Ironclad vs DocuSign: A Buyer’s Guide

Both Ironclad and DocuSign have been key players who shifted long-standing beliefs in the contract management industry. They innovated category-defining technology when existing contracting processes were clunky. Despite their pioneer status, one thing is clearer than ever. There won’t be one player to dominate the market.

Each player in the CLM space is purpose-built for specific user bases and scenarios they address. This blog uncovers their specialized capabilities, shortcutting your research time so you can make a confident purchase decision faster.

What is Ironclad used for?

Ironclad is a contract management software that streamlines and automates the entire lifecycle. It saved hours of legal work and resources with a smart, all-in-one AI-powered experience, allowing users to manage contracts better. It is versatile to manage a range of contract workflows, including sales agreements, HR agreements, and complex NDAs. Built by legal professionals for legal professionals, it is trained to address contract risks and financial losses from ineffective contracting.

What is DocuSign CLM used for?

DocuSign is a pioneer that brought e-signature solutions to the world. They went on to acquire contract management players like SpringCM (a cloud platform for sales contracting), Seal Software (an AI-driven contract analysis), and more recently, Lexion (a contract workflow automation startup). Early this year, it launched DocuSign IAM, an intelligent contract management platform that aims to connect different parts of contracting from creation to execution.

Best suited for

At a Glance

Both Ironclad and DocuSign are popular with enterprise clients. But factors like inflexibility, cost considerations, implementation timeframes, inaccessible support, and user experience can hinder their adoption in fast-growing businesses. The following table gives you a bird’s-eye-view of the two players alongside HyperStart CLM.

Feature	Ironclad	DocuSign	HyperStart
Pricing	$$$	$$$	$
Set up	4+ weeks	4+ months	1 week
Free trial	14 days	30 days	30 days
Self signup
Support	At extra cost	At extra cost	At 0 cost

1. Pre-sign

Does your in-house legal have trouble identifying and tracking business approvals for high-risk deals? Or does it lack visibility into the pre-execution process?

This stage is notorious for consuming precious time and resources. Pre-execution functionalities are designed to automate the contract creation, reviews, approvals, and redlining. This is best set up with robust custom workflows with granular controls.

Ironclad

Ironclad’s Workflow Designer saves time on the manual chase for contract approvals. It has a great drag-and-drop interface to standardize workflows, helping you create, launch, monitor, and agree on contracts in minutes.

But it uses a DOCX integration which is not familiar to legal and doesn’t capture edits. There’s no Word plugin, which takes you back a decade. The notifications can be sent to one person at a time, making sequential or multiple ad-hoc approvals difficult to automate.

DocuSign

DocuSign is the gold standard for e-signature. Its other pre-signature functionalities have been built later to complete the platform. Users find that the templates are limited with inadequate conditional rules. Configuring workflows needs help from support, making self-service difficult for non-legal teams. They also note that redlining and editing capabilities burn time, making the external review experience difficult.

HyperStart

HyperStart’s browser-based Word editor is editable in real-time, making legal review incredibly intuitive. You can also configure granular controls and workflows to fit your organization’s internal governance standards. The redlining functionality gives you a first-pass review in seconds, cutting review time by 75%. You can also access a detailed approval history and an executive summary of key terms so you can send the contract for signatures with confidence without wasting time checking the background of contracts.

2. E-Signature

You must be able to configure, launch, and sign safely and compliantly in one place. Ensure you know how e-signature integrations work and if they come at an additional cost. Focus on those necessary to solve your specific pain points.

Ironclad

Ironclad elevates the signing process with flexibility. You can choose between its most recent feature, Ironclad Signature, Click-to-Accept, or a preferred third-party vendor. You only pay for the completed contracts.

DocuSign

DocuSign led the digital shift movement with agreement processes that saved paper, water, and waste. It approaches the problem with stringent global security standards like ISO 27001, PCI Data Security Standard, SSAE 18 (SOC Type 1 and 2), CSA STAR, and APEC PRP.

But if you’re already invested in another e-signature tool, you may have to get off it to use DocuSign’s CLM.

HyperStart

With HyperStart contract management software, you can choose from native or OTP-based signing options or keep signing wherever you do on DocuSign and AdobeSign with frictionless integrations. We’re also ISO 27001:2013, SOC Type 2, and GDPR compliant. You can agree on contracts compliantly and flexibly in one place and only pay for the number of contracts executed.

3. Post-signature

Once contracts are digitized, they need to be analyzed, tracked, located when needed, and reported on. This stage demands robust security for sensitive data, two-factor authentication, and data encryption. You need to be able to track contract review times and upcoming renewals while correlating contract data to sales impact. Compare what you agreed to and what is delivered. Reflect on service downtime and problem resolution to pick out the functionalities you need most.

Ironclad

Ironclad’s repository is secure and its AI engine is unrivaled. However, users have noted that its search capabilities are limited. Smart tags need manual updates in the back end. Dashboards and reports also need manual work.

DocuSign

DocuSign is compliant with enterprise-grade security standards. The repository is, however, little more than a digital filing cabinet. Users report that it lacks essential tagging and search capabilities.

HyperStart

HyperStart CLM analyzes, searches, and unlocks value in contracts. Optical Character Recognition helps convert scanned paper documents into fully searchable digital assets, and smart tags make it easy to categorize and search information. Your sales team can track renewals and obligations without leaving their CRM. Dashboards and analytics reports can be auto-generated or customized to suit the scenario.

