Waiverly — Digital Waiver & E-Signature Kiosk (PHP + MySQL, Self-Hosted) vs. renting SaaS
Self-hosted digital waivers with a minor/guardian gate and tamper-evident records.
The subscription math
Waiverly — Digital Waiver & E-Signature Kiosk (PHP + MySQL, Self-Hosted) — yours
$39.00
one-time · self-hosted · your data, your server
Buy once
Smartwaiver — rented
Basic $19/mo (monthly; Starter $55/mo, Business $155/mo, Premium $199/mo) [1]
Break-even: 3 months
of Smartwaiver equals the one-time price.
Assumption: Basic is the honest floor - volume gyms typically need Starter and up.
How their pricing grows:
Smartwaiver's Basic plan is capped at 100 signed waivers per month, so a growing business has to move up through its tiers as waiver volume increases.
“Basic $19/mo Up to 100 signed waivers per month.” — read 2026-08-11
What Smartwaiver does that we don't:
Smartwaiver offers integrations to connect with other apps and tools a business already uses.
If you need government-ID verification on signed waivers or want the signer automatically emailed a copy, stay with Smartwaiver — Waiverly has no government-ID identity verification and only notifies you (not the signer) by email when a waiver is signed.
WaiverForever — rented
Essential $19/mo, Standard $39/mo, Scale $129/mo; free starter plan [2]
Break-even: 3 months
of WaiverForever equals the one-time price.
Assumption: Flat-rate with a free tier for low volume, but paid plans are a monthly bill that grows with features. Waiverly is one payment, unlimited waivers.
How their pricing grows:
WaiverForever charges a monthly base fee per tier plus a usage fee that scales automatically with submission volume, offline devices, templates, and team users.
“Your usage fee is calculated automatically at the end of your billing cycle.” — read 2026-08-11
What WaiverForever does that we don't:
WaiverForever ships built-in third-party integrations with tools like Zapier, Mailchimp, Dropbox, Google Drive, and MindBody.
If you need built-in online payment collection at the point of signing, stay where you are — Waiverly does not do that.
Savings calculator
SaaS figures use the cited plan price above (see the sources below); per-seat plans scale by the seat count from the same cited price. This is arithmetic, not a quote.
Why owning beats renting here
- One payment. No per-month, per-seat, or per-location fees — the license is perpetual.
- Your data stays on your server. Customer records never live in someone else's cloud.
- No plan ceilings. Records, users, and usage are limited by your hosting, not a pricing tier.
- It keeps working if the vendor doesn't. Self-hosted software can't be sunset out from under you.
Fair trade-offs: you host it, you back it up, and updates are yours to apply — see the product page for honest limitations.
Sources
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Smartwaiver — price checked 2026-07-05 —
source
“'Basic $19/mo' ... 'Starter $55/mo' ... 'Business $155/mo' ... 'Premium $199/mo'”
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WaiverForever — price checked 2026-07-21 —
source
“$19.00 ... $39.00 ... $129.00 monthly tiers shown on the pricing page”
Competitor prices change — always confirm on the linked page. We only print figures we could verify on the date shown.