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Saniya Sood
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Published October 20, 2026 · Updated October 20, 2026
The short answer: the best PDF editor on a budget depends on who uses it. A team that needs fillable forms and e-signatures together gets the most from Lumin Business, priced per team with unlimited members. A solo user can create fillable forms free on Sejda, or pay $7.50 a month. A Windows user who hates subscriptions can buy PDF-XChange Editor Plus once for $79. Adobe Acrobat Standard, from $14.99 a month on annual billing, is the pick when clients send you Acrobat files.
Valley is an AI outbound platform that finds the people most likely to buy from you - from live buying signals, natural-language search, or your own lists - qualifies them against your ICP, researches each one, and sends personalized messages across email and LinkedIn that get 15-45% reply rates, against a category average of about 2%.
Key takeaways
Best for teams: Lumin Business, $99 a month per team on annual billing, with fillable fields and unlimited members.
Best free option for forms: Sejda, which creates fillable fields on its free tier within its limits.
Best one-time purchase: PDF-XChange Editor Plus, $79, Windows only.
Best for Acrobat files: Adobe Acrobat Standard, which creates forms and collects e-signatures on its cheapest plan.
Watch the e-signature line: on most budget plans, signing yourself is included and sending documents to others to sign is a higher tier or a separate product.
How this comparison was checked
Each vendor's own pricing, feature and help pages were read on October 20, 2026, recording for each one: the cheapest plan that can create fillable form fields (not just fill them), whether it can request signatures from other people, the free option, and the platforms. Prices are in US dollars as printed for US buyers; several vendors change prices by region and run promotions, so check the vendor's page before you buy. Smallpdf, Soda PDF, pdfFiller and Nitro are left out because their pages did not show a US price that could be confirmed. Valley makes outbound software, not PDF tools, and is not ranked here.
Filling a form and creating one are different features
Every editor here can fill in a PDF form and add your own signature. Fewer can create a fillable form, meaning text fields, checkboxes and signature boxes that someone else completes. Fewer still can send a document to other people for signature and track it. If you send proposals, order forms or contracts, you need the second and third, and that is where budget plans differ most.
Whatever the tool, the legal basis is the same: in the US, the ESIGN Act says a signature, contract or record may not be denied legal effect solely because it is electronic; in the EU, the eIDAS Regulation sets the rules for electronic signatures.
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The eight are ordered by value for a small team that needs both fillable forms and e-signatures. Each entry follows the same pattern: what it is, what it costs, forms, e-signatures, what to watch for, and when to choose it.
Editor | Cheapest plan that creates fillable forms | Request e-signatures | Free option | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Lumin | Business, $99 a month per team (annual), unlimited members | 5 agreements a month in Workspace; Lumin Sign free: 5 documents a month | Free: 3 docs a month; 7-day trials | Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android |
2. Sejda | Free tier (3 tasks an hour); Web Monthly $7.50; Desktop+Web $63 a year | No request workflow; a shareable fill-and-sign link | Yes | Web, Windows, Mac, Linux |
3. PDF-XChange Editor | Editor Plus, $79 one time | No built-in requests (DocuSign integration) | Free version, about 70% of features | Windows only |
4. Adobe Acrobat | Standard, $14.99 a month (annual) or $24.99 monthly | Yes; bulk send on Pro | Reader: 2 signature documents a month | Desktop, web, mobile |
5. Foxit PDF Editor | PDF Editor, $129.99 a year per user | Editor+ only ($159.99 a year, 150 envelopes a year) | 14-day trial, no card | Windows, Mac, web |
6. PDFelement | Yearly, $79.99 single platform (promotional) | Limited (store page lists 3 requests) | 14-day trial (Windows), 7-day (Mac) | Windows, Mac; mobile and web on cross-platform |
7. Xodo | PDF Studio desktop, $9.99 a month billed yearly | Xodo Sign: free 5 a month; Basic $10 per user a month yearly | 1 free action a day | Web, Windows, Mac, Linux, mobile |
8. DocHub | Field creation by plan not stated; Basic $8 a month yearly | Pro only ($12 a month yearly) | Free: 3 uses a month | Web, iOS, Android |
1. Lumin: per-team pricing for forms and signatures
Lumin's PDF editor runs in the browser and on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, with a Chrome extension. Its plans are priced per team, not per seat, and its FAQ says you can add as many people as you like to a workspace.
