The best app to sign documents without printing (iPhone, honestly compared)

You’ve got a PDF to sign and no printer — or no interest in the print–sign–scan routine. So which app is actually best? The honest answer is that the “best” one depends on how often you sign and what the document is, and for a lot of people the best option isn’t an app you install at all. Here’s the real landscape on an iPhone, ranked by how most people actually use them.

First: do you even need an app?

iOS Markup is free and already on your phone. For a one-off signature it’s genuinely the best choice — you don’t need to install or pay for anything.

Open the PDF (in Mail, tap the attachment; in Files, tap to preview).
Tap the Markup (pencil) icon.
Tap + → Signature, draw one with your finger, and drag it onto the line.
Tap Done, then share or reply with the signed copy.

Where Markup wins: you sign something twice a year, the document is simple, and free-and-instant beats everything.

Where it starts to hurt, honestly: the signature is a raw finger-drawing you redraw each time (or place from one saved signature); dates and initials are manual text boxes you nudge into position; initials on every page of a lease become real work; and Gmail/Outlook users have to route through Files first. If any of that describes your week, a dedicated app is worth it — otherwise, stop here, you’re done.

The real contenders when you sign more than occasionally

Adobe Acrobat Reader (free tier)

The default everyone’s heard of. Fill & Sign lets you draw or type a signature and drop it on a PDF for free, and it’s cross-platform if you also work on a desktop. The trade-offs: the free tier constantly nudges you toward a paid subscription, the app is heavy, and it wants you signed into an Adobe account. Best if you’re already in the Adobe ecosystem — if the account gate is what’s stopping you, here’s how to sign a PDF on iPhone without Adobe at all.

Cloud e-signature services (DocuSign, Dropbox Sign, etc.)

These are built for sending documents out for others to sign — audit trails, signer verification, reminders. They’re excellent at that. But for the everyday job of receiving a PDF and returning it signed, they’re overkill: you upload your document to their cloud, create an account, and often hit a monthly send limit on the free tier. Reach for these only when you need a verified signing workflow for a business, not for signing a lease someone emailed you.

Signed (local-first, made for this exact job)

If the job is “someone sends me PDFs and I need them back, signed, fast,” this is the case Signed is built for:

Open the attachment in Mail, Gmail or Outlook and tap Share → Signed (or import from Files).
Your saved signature, initials and an auto-filled date are one tap each. Create your signature once — draw it properly, type your name in a real handwriting style, or let AI generate one.
Tap Finish for a clean, flattened PDF, and share it straight back into a reply.

The differentiator worth knowing: it’s local-first — the PDF never leaves your phone, there’s no cloud copy, and no account to create. After the one-time setup the whole round trip is under a minute, and it looks identical on every document.

So which is best for you?

You sign a couple of times a year → iOS Markup. Free, built in, done.
You sign monthly or more, or care how it looks → a dedicated app pays for itself the first week in avoided fiddling. Signed for a private, iPhone-first flow; Adobe if you live in that ecosystem.
You need to send documents for others to sign, with tracking → a cloud e-sign service is the right tool, not a signing app.
The document is high-stakes legal work → whatever tool you pick, a signature image on a PDF may not be the whole requirement — check what’s actually accepted for that document type before you rely on it.

The bottom line

There’s no single “best app” — there’s the best fit for how often you sign and what’s at stake. For most people signing the occasional lease, form or contract on an iPhone, the honest ladder is: Markup for one-offs → a focused app like Signed for anything recurring → a cloud service only when you’re the one sending documents out. No printer required at any rung.