PandaDoc Payments: How to Collect Payment When the Proposal Is Signed

PandaDoc payments let a client pay by card, ACH, or other methods inside the same document they just signed: you connect a payment gateway (Stripe, PayPal, Square, Authorize.net, or QuickBooks Payments), add a collect payment step to the template, and the document moves from signed to paid without an invoice in between. Payment collection is available on Starter, Business, and Enterprise plans, PandaDoc currently charges no transaction fee of its own, and you can request the full amount, a fixed or percentage deposit, or a payment split in two.

That is the mechanics in two sentences. The more useful question is how to set it up so the payment step strengthens your proposals instead of complicating them, and when collecting at signature actually beats sending an invoice afterwards. This guide covers both, verified against PandaDoc’s current published documentation in October 2026. Plan gating, gateway lists, and fees change, so treat their pricing page as the live source and this as the map.

Key takeaways

• PandaDoc supports five payment gateways: Stripe, PayPal, Square, Authorize.net, and QuickBooks Payments. On the Starter plan, Stripe is the only gateway available; Business and Enterprise can use any of the five.
• Payment attaches to the document as a collect payment step (in the new experience, part of the template’s workflow builder). The client signs, the document status flips to waiting for payment, and they pay in the same session or by the due date you set.
• The amount can pull automatically from the quote or pricing table, so the figure the client pays is the figure they approved. Deposits work as a fixed amount or a percentage, and payments can split in two with a scheduled reminder for the balance.
• PandaDoc’s own transaction fee is currently $0 (stated as subject to change). Your gateway’s standard processing fees still apply, and the minimum charge through Stripe is $0.50.
• Recurring billing is supported through Stripe: a quote with recurring products and a contract term creates the subscription automatically when the client pays.
• Only the account owner or a user with an Admin or Manager role can connect a gateway, which makes the payment step an admin build decision, not a per-rep setting.

How a payment attaches to a PandaDoc document

Payment collection in PandaDoc is a step in the document’s lifecycle, not a link pasted into the closing paragraph. In the current (new) experience you add a collect payment step in the template’s workflow builder, and every document created from that template carries it. On an individual document you can also manage it from Document properties under Manage payments. Either way, the flow the client sees is the same: they review the proposal, sign, click Finish, and the document status changes to waiting for payment. They then pay in the document, and the status moves to paid.

Two details in that flow do more work than they appear to. First, the status progression means your document list doubles as a receivables view: a document sitting at waiting for payment is signed revenue you have not collected, visibly distinct from a proposal that is still being read. Our document tracking guide covers how to act on each status, and waiting for payment is the one that should trigger the fastest follow-up, because the buying decision is already made.

Second, the amount can be set to pull automatically from the quote builder or pricing table in the document. That sounds minor until you remember what it replaces: someone re-typing a total from a signed PDF into an invoicing tool. Pricing errors and the fear of them came up in 28 of the 129 sales calls we analysed, and the re-keying step between “client approved this number” and “client was charged this number” is exactly where those errors live. When the payment step reads the same pricing table the client approved, that step disappears.

Due dates are configurable per document: payment upon signing is the default, with Net 7, 15, 30, or 60 terms or a custom date available when you want the signature now and the payment on schedule.

The five supported gateways, and which plans get them

PandaDoc processes nothing itself; it hands the transaction to a gateway you connect. The current list is Stripe, PayPal, Square, Authorize.net, and QuickBooks Payments. Connecting one requires the account owner or an Admin or Manager role, so reps cannot each wire up their own, which is the right constraint: the gateway is part of the system, and it should be built once, deliberately.

Plan gating matters here. Payment collection itself is available from the Starter plan upward, but Starter supports only Stripe. Business and Enterprise plans can connect any of the five, and they are also the plans where payments on PandaDoc Forms become available (additional form documents are billed at $2 each). If payments are a main reason you are choosing a plan, this is one of the quieter line items that separates Starter from Business, alongside the content library and approval workflows. Our breakdown of what each plan actually gates is in the implementation cost guide, but the short version is: single gateway and straightforward collection on Starter, full gateway choice on Business and up.

On the methods side, Stripe is the deepest integration. Payers can use any payment method you have enabled in your Stripe account, surfaced in two modes: a dynamic mode that adapts the offered methods to the payer’s device, location, and currency, and a pre-set mode where you choose the methods yourself, such as card only or card plus bank transfer. Bank debit methods like ACH and SEPA Direct Debit are supported where they apply, which matters for B2B deals where a four-figure card fee makes no sense. A few categories are explicitly not supported: real-time payments, cash vouchers, push bank transfers, and buy now pay later.

Deposits, split payments, and due dates

Full payment at signature is the simplest configuration, but it is not the most common one in services work. PandaDoc supports three patterns beyond pay-in-full:

A deposit, as a fixed amount or a percentage. You set the initial payment at, say, 40% or a flat $2,000, and the signed document collects that amount. This is the pattern for project work where the deposit is what books the start date. The proposal, the signature, and the commitment payment become one step, which is precisely the moment the client is most willing to pay.

A split payment in two. The total divides into two scheduled payments, with a reminder going out for the second automatically. For mid-sized projects this replaces the “50% to start, 50% on delivery” invoice pair that someone otherwise has to remember to send.

Net terms on the full amount. Signature today, payment due Net 15 or Net 30, collected through the same document when the date arrives. This keeps the payment attached to the agreement rather than drifting into a separate invoicing system, while respecting how larger clients actually pay.

