Answers

What should a business email signature include?

Ascent Vision · Published October 24, 2026

A business email signature needs only the lines that help the reader act: your name and role, the business name, one phone number that reaches a person, the website and the area you serve. Hours or a usual reply time can help too. Leave out long quotes, banners and rows of icons, keep the phone number as text rather than inside an image, and use the same layout for everyone on the team.

The lines that earn their place

• Your name and role, so a customer knows who to ask for.
• The business name, written the way customers know it.
• One phone number: the one that reaches a person during your hours.
• Your website, written out in full.
• The town or area you serve, which helps someone forwarding your email to a neighbor.
• Optional: your hours, a usual reply time, or a license number if customers in your trade expect to see it.

What to leave out

• Quotes, slogans and long taglines.
• A signature made of a single picture. Some email programs hold back images until the reader allows them, so the phone number can disappear.
• Several phone numbers, which make the reader guess which one to call.
• Icons for social accounts you do not keep up.
• Anything that changes often, such as a monthly offer, unless someone will update every signature.

One signature for the whole team

Write one layout and give it to everyone: same order, same main number, same website. Customers who deal with two people then see one business, not two. When someone joins, set theirs up on the first day; when someone leaves, their mail should reach whoever takes over their customers, as the related answer on using your own domain for business email describes.

A shorter version for replies, with just your name, role and phone number, keeps long email threads readable.

Check it on a phone

Many customers read email on a phone, so send yourself a message and look at it there. The phone number should be plain text, which most phones let people tap to call, and the signature should fit without sideways scrolling.

Keep payment details out of the signature. If a customer is ever unsure whether a message really came from you, they should be able to call the number they already have; the related answer on spotting a fake invoice or payment-change email covers why.

Related answers

• Should your business email use your own domain instead of a free address?
• How do you write a good first reply to a new inquiry?
• How do you spot a fake invoice or a payment-change email?