How to sign a confidential agreement privately

Where a confidential agreement can leak

A salary letter, a term sheet or a board consent is confidential because of what it says. The text is the part everyone thinks to protect, but a signing request has several other parts, and each one travels somewhere different.

Part of the request	Where it shows up	How to keep it private on Attest
The document's text	Stored by the e-signature service, which most services can decrypt	Nothing to do: every document is encrypted in your browser before upload, and Attest stores it only as ciphertext it can't read
What each signer enters	Stored with the document	Nothing to do: signatures, initials, dates, names and text are encrypted in the signer's browser with the document's key
The title	The subject of every signing email (such as "Signature requested by [you]: [title]"), the signing page and the certificate	Use a neutral title, such as "Employment terms" rather than one that names a salary or a price
The file name	The certificate, and Attest's records	Rename the PDF before you upload it
Your note to signers	The invitation email and the signing page	Keep terms out of the note, or leave it empty
Who signed, and when	The certificate, which is public by default	Choose Private under Verification when you send

The signing emails pass through ordinary email providers, which is why the title and your note matter: the invitation names your email address and the document's title and carries your note, never the document.

Attest, like any signing service, handles the information around the document: account and signer email addresses, each document's title, file name, size and type, your note, the signers' names, where fields are placed and when each step happened. The contents stay between you and the people you send the document to. We compared 21 e-signature services in October 2026, Attest and 20 others, and Attest was the only one that end-to-end encrypts every document, for every signer, by default.

How Attest keeps the terms between the parties

Your browser encrypts the PDF before it is uploaded and locks its key separately to each party's own key, after checking each key against Attest's public key directory, whose roots are published on the Horizen blockchain. Each signer's browser decrypts the document and checks it against the fingerprint recorded for the agreement, and the signer approves with a passkey: a cryptographic key only the signer controls, unlocked with Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello or the device PIN. Attest never sees a private key, a passkey's secret or a recovery phrase, and only fingerprints go on the public blockchain, never the document, its title or anyone's email address.

One step follows from this. Attest can't give a first-time signer access, because it has no key that opens the document: when they set up their key, you're emailed (and reminded after an hour and six hours if it still waits), and you release it from the agreement with your passkey, from your phone too. End-to-end encryption, explained covers how the keys work.

Salary letters and offer letters

An offer letter usually carries a salary, a start date and sometimes equity. Say your HR lead sends Mary Ruiz an offer letter. They title it "Offer letter", choose Private, leave the message empty, check Add me as a signer so the company signs too (your HR lead signs in the dashboard, with no email), and send it. Mary opens her link and sets up a passkey with Face ID; your HR lead releases the letter to her with their passkey, and she reads it in her browser and signs. The salary never appears in an email, on a certificate or in a readable form on Attest's servers. Mary never pays, and she needs no account and no password.

Adding yourself as a signer has a second benefit. If Mary later needs to show a landlord that she accepted the job, she can share a zero-knowledge proof that she and your signer's address signed an agreement, and the date it was completed. The landlord sees the two email addresses, the date, and that the proof is valid and where its record is anchored, never the letter, its title or the salary. Proofs name email addresses, and a sender who didn't sign can't be named in one. Proving an agreement to a bank, landlord, investor or new employer covers that step.

Some employment documents have form rules of their own in some countries. In Germany, for example, the electronic form is excluded for ending an employment relationship by notice or by agreement (BGB section 623). Offer letters and employment agreements covers the everyday HR paperwork.

Term sheets and investor documents

A term sheet names a valuation, an amount and the people behind it, often before anything is announced. The same settings apply, plus a few that fit how deals move:

• In order (under Signing order) when one side should sign first. In order mode only the signer whose turn it is is emailed, and anyone who opens their link early sees "Not your turn yet"; when your own turn comes, you sign in the dashboard, with no email.
• Expires closes an offer that isn't signed in time, up to a year ahead. When the date passes before everyone has signed, no one can sign it and every party is emailed.
• Void withdraws a document that isn't completed, and signers who haven't signed are emailed that it was withdrawn. A document voided before anyone signed is given back to your allowance.

Up to 20 people can sign one document. When a lender or a later investor only needs to know that an agreement exists, a signer can share a zero-knowledge proof instead of the terms. See startups: SAFE notes, term sheets and board consents for the rest of a company's early paperwork.

Board consents

A board consent records a decision the directors take without meeting, so every director signs the same resolution. Delaware's General Corporation Law shows how one state handles it. Unless the certificate of incorporation or the bylaws restrict it, directors can act without a meeting if all of them consent "in writing, or by electronic transmission", and a consent "may be documented, signed and delivered in any manner permitted by § 116" (section 141(f)). Section 116 accepts "a manual, facsimile, conformed or electronic signature" (section 116(a)(2)), except for the documents section 116(b) lists, such as filings with the Secretary of State, the stock ledger, stock certificates, notices and stockholder ballots. After the action, the consents are filed with the minutes "in the same paper or electronic form as the minutes are maintained".

On Attest, add every director as a signer and let them sign in any order, or in a set order if, for example, the chair should sign first. Each director's passkey signs a statement naming the exact resolution, by its fingerprint, and everything that director entered on it. When the last director signs, every party downloads the same sealed PDF, which carries its own evidence and verifier: that one file is what you keep with the minutes.

Step by step

1. Sign in at attest.datahubz.com with your email and set up your signing key with a passkey and a recovery phrase.
2. Give the PDF a neutral file name.
3. Open Documents in the menu (it reads Agreements on accounts that use every Attest tool) and click New agreement.
4. Type a neutral Title and attach the PDF, up to 8 MB. It is encrypted in your browser before upload.
5. Add each signer's email. Check Add me as a signer (sign in-app, no email) if you sign too, and under Signing order choose In order if one party should sign first.
6. Under Verification, choose Private.
7. Set Expires (optional) if the offer should lapse, and keep Message (optional) free of terms.
8. Click Next: place the fields, give every signer a signature field, then click Create and send.
9. When a first-time signer has set up their key, Attest emails you: click Unlock it for … in that email (or open the agreement in Attest), confirm, and approve with your passkey.
10. When everyone has signed, download the signed copy and file it with your records.

The full sending flow is in how to send a document for signature. Your first 2 documents are free, in total, and after that the Signing plan is $5 a month for 20 documents. The people who sign never pay.