The Slowest Contracts Spend over 40% of their Time Waiting On Signers, ContractSafe Data Shows
ContractSafe's 2026 Contract Lifecycle Report is built on timestamp analysis from more than 55,000 contracts. For contracts that take more than three weeks from start to finish, the longest period is waiting for signatures – more than during approval and negotiation combined.
MALIBU, Calif., Nov. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Among companies that use contract lifecycle management (CLM) software, half of contracts are signed within 2.8 days of being added, but the slowest 10% take 24 days or more. For the slowest contracts, 40% of that time passes after they've been sent to be signed, according to ContractSafe's 2026 Contract Lifecycle Report.
For those slowest contracts, the biggest wait comes at the last step. Of the time they spent in the four steps the report tracks (waiting to start, in progress, approval, and signature), 44% went to waiting for signatures, more than twice the 19% that went to approval. That means most of the delay comes after the contract has already gone out. It's sitting with someone who only has to sign it.
"Everyone has a theory about why contracts are slow, and most of those theories come from surveys," said Randy Bishop, CEO and co-founder of ContractSafe. "We looked at what contracts actually did. Most are signed in days. The ones that get stuck are often waiting on one person, an approver who hasn't answered or a signer who hasn't signed. And these are teams that have visibility into their contracts. Teams working out of email and shared drives usually can't tell which contracts are waiting, or who they're waiting on."
The report, "Where Contracts Get Stuck (...and How to Fix It)," is ContractSafe's 2026 proprietary data white paper. It isn't survey results. It's built on real-world anonymized timestamps showing how contracts actually moved at companies that use ContractSafe, from August 2025 to September 2026, including more than 15,000 approval requests and 48,000 e-signature requests.
Other key findings:
- Every signer adds time. Requests with one signer are fully signed in a median of 1.5 hours. Two signers take 22 hours, and four or more take 5 days.
- One slow approver accounts for most of the wait. When approvers are asked one at a time, the slowest one takes a median of 3.4 days. Everyone else is under 2 hours.
- Friday is the fastest day to ask for a signature, at a median of 4.7 hours.
- Asking all approvers at once pays off. A two-approver request sent to both at once is decided in a median of 1.3 days, against 2.2 days when they take turns.
Small Fixes, Not a Bigger System
The report advises seven moves a team can make this quarter, including naming an owner the day a contract is added, reminding the one approver who hasn't answered, and using an intake form so new requests arrive with the key facts.
"Small and midsize teams don't need a six-month project to speed up contracts," said Ken Button, co-founder of ContractSafe. "They need to see which contracts are stuck and whose turn it is. Once you can see that, the fix is usually one reminder or one setting."
The full report is available free at https://www.contractsafe.com/2026-contract-data-white-paper. All data is anonymized and aggregated, and no company, contract, or person can be identified.
About ContractSafe
ContractSafe is a contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform built for small and midsize organizations. Refreshingly simple and surprisingly affordable, it helps legal, finance, procurement, and operations teams manage the full contract lifecycle, from intake through renewal, with practical AI built in. ContractSafe was founded in 2015 and is backed by Five Elms Capital. Learn more at https://www.contractsafe.com.
SOURCE ContractSafe
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