Pricing: Free (3 documents a month), Starter from $9 a month (10 documents), Pro from $19 a month per team and Business from $99 a month per team, both with 200 documents a month team-wide. The purchase links on its pricing page are for annual billing, and Lumin's help center prices the annual Business plan at $1,188 a year and month-to-month Pro at $30. Every plan has a 7-day free trial.
Forms: every plan can fill forms. Creating fillable fields and checkboxes is a Business and Enterprise feature, per both the pricing table and the help center; Pro and Business can also detect fields automatically.
E-signatures: every plan can sign. Pro and Business include 5 agreements a month for sending. Lumin Sign, a separate product, sends 5 documents a month for signing on its free plan and 100 on Pro at $18 per user a month; signers do not need an account. Lumin says its e-signatures are recognized under the ESIGN Act and eIDAS.
Watch for: a document counts toward the monthly limit once you share, download, print or sync it, and on monthly billing Lumin adds another block of documents automatically when you reach the limit.
Choose it when several people need forms and signatures and you would rather pay one team price than buy seats. Six Acrobat Standard team licences cost $1,223.28 a year on annual terms, against $1,188 for one Lumin Business team.
2. Sejda: fillable forms on a free tier
Sejda is a web and desktop PDF editor that creates fillable forms with text fields, text areas, radio buttons, checkboxes, dropdowns and signature boxes, including on its free tier.
Pricing: free up to 3 tasks an hour on the web (documents up to 200 pages or 50 MB); a $5 Web Week Pass that does not renew; Web Monthly $7.50; Desktop+Web Annual $63 a year. No perpetual licence.
E-signatures: you can sign yourself; there is no request-and-track workflow, but a published form gets a shareable link that anyone can fill out and send back.
Watch for: no mobile app, and no e-signature compliance statement on its signing page.
Choose it when you build occasional forms and do not need a signature audit trail.
3. PDF-XChange Editor: pay once, Windows only
PDF-XChange Editor is a Windows desktop editor sold as a perpetual licence. Creating and editing fillable forms needs Editor Plus.
Pricing: Editor $62, Editor Plus $79, both one-time with 12 months of upgrades; the licence keeps working after that. A free version keeps about 70% of features free to use and watermarks the rest.
E-signatures: sign yourself, including with digital certificates; requests go through a DocuSign integration rather than a built-in workflow.
Watch for: Windows 10 and later only, and no refunds once licence keys are issued.
Choose it when you work on Windows and want to stop paying a subscription.
4. Adobe Acrobat: the cheapest plan already does both
Adobe Acrobat Standard creates, fills, signs and sends forms and collects e-signatures with tracking. Web forms and bulk signature requests need Pro.
Pricing: Standard $14.99 a month on an annual plan billed monthly, $179.88 a year prepaid, or $24.99 month to month; Standard for teams $16.99 per licence a month on annual terms. Free Acrobat Reader collects signatures on 2 documents a month.
Watch for: cancelling an annual plan billed monthly after 14 days costs up to half the remaining commitment, and a prepaid year is not refunded after 14 days.
Choose it when your clients and partners work in Acrobat and you want one tool that does forms and signatures on its lowest tier.
5. Foxit PDF Editor: forms on the base plan, signatures one tier up
Foxit PDF Editor creates fillable PDF forms on its base plan and runs on Windows, Mac and the web; Editor+ adds iOS, Android and Foxit eSign.
Pricing: PDF Editor $129.99 per user a year (from $10.99 a month on an annual plan billed monthly); Editor+ $159.99 a year with 150 eSign envelopes a year; a perpetual PDF Editor 14 licence at $209.99. A 14-day free trial needs no card.
E-signatures: requests are Editor+ only. Foxit says its eSign workflows are legally binding under the ESIGN Act and UETA and support eIDAS.
Watch for: no true month-to-month plan; both billing options are annual.
Choose it when you want an Acrobat-style desktop editor at a lower yearly price.
6. PDFelement: low yearly price, limited signature requests
Wondershare PDFelement creates and fills forms on every paid plan, on Windows and Mac, with mobile and web access on the cross-platform plan.
Pricing: promotional at the time of checking: Yearly $79.99 single platform or $89.99 cross-platform, and a perpetual licence from $129.99. Individual licences cover one user.
E-signatures: its comparison table lists 3 signature requests on paid plans without saying over what period, so it is not a tool for sending contracts in volume.
Watch for: prices rotate with promotions, and the free trial is 14 days on Windows but 7 days on Mac.
