The short answer
It's the block of details under every email you send. People see it far more often than your website, so a tidy one makes every reply look professional.
An email signature is the block that sits at the bottom of every email you send: your name, your role, how to reach you, and usually a logo. Most email apps add one automatically once you've set it up. It's one of the smallest pieces of design a business has, and also one of the most seen.
Why it matters more than it looks
Think about how many emails you send in a week: quotes, replies, invoices, follow-ups, introductions. Every one of them carries your signature. Most of the people reading them will never visit your website, but they'll all see the bottom of your emails, often several times.
That makes the signature a small, constant impression. A tidy one says you're organised and established. A missing one, or a jumble of fonts, a pixelated logo and three different phone numbers, says the opposite, even if your work is excellent. It's the email equivalent of turning up to a meeting in a creased shirt.
What a good signature includes
- Your name, and your role if people need to know who they're dealing with.
- The business name or logo, small and sharp.
- One phone number and one website. More than that becomes clutter.
- Optionally, a photo of you. It makes replies feel personal and helps people remember who they spoke to.
- Optionally, one line or small banner for something current: a new service, an event, a booking link.
What to leave out
- Inspirational quotes.
- Every social media icon you've ever signed up for. Pick the one or two you actually use.
- Long legal disclaimers, unless your industry requires them. If it does, keep them in small, plain text.
- Your full postal address, unless customers visit you.
- Big images. Many email apps block images until the reader allows them, and large ones make every email heavier.
Why signatures break
Here's the frustrating bit. A signature can look perfect in your email app and fall apart in someone else's. Outlook, Gmail and Apple Mail all display email differently, and phones differ again. Common problems:
- The logo shows up as an attachment, or as a blank box with a red cross.
- The layout collapses into a single column on phones, with everything squashed.
- Fonts change to something unexpected because the reader doesn't have yours.
- Colours or spacing shift in dark mode.
- Replies and forwards stack signatures on top of each other until the thread is mostly signature.
Most of these come from building the signature like a web page, or pasting in an image of the whole thing. A signature that works everywhere is built in the simple, slightly old-fashioned way email apps understand, with the logo hosted online rather than attached, and tested in the apps your customers actually use.
A layout that works almost everywhere
There's no single right design, but this simple layout reads well in every email app we test and on phones:
- Your name, slightly larger or in bold.
- Your role and the business name on the next line, in a softer colour.
- A thin line or a little space.
- Phone number and website on one line, both tappable.
- The logo, small, either to the left of all this or underneath it.
- Optionally, one short line underneath with something current, like "Now taking bookings for spring".
Keep the whole thing under about 600 pixels wide and not much taller than your logo plus four lines of text. If it's taller than the average reply, it's too big.
Legal details some businesses need
In some countries and industries, business emails have to include certain details. UK limited companies, for example, must show the company's registered name, number, place of registration and registered office address on business correspondence, emails included. Regulated professions often need a regulator's name or licence number too. If that applies to you, the signature is the neat place to put it, in small plain text at the bottom. Check the rules for your country and trade.
Signatures for a team
If more than one person emails customers, a matching signature for everyone is one of the cheapest ways to look like a proper company. Same layout, same colours, each person's own name, role and number. It also stops the slow drift where one person adds a quote, another uses an old logo and a third has no signature at all.
For teams on Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, signatures can be set up centrally so everyone gets the same one. For smaller teams, it's usually a few minutes per person with clear instructions.
Is it worth paying for?
If you already have a logo and colours, a well-built signature is a small job, usually a few days from start to finish including changes. The value is in it working everywhere and matching everything else. You can build one yourself with a free generator, and for a sole trader that's often fine. Test it by sending an email to a Gmail address, an Outlook address and a phone before you call it done.
If you don't have a logo yet, start there. We explain why in do I need a logo before a website?.
A two-minute check of your own
- Send yourself an email from your work account and open it on your phone.
- Is your name clear? Is the logo sharp? Can you tap the phone number to call it?
- Forward the email to a friend who uses a different email app, and ask for a screenshot.
- Reply to your own email twice. Does the thread turn into a pile of signatures?
If any of those made you wince, it's worth fixing. Our email signature design covers the design, the setup for your whole team and testing in Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail.