What PandaDoc does not do is store a card at signature and charge the full amount later: pre-payments and installments beyond the split described above are not supported as a stored-card arrangement, so genuinely bespoke payment schedules still belong in your invoicing or billing system. The honest rule: one or two payments tied to the document, PandaDoc handles well; a six-milestone billing plan does not belong in a payment block.

What it costs: PandaDoc fees versus gateway fees

PandaDoc’s published transaction fee on payments is currently $0.00, explicitly noted as subject to change. The cost of collecting payment through a document is therefore your gateway’s standard processing fee: Stripe, Square, PayPal, Authorize.net, or QuickBooks Payments charge their normal rates for the transaction, exactly as they would on an invoice from their own systems. The minimum charge through Stripe is $0.50.

Practical consequences. First, card fees on large B2B transactions are the real cost driver, not PandaDoc: 2.9% on a $15,000 project is $435, which is why enabling ACH or another bank debit method for high-value proposals is usually the single best configuration decision in the whole setup. Second, because the fees are the gateway’s, your existing processing relationship carries over: if your business already runs on Square or QuickBooks Payments, connecting that gateway keeps your payouts, reporting, and reconciliation where your bookkeeper already looks.

Recurring billing from the quote

For retainers and subscriptions, PandaDoc supports a recurring payment type through Stripe. When a quote contains recurring products with a contract term, the client’s payment at signature creates the subscription automatically: the initial charge happens in the document, and the gateway bills the remaining periods on schedule. Recurring-capable methods include cards, digital wallets, and bank debits.

The mechanics of building that quote, including contract terms, recurring columns, and how discounts should apply to first payments versus every payment, are covered in our quote builder guide, so we will not repeat them here. The point for this guide is the shape of the outcome: the signed proposal becomes the billing instruction. Nobody re-keys the retainer into the billing system, which means the amount that recurs is the amount that was signed.

When sign-and-pay beats invoicing after

Collecting payment in the document is not automatically right for every business. The pattern earns its place in three situations:

Low-touch and consumer-adjacent sales. When the buyer is an individual or a small business and the amount is in card territory, every day between “yes” and “paid” loses deals. A proposal that collects payment at signature closes the loop while the decision is warm. This is where teams see completed-and-paid in one session.

Deposit-gated work. If your start date is secured by a deposit, the deposit belongs in the signing moment. Separating “sign the proposal” from “pay the deposit invoice” creates a gap where a signed client is still not committed, and chasing a deposit from someone who already signed is an awkward conversation that the payment step simply deletes.

Teams drowning in the handoff. The costliest version of invoice-after is not the delay, it is the manual relay: sales marks the deal closed, someone tells finance, finance builds an invoice from the PDF, and errors creep in at each hop. Manual document handling was the top pain in 82 of the 129 sales calls we analysed, with proposal creation alone taking 45 to 50 minutes at one company we spoke to. Wiring payment into the document removes one entire system from that relay.

Invoice-after remains right when your clients are larger companies with procurement and accounts-payable processes, when billing runs on milestones, or when your finance system is the contractual system of record. Net terms in PandaDoc soften this boundary but do not remove it: if a client’s AP department needs a PO number and a portal upload, a payment block will not change that.

Setting it up without breaking your quoting

The payment step is the last block in a chain, and it inherits whatever the chain feeds it. If reps type prices by hand, the payment step collects typed prices, typos included. The order of operations that works:

1. Get the catalog and pricing right first, so quotes carry governed numbers. That is the core of a proper PandaDoc CPQ setup, and it is what makes the auto amount trustworthy.
2. Put the payment step in the template, not in individual documents, so every proposal from that template behaves the same way. Templates are where consistency lives; our template service treats the payment block as part of the template build, not an afterthought.
3. Decide the deposit and terms policy once, as a business rule: which document types collect in full, which take a percentage deposit, which get Net terms. Reps should pick a template, not design a payment scheme.
4. Test with a real card and a real bank debit before go-live, including the refund path in your gateway, because the first time you learn how refunds work should not be with a client watching.

If PandaDoc is already live and payments would be bolted onto a wobbly setup, fix the quoting layer first. A full PandaDoc implementation sequences this properly: templates and catalog, then CRM wiring, then payments as the closing step of a system that already produces correct numbers.

FAQ: PandaDoc payments

Which payment gateways does PandaDoc support? Five: Stripe, PayPal, Square, Authorize.net, and QuickBooks Payments. Stripe is the deepest integration, with dynamic payment methods, bank debits like ACH and SEPA, and recurring billing. On the Starter plan, Stripe is the only gateway available; Business and Enterprise can connect any of the five.

Does PandaDoc charge a fee on payments? PandaDoc’s published transaction fee is currently $0.00, noted as subject to change. You pay your gateway’s normal processing fees, and the minimum charge through Stripe is $0.50. For high-value B2B proposals, enabling a bank debit method is usually the biggest fee saving available.

Can I collect a deposit instead of the full amount? Yes. The initial payment can be a fixed amount or a percentage of the total, and a payment can also split in two with an automatic reminder for the balance. Due dates run from payment upon signing (the default) through Net 7, 15, 30, or 60, or a custom date.

Does the client pay before or after signing? After. The recipient signs and finishes the document, the status changes to waiting for payment, and they pay in the same session or by the due date. If a payment block is present and unpaid, the document shows waiting for payment rather than completed, so your document list shows signed-but-uncollected revenue at a glance.

Can PandaDoc handle recurring payments for retainers? Yes, through Stripe. A quote with recurring products and a contract term creates the subscription automatically when the client pays at signature, using cards, digital wallets, or bank debits. The billing follows the signed quote, so the recurring amount is the approved amount.