How it works
One agreement, from the first draft to the renewal.
Signing used to be the whole product. It is one stage of eight here: what comes before it — the paper, the people, the stamps — and what comes after — the seal, the receipts, the calendar — are recorded with the same care as the mark itself.
The people you send to need no account and are never charged. Verification is free, forever.
What the record holds, stage by stage
- Startthe paper, pinned by hash; its Drive provenance
- Prepareparties, capacities, pads, formalities, the calendar
- Sendeach invitation, by which channel, to whom
- Signconsent, every rung, the act, the version set
- Receiptthe party's seal, Rutba's countersignature
- Sealmanifest, countersignature, timestamp, copies
- Verifythree doors here, one at Rutba
- Renewthe chain from this record to the next
Every row is appended at event time and hash-chained to the one before. Nothing is written after the fact.
The lifecycle
Eight stages, one sealed record
In the order they happen. Each stage writes to the same evidence chain, so the record of the renewal can point at the record of the original and both still verify.
Start with the paper
Upload a PDF, pick one from Drive, or draft the agreement together in the shared word processor — every version kept, changes tracked, then locked and printed. Whatever the source, the bytes are pinned by hash the moment they enter and never rewritten.
Prepare
The people, in their capacities — director, attorney-in-fact, notary public — and their order. A signature pad for each, captioned with their name and designation, placed in one click. The evidence each will be asked for. The formalities the paper needs. The calendar: effective date, term, renewal notice.
Send, three ways
By emailed link to anyone; into the inbox of a colleague who uses this instance; or hosted in person on your own device for somebody sitting beside you. A stamp owed before sending holds the door, by name, until it is on the paper.
Sign at the table
Everyone sees who has acted and who is up. Consent comes first, then the evidence rungs the sender asked for and the signer agreed to, then the mark — drawn, typed, uploaded, or a wet-ink scan.
Sealed for themself
Each person leaves holding a receipt: the instance's seal over their own act and the evidence chain at that moment, countersigned by Rutba the instant it is issued. It verifies without an account, whether or not the envelope ever completes.
Sealed for everyone
Once every party has acted and every before-seal formality — the corporate seal, the notary's certificate — is met, the whole record seals: the manifest, Rutba's countersignature, an RFC 3161 timestamp, the certificate, and executed copies to every party.
Verify, forever
Three doors on the issuing instance — the record's digest, an original file's hash, a party's receipt — and one at Rutba that never touches the instance and keeps answering after any subscription ends.
Manage and renew
The agreement manager lists what is live and what ends soon, reminds the sender ahead of the notice period, and renews — as-is, or with changes — on a new envelope chained to the old one, with the same people and the same formalities.
Three ways in, three ways to arrive
Start from the paper you have; sign the way the room needs
The paper decides how an agreement starts. The person decides how they arrive. Neither changes the ceremony, which is the same one for everybody.
Upload a PDF
The classic path. The file is pinned by hash on arrival and is the byte-for-byte prefix of every executed copy that follows.
Pick it from Drive
The paper already lives in your Drive. It is copied into the envelope, pinned, and its origin recorded — the source may change freely afterwards; the record will not.
Draft it together
Open the shared word processor, negotiate with tracked changes and every version retained, lock the draft, and print it straight into the envelope with a captioned pad for each party.
By link
The emailed ceremony: no account, nothing to install. Their link is theirs alone, stored hashed, revocable, and it dies at expiry.
From the app
A colleague who uses this instance signs from their own inbox, their identity bound to the act by the session they are already in — the credential is minted to that session and nowhere else.
In person
Somebody sitting beside you signs on your device. The sender hosts the ceremony on a two-hour credential, and the record says who hosted whom.
Stamps, seals and notaries
Where the paper needs more than signatures
A commercial agreement in most places is executed by the signatures alone. Where it is not, the formality is declared on the envelope and evidenced like everything else.
Six kinds, two moments
Judicial, non-judicial, revenue and fiscal stamps; the corporate seal; notarisation. Each is owed either before sending — the stamp paper an agreement is printed on — or before the seal — the corporate seal, the notary’s certificate on the executed instrument. The envelope refuses to send while the first kind is outstanding, and completes its signatures but waits to seal while the second is.
Done by you, or arranged by Rutba
Satisfy it yourself — the e-stamp certificate number, the notary’s register entry, an image of the seal impression — and the proof is stored as an artifact in the record. Or ask Rutba to arrange it: the request goes to a desk where a person does the arranging, and the reference they record comes back to your envelope as its proof. Nineteen jurisdictions are described on day one — which kinds each offers, and which of them electronically — as guidance, never as a refusal.
What Sign never does It does not notarise, and it does not affix a stamp or a seal on anyone’s behalf. A notary joins the table as an attester in the capacity “Notary Public”; their certificate is the formality’s proof; and a document that is a notarial act, a will, a deed needing a witness physically present, or a court process stays outside the product, refused with the citation that says why.
Two attestations
What Rutba attests, and what only your instance can
The split is the point: a counterparty checks a document without touching your systems, and the check keeps working whether or not your instance is up.
Countersigned at Rutba
The moment a record seals — and the moment each party acts — its digest is presented to Rutba and countersigned on Rutba's own clock. The claim is exactly one thing: this digest existed at this time. Not who signed, not whether the document is valid. Anyone can check it at rutba.io/sign/verify, with no account, forever.
Verified on the instance
The instance holds the record, so only the instance can say valid or tampered: that the sealed manifest matches the documents, that a receipt matches the ledger row it names, that a file you hold is the pinned original, an executed copy or the certificate. Three doors, no account, linked from every certificate.
Questions
The ones the lifecycle raises
What is a receipt, and why would I want one before the envelope completes?
It is the instance's seal over your own act — what you signed, in which version, at what position in the evidence chain — issued the moment you act and countersigned by Rutba then. If the envelope is later voided, or never completes, or the instance disappears, you still hold proof of what you did and when, and the verifier at rutba.io still answers for its digest.
Can the people at the table see each other?
Yes. The ceremony shows the table: who has acted, who is up, who is waiting on whom. A witness is invited only once their principal has signed, and the record says so.
Does an agreement have to be signed all at once?
No. Parties act in the order the sender set, or in parallel, over days if need be; reminders chase whoever is up. The envelope has an expiry, and an expired one is recorded as expired — never silently dropped.
What happens at renewal?
The agreement manager lists every live agreement by its term end and reminds the sender ahead of the renewal notice. Renewing as-is copies the paper, the people, the pads and the formalities into a new draft chained to the old record; renewing with changes does the same and lets you revise the paper before sending. The old record is untouched — it was sealed.
Is a receipt or a countersignature ever charged for?
No. Signing, receipts, countersignatures and verification never cost anyone anything, on any tier. You pay to send an envelope; a formality Rutba arranges for you is a service with its own quote, never an envelope charge.
What does Rutba learn about my agreement?
A digest and a time, for each countersignature — never the document, the parties or the manifest. For a formality Rutba arranges: the kind, the stage, the jurisdiction, the duty and your own reference for it. Nothing that could later be asked to attest more than it does.
Send the first one and walk the eight stages yourself
Pay as you go per envelope, or one flat subscription for the whole organization. No seat counts, no charge to signers, no charge to verify.