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Signing an NDA

Receiving an NDA

You’ll receive an email with a link to review and sign the agreement. It comes from “FreshNDA”, and replies go straight to the sender. The email tells you who sent it and what type of NDA it is. Click the link to open the signing page. No account is required.

The signing link is valid for 7 days from when the NDA was sent. After that it expires and you’ll see an expired-link message—ask the sender to send a new one if you still need to sign.

Everything on one screen

The signing page shows everything at once. At the top is a short signature block where you enter:

  • Email (prefilled and locked if the NDA was emailed to you; otherwise you enter it).
  • Full name (required).
  • Title (optional).
  • Organization (optional).

If the sender prefilled your details into the link, these fields arrive already filled in. You can edit any of them before signing. This information is included in the final signed agreement. The full text of the NDA appears just below the signature block, so you can read the agreement and sign without clicking through extra steps.

Reviewing the NDA

The full text of the NDA is displayed below the signature block with both parties’ names and details filled in. As you type your name, it appears in the agreement in real time. FreshNDA uses Bonterms NDA templates, which are open-source legal forms developed by experienced commercial attorneys. Read the agreement carefully before signing.

You have to review the agreement before you can sign it. The Sign NDA button stays disabled, with the prompt “Please read the full agreement below before signing,” until you have scrolled through the full text or opened the full reader. On a phone the agreement opens in a full-screen reader: tap Read full agreement to read it without fighting a cramped scroll box. A short agreement that already fits on screen counts as reviewed right away.

Signing

If you opened the NDA from a shared link, you can read the whole agreement right away. When you click Sign, a short popup asks you to confirm your email: a 6-digit code is sent to your address, and entering it records your signature. NDAs sent to you directly by email skip this step, since the message already arrived in your inbox.

To sign the NDA:

  1. Type your full name. Your typed name is your signature, and the agreement below fills in your name as you type.
  2. Check the consent box. It confirms that you have read and agree to the terms, that you consent to sign electronically, and that you understand typing your name and clicking Sign NDA is your legal electronic signature.
  3. Click Sign NDA.

Beside the consent box is an Electronic Records & Signatures Disclosure. It covers your right to a paper copy of the agreement, your right to withdraw consent and sign on paper instead before you sign, and the hardware and software you need to view and keep these records. The exact disclosure you were shown is recorded with your signature.

Under U.S. law, your electronic signature is valid and enforceable under the ESIGN Act and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA). Outside the U.S., whether an electronic signature is binding depends on the agreement’s choice of law and local rules. Your consent is recorded as a timestamped event in the signed agreement, so the record always reflects exactly what you agreed to.

Declining to sign

If you don’t want to sign, you don’t have to. Beneath the Sign NDA button is a Decline to sign link. Declining asks you to confirm and lets you add an optional reason. Once you decline, the NDA can no longer be signed, and the link shows a confirmation that you declined. The decline option appears whether the NDA was emailed to you or you opened it from a shared link. For an emailed NDA the sender is notified; for one you opened from a shared link, the sending organization’s admins are notified instead.

After signing

Once signed, both you and the sender receive a confirmation email with the fully executed NDA attached as a PDF, plus a link to view and download it again any time. The PDF includes both signatures and timestamps, plus a Certificate of Completion. The certificate groups everything about each party in one block: their signature shown in script, their name, title, organization, and email, and their signing timestamps. For you as the recipient it also records the IP address you signed from, an approximate location (city and country) derived from that IP, and your device. It is the exact document executed by both parties—stored securely, not rebuilt on each download.

The certificate also carries a QR code and a verification link. Anyone holding a copy can scan the code or open the link to reach a public verify page that confirms the document’s authenticity and signing status—the parties, the signing date, and two SHA-256 fingerprints—without needing an account. The agreement text fingerprint covers the executed wording and matches the value printed on the certificate when that wording is unchanged; the signed PDF fingerprint covers the signed PDF file itself, so you can compute the SHA-256 of a PDF you downloaded and compare it to confirm the file is byte-for-byte identical.