The best petition sites are the ones whose signatures still hold up on the day you hand the petition in. Reach matters, and for some campaigns it decides. But the person receiving your petition will ask one thing first: can they check these signatures without taking the platform’s word for it?
This article is written by Causfy, which is a petition platform. That’s why there is no ranking below: a ranking written by a platform that puts itself first is worth little, and that would include ours. What follows are the questions that separate one petition site from another, with our own answers, which you can check against our own pages.
What every petition site has in common
You write a request, you get a link, people sign, a counter goes up. That part looks much the same from one site to the next, so it tells you little.
If you want the steps for writing the petition itself, they are in how to start a petition. This article is about what sits underneath.
Six questions that separate them
1. What is checked about the person who signs?
Three possibilities, and each proves something different. A name and an email typed into a box prove nothing about who typed them. A confirmed email proves there is a real inbox behind the signature. An identity checked against a document proves there is a person.
Ask: does the signer have to confirm anything before the signature counts?
2. Can the recipient check the signatures without trusting the site?
Find out where the signatures live. If they are a list in a database the site administers itself, and the council, the school board or the company you’re petitioning doubts that list, the only thing you can offer is the platform’s word. And a petition stops being discussed when someone says “this doesn’t prove anything” and you have no reply.
Ask: if the recipient doubts the list, what can I show them that doesn’t depend on you?
3. Do you take the list with you, and what’s in it?
At some point you’ll want to deliver the names, or write to the people who signed.
Ask: can I download the list, with which details, and who is allowed to contact the signers afterwards?
4. How does the platform pay for itself?
Free to start means the money comes from somewhere else: the signers, paid features, promotion, partners.
Ask: who pays, and for what?
5. Does it sell promotion?
Some platforms let a petition pay to be shown to more people. If a site does, some of what you see on its pages is there because someone paid.
Ask: can a petition pay for visibility, and is that marked?
6. How many people are already there?
A site with a large base of signers can bring your petition to people who have never heard of you. For a national issue that counts. For a local one, see further down.
What to ask any petition making website
The same six questions, with our answers. Put them to any other petition making website you’re considering, on its help and pricing pages.
| Ask | Causfy’s answer, as of October 2026 |
|---|---|
| What is checked about the signer? | Basic signature: the email is verified as real and theirs; the default. Verified identity: identity checked against an ID document. Neither is charged for |
| Can the recipient check without trusting you? | Each signature has a certificate with Causfy’s electronic seal. Its fingerprint is anchored on a public blockchain, and anyone can check it without an account and without asking us |
| Can I download the list, and with what? | Yes: the name given, if any, and the email of each supporter. What it covers may vary by type of cause, and that is notified before anyone supports it. You can write to signers only through the platform’s own features |
| How do you pay for yourself? | A voluntary addition from supporters, boosts and white label; the full answer is further down |
| Can a petition pay for visibility? | Yes. We sell boosts, which are paid promotion of a cause |
| Will the site bring me signers? | Reach depends mostly on how far your link travels |
How to tell a legit petition site
Before you send your supporters anywhere, three checks that take a few minutes:
- A named company behind it, with terms you can read.
- A plain statement of who sees the signers’ data and whether the list is sold or passed on. Ours: the full list of signers is not published, sold or passed to anyone; in public, only the first name of those who do not hide it is shown.
- Answers to the six questions above on its own pages, not only in a sales call.
The most popular isn’t always the best fit
Popular measures how many people are already on a site. That is what a national campaign needs when it is looking for strangers to sign.
A petition to your school board, your homeowners association or your city council needs something else: the right people. Two hundred signatures from the street in question carry more weight than ten thousand from across the country, because the recipient is asking whether the request represents the people it concerns. Whether online petition sites change anything at all depends mostly on that, and the long version is in do online petitions work. Who the right recipient is for each kind of request is in who to send a petition to.
For those petitions, question 6 drops to the bottom of the list and questions 1 and 2 move to the top.
Free petition websites: where the money comes from
Every free petition website is paid for by something. Find out what before you send your supporters there.
What our pricing page says:
- Creating a cause is free, with no cap on signatures and no commission on what it gathers.
- Nothing is charged for publishing, sharing or keeping the cause open, or for closing it and downloading your record.
- Nothing is charged based on the number of signatures or the signature level you choose.
- Boosting a cause is paid per boost, by whoever wants to give it visibility, never by the creator.
- White label, an organisation’s own space for causes with its identity and domain, is a closed proposal with no published rate.
And, in its own words: “Whoever supports a cause is offered the option to add something to keep the platform running. It is theirs, it goes separately, and it does not come out of what the cause gathers. It can be left at zero.”
Separately, Causfy sells boosts: paid promotion of a cause, paid by card or with cryptocurrency.
Ask any other platform for the same list.
Petition site or form builder?
In US results for “online petition maker” in October 2026, half are form builders: Jotform, Typeform and similar tools. They are good at collecting names on your own website.
What you end up with is a spreadsheet, and whoever owns the spreadsheet can edit any line of it. That owner is you, so when the recipient asks whether the list was touched, you have nothing to show that it wasn’t. For an internal survey that doesn’t matter. For a petition you will hand to someone with the power to say no, it’s the first thing they’ll ask.
In the UK, check the Parliament site first
If what you want is a response from the UK Government or a debate in Parliament, there is an official route, and no private platform replaces it. According to the Parliament petitions help page, read on 3 October 2026:
- At 10,000 signatures, the Government responds.
- At 100,000, the petition may be debated in Parliament.
- British citizens and UK residents can sign.
- A petition stays open for six months.
- It needs five supporters before it is checked and published.
The rest of the rules are on that same page.
Where Causfy fits, and where it doesn’t
If what you need is a large crowd of strangers already browsing the site, our answer to question 6 is the weakest of the six. Your signatures will mostly come from the people your link reaches.
Where we fit is a petition that ends up on someone’s desk. Each signature leaves its own certificate, the signer keeps a copy, and whoever receives the petition can check every signature for themselves, without an account and without asking us. If they will want to know who signed and not just how many, switch on the verified identity level for that cause.
You can start your petition on Causfy and put the six questions to us first.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most popular petition site?
We don’t name one: user counts are published by the platforms themselves and we can’t check them. Popular measures how many people are already on a site. That helps a national campaign looking for strangers to sign, and matters much less for a petition to a school or a council, where who signs counts more than how many.
How much does it cost to start a petition?
On Causfy, creating a petition, publishing it and collecting signatures cost nothing, at any signature level, and there is no cap on signatures. Causfy does not charge per signature. On any platform, ask how it pays for itself before you choose.
What is the best website to start a petition?
The one that fits who will receive it. If you need strangers to find and sign your petition, reach decides. If you will hand it to someone who may doubt the signatures, pick a site whose signatures they can check without trusting the platform. In the UK, for a response from the Government, the route is the Parliament petitions site.
Topics
- Petition sites
- Signatures
- Verification
- Free petitions