, our data processing agreement (setting out the subject-matter, duration, nature and purpose of processing, and our obligations under Article 28 UK GDPR) forms part of these terms and applies automatically to your use of the service; a countersigned copy is available on request.

Audit trails exist to protect both sender and signer; you agree we may retain audit records of completed signings for the purposes and period set out in the privacy notice. You can export your signed artifacts and certificates at any time via the dashboard or API, and we recommend you keep your own copies.

What we do and do not promise about evidence. DrakonSign is built to produce an evidential record designed to support the enforceability of what you sign: a tamper-evident audit trail and, when the envelope completes, a signed PDF plus a separate certificate of completion. A signing key and available timestamp authority allow a self-issued PAdES B-T seal and RFC 3161 timestamp; any unavailable component and resulting degradation are recorded. We do not warrant that any particular document is legally valid, admissible or enforceable. That depends on the document’s own formalities — some instruments require a witness, a deed or a handwritten signature — and on the law that governs it. Nothing we publish is legal advice; if a document matters, take advice on whether an electronic signature suits it.

Choosing what to send is yours. You are responsible for deciding that an electronic signature is appropriate for a given document and for meeting whatever formalities that document requires. DrakonSign produces a simple electronic signature: it is not an advanced (AES) or qualified (QES) electronic signature, it performs no statutory witnessing, and the Witness and Approver recipient roles are routing labels that put a word on the certificate rather than a legally distinct ceremony. Some categories are excluded outright — deeds, HM Land Registry transfers, wills and lasting powers of attorney among them — and which documents suit DrakonSign lists them. Do not use the service for an excluded category.

6. Availability and changes

We aim for high availability but the service is provided “as is” without a formal SLA at this stage. We may improve or change features. While your account is active we will not remove your access to already-completed signed artifacts and their evidence; if you close your account, export them first. Closure immediately attempts the destructive purge described in the privacy notice. If an email submission has an in-progress or uncertain provider outcome, closure fails closed and asks you to contact support; it is not reported complete until controlled reconciliation makes erasure safe. Limited hash-only audit and billing-ledger residue remains where the privacy notice says it must.

7. Liability

Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law (including for fraud). Otherwise, our total liability arising out of the service in any 12-month period is capped at the fees you paid us in that period, and we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, or loss of data you failed to export after we asked you to.

8. General

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and their courts have jurisdiction over any dispute. If you are a consumer, nothing here affects your right to bring proceedings in the courts of the UK nation where you live, or to rely on mandatory protections of your local law. If a clause is found unenforceable the rest stand. We may update these terms; material changes are notified by email and apply from your next billing period.