Choose it when you mostly edit and build forms yourself and rarely send documents for signature.
7. Xodo: cheap web plan, signatures sold separately
Xodo sells Xodo Web ($39.99 a year or $10.99 a month), PDF Studio for desktop ($9.99 a month billed yearly, or a $240 perpetual licence) and a Document Suite. PDF Studio states it creates forms; form creation is not stated for Xodo Web.
E-signatures: through Xodo Sign: free for 5 documents a month, Basic at $10 per user a month on yearly billing with unlimited documents. Xodo says Xodo Sign supports the ESIGN Act, UETA and eIDAS.
Watch for: the 3-day Xodo Web trial needs a payment method, and Xodo does not offer refunds.
Choose it when you want a low-cost editor and a separate, inexpensive signing tool.
8. DocHub: free in the browser, requests on Pro
DocHub is a browser-based editor with iOS and Android apps and Google Drive and Gmail integrations. Its help center shows field creation through Manage Fields; which plan includes it is not stated on the pricing page.
Pricing: Free (3 uses a month), Basic $8 a month billed yearly or $11 monthly, Pro $12 a month billed yearly or $16 monthly.
E-signatures: Send for Signature is Pro only, with unlimited requests and bulk send. DocHub says its signatures are legally binding under ESIGN and eIDAS, with an audit trail.
Choose it when your documents live in Google Drive and Gmail.
A contract only gets sent after a prospect replies, and the first message is what earns that reply.
Give your sales team
an unfair advantage.
Count the people, then compare per-seat and per-team prices. Per-seat plans get more expensive with each person you add. Per-team pricing, as on Lumin, does not.
Check form creation, not form filling. Look for the plan that creates fields and checkboxes.
Check who signs. Signing yourself is everywhere. Sending to a client for signature and tracking it is a higher tier or a separate product on most budget plans.
Read the billing terms. Annual plans billed monthly, automatic document top-ups and no-refund policies change the real price.
Match the platform. PDF-XChange is Windows only; Sejda has no mobile app; DocHub has no desktop app on its pricing page.
Where this fits in a sales workflow
For a sales team, the PDF editor is the last step: the order form, the proposal or the contract that follows a booked meeting. The steps before it decide how many contracts there are to send. Valley handles those: it finds people showing buying signals or matching a natural-language search, qualifies them against your ICP, researches each one and sends personalized messages across LinkedIn and email, with you approving every message or letting them flow. For what a full set of sales productivity tools costs, see the three priced outbound budgets; for the rest of the day around them, strategies to boost sales productivity; and for the signals that start the conversation, buying signals, ranked by how close the buyer is.
FAQ
What is the best PDF editor on a budget? For teams, Lumin Business, priced per team with unlimited members. For one person, Sejda, which creates fillable forms on its free tier and costs $7.50 a month for the web. For a one-time purchase on Windows, PDF-XChange Editor Plus at $79.
What is the best free PDF editor with fillable forms? Sejda creates fillable fields, including text boxes, checkboxes, dropdowns and signature boxes, on its free tier, within limits of 3 tasks an hour and 200 pages per document.
How to make a PDF fillable? Open it in an editor whose plan includes form creation, add text fields, checkboxes or signature boxes where the reader should type or sign, then save or share it. On the editors here, that is Lumin Business, Sejda, PDF-XChange Editor Plus, Adobe Acrobat Standard, Foxit PDF Editor, PDFelement and Xodo PDF Studio.
Which cheap PDF editor can send documents for e-signature? Adobe Acrobat Standard collects e-signatures on its cheapest plan. Lumin Pro and Business include 5 agreements a month, and Lumin Sign and Xodo Sign each send 5 documents a month free.
Is there a good Adobe Acrobat alternative for teams? Lumin Business costs $1,188 a year for a team with unlimited members, against $1,223.28 for six Acrobat Standard team licences on annual terms. Foxit PDF Editor costs $129.99 per user a year.
How to send a sales contract for signature? Upload it to a tool that sends signature requests, add a signature field for each signer, and send it by email; the signer completes it in the browser and both sides get the signed copy. Lumin Sign, Xodo Sign and Adobe Acrobat Standard all do this.
Are e-signatures from these tools legally binding? Lumin and DocHub say theirs are recognized under the ESIGN Act and eIDAS; Foxit eSign and Xodo Sign also name UETA. Check the rules for your country and contract type.
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