4. Usability & Adoption

Your CLM needs to be easy-to-use and adopt from demo to delivery. The overall intuitiveness of the interface should frictionlessly fit your organizational workflows and processes. Training resources can also be handy for organization-wide adoption.

Ironclad

Ironclad workflows, smart tags, and reports require manual setup which is dependent on support. On the other hand, the support team is highly responsive and learning resources are available in plenty.

DocuSign

DocuSign users contend that it has a complex interface with a steep learning curve. Several functionalities need support assistance and the UX/UI is not relatable to small-mid-size teams. Possibly because enterprise customers are given priority access to support.

HyperStart

HyperStart users get to start using the product immediately upon implementation. In case you run into roadblocks, the support team is responsive and committed to solving them.

5. Implementation

The industry norm for implementation is an unexaggerated month or more. A quick intake and setup add up to quick time-to-value. You’ll also need a dedicated manager to guide you through the process. Ensure that the time, money, and data you invest are in proportion to the value you realize and the overall business efficiency you arrive at.

Ironclad

Ironclad promises 80% efficiency across the business with its intuitive, customizable, and AI-powered contracting solution. It analyzes contract data with 194+ automatically detected contract properties. While they promise implementation in 4 – 6 weeks, users report that the process is cumbersome requiring extra support and expertise with high volumes of data.

DocuSign

Having set the bar for e-signature, DocuSign seems to have worked backward to include other essential contract management solutions with powerful acquisitions. This has caused friction in its agility and implementation. Setup takes months and adoption suffers. Customer support also tends to prioritize enterprise customers, making it inaccessible to scaling teams.

HyperStart

HyperStart sets the bar for implementation times. You can get started in 7 days, not weeks or months. Recently, Qapita experienced this efficiency firsthand. With HyperStart, the company streamlined its contract management process by integrating all the contracts and using AI for rapid metadata extraction. Here is a testimonial from their company secretary.

Implementation was very smooth. Using the bulk upload feature, all contracts were integrated into the system within minutes. I could also see the AI-extracted metadata on the tool immediately, which was impressive.

Mayuri Jaltare

Company Secretary, Qapita

6. Integration

Integrations to your business enterprise systems and other internal tools reduce back and forth, uncover vendor performance, and help dig up historically negotiated terms in each stakeholder’s native environments. For example, your sales engineers can create, approve, redline, and sign contracts without leaving the CRM. These integrations help share information, streamline workflows, and cut down duplicate work.

Ironclad

The Ironclad ecosystem is equipped with proven tools and integrations to connect every department. They integrate with Salesforce, Hubspot, Coupa, Zip, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zapier, Dropbox, Box, OneTrust, Formstack, and many more.

DocuSign

DocuSign connects with more than 900 tools. However, users report issues with API/SDK calls.

HyperStart

HyperStart currently offers about 20 integrations to all popular tools to fit your workflows. While this pool is limited, you can request the product team for specific integrations with both enterprise systems or internal software.

7. Pricing

Ironclad pricing is designed for enterprises and comes with additional costs for consultation and support. Likewise, DocuSign pricing is geared toward large businesses, also including extra fees for these services.

HyperStart is purpose-built for scaling teams, making it accessible to small-and-mid-size organizations. We’ve curated simple pricing tiers that work for you at every stage of your growth, delivering superior value at a fraction of the cost. No hidden fees.

8. Industry & Roles

The legal-to-stakeholder ratio at many scaling organizations is 1:100 or more. Mundane legal requests add to the busy work while stealing you away from your life’s work. Understand which teams need visibility into the contract data and processes like key clauses, contract volumes, and time from request to execution. Speak with your potential CLM partners about process improvements that directly impact legal productivity.

Moreover, sales and procurement teams can also be empowered to track obligations, prevent auto-renewals, and create contract reports without your active oversight. You can also discuss automating tracking, notification, and reporting mechanisms. These systems build confidence in business owners to understand, analyze, track, renegotiate, and report key contractual clauses.

Identify which contractual touchpoints have the highest impact on your stakeholders. You’ll need a CLM that’s equipped to handle each of them with speed, ease, and accuracy.

Ironclad

Users report that Ironclad’s contract AI is deficient in functionalities for procurement teams.

DocuSign

On account of failed adoption, DocuSign users report that not all stakeholders across the organization have visibility into contract data and processes. This adds to the tedium.

HyperStart

We’re deeply aware that your CLM is only as good as the teams who are empowered by it. Here’s what non-legal teams can do with HyperStart CLM:

Feature comparison: HyperStart vs Ironclad vs DocuSign CLM

Feature	HyperStart	Ironclad	DocuSign
Microsoft Word plugin
Unlimited templates
Audit trail
No-code workflows
AI-Redlining & Review	99% accuracy	Good	Fair
Native e-sign
Clickwrap
Smart search			Limited
Smart tags			Manual
AI-metadata extraction
Automated dashboards & reports

While each of the above CLM software options is a strong choice, HyperStart CLM stands out as a better alternative to Ironclad and a solid DocuSign alternative, offering more comprehensive features for startups and scaling teams.

Next steps

The decision boils down to the skills you want to double down on as you automate busy work, the inclusivity of the tool, and costs. The solution has to be context-aware and remain attuned to your problem focus as you scale. 

Choosing your CLM is a strategic decison that is best informed by your pain points, existing workflows, and future growth plans and needs. Make sure it’s thoughtful and impactful for your business as a whole.