Gavel Pricing and Gavel Software Cost per Builder Seat
Gavel publishes its prices. Lite is $99 a month, Standard $250 and Pro $350, or $83, $210 and $290 a month when you pay for the year up front. Scale starts at $417 a month on annual payment only. What decides your bill is seats: Lite and Standard include one template builder and cannot add another, so a second builder means Pro, at $50 for each builder beyond two.
Lite
$99
Standard
$250
Pro
$350
Billed monthly, per account. Read on gavel.io on October 14, 2026.
Gavel cost checker
Tell it who needs a login and see which plan Gavel puts you on
Plan you land on
Cost for one year
One year for the same people
Gavel and Knackly from their own pricing pages, October 14, 2026. CaseAgent is a matter agent that drafts from the case file, not a template builder, and is priced per firm.
Before you pay for a builder seat
A template only fills in what somebody already typed into it
Gavel is a good tool for the part of drafting that repeats: the same will, the same engagement letter, the same intake questions. The case specific part, reading what came in and working out what the letter or pleading has to say, still sits with a person. Run a sample matter through this and watch an agent do that step. No signup, nothing installed.
Live demo, real output
The demo has reached its hourly limit for your network. to run CaseAgent on your own matters.
▸
⏳ agent working…
AI-generated first draft for attorney review. Not legal advice.
Want this on your real caseload?
That was the free demo run, to run CaseAgent on your own caseload.
That was the free demo run, to run it on your caseload.
The case files above are composed for the demo, so no client data is involved. Drafts are first-pass work product for attorney review, not legal advice.
The rate card
Four Gavel plans, priced per account with seats inside
Gavel Workflows
Lite
$99/mo
$83 a month billed yearly
- 1 builder
- 10 templates
- 100 sessions a month
- Word and PDF automation, Clio Manage integration
Cannot add seats
Gavel Workflows
Standard
$250/mo
$210 a month billed yearly
- 1 builder
- 50 templates
- 300 sessions a month
- Saved client data, your logo, Zapier, phone support
Cannot add seats
Most firms with staff end here
Pro
$350/mo
$290 a month billed yearly
- 2 builders + 3 org users
- 100 templates per builder
- 600 sessions a month
- Template library, Stripe payments, DocuSign, white label, website embed
Builders $50, org users $35
Gavel Workflows
Scale
$417/mo
Starting price, billed yearly
- Custom
- Custom limits
- Unlimited sessions
- API access, single sign on, account manager, onboarding
Annual payment only
The yearly discount is advertised as "2 months free". On Lite that holds: ten months of $99 is $990, or $82.50 a month, printed as $83. On Standard it does not quite: ten months of $250 is $2,500, or $208.33 a month, and the page prints $210. On Pro ten months comes to $291.67 a month and the page prints $290. The gap is small, but it tells you the yearly prices are set by hand rather than computed, so read the figure on your own checkout.
Document generations are unlimited on every plan. The limits that bite are elsewhere: client sessions (100, 300 and 600 a month), outgoing emails (1,000, 2,500 and 6,000), and Lite's cap of 200 fields per workflow. A firm sending intake questionnaires to every new client will hit the session limit on Lite long before it runs out of templates.
Seat math
What five common firm setups pay Gavel in a year
| Team | Plan | Billed monthly, a year | Billed yearly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo lawyer who builds their own forms | Lite | $1,188 | $996 |
| One builder, 40 templates, branded client portal | Standard | $3,000 | $2,520 |
| 2 builders and 3 staff who run templates | Pro | $4,200 | $3,480 |
| 3 builders and 6 staff | Pro + 1 builder + 3 users | $6,060 | $5,340 |
| 5 builders and 10 staff | Pro + 3 builders + 7 users | $8,940 | $8,220 |
Pro counted with 2 builders and 3 organizational users included, as on the plan card. Seat add-ons taken at the same monthly rate on both billing options, because the FAQ prints one rate. From 3 builders and 6 staff the Pro total passes the $417 Scale floor, which is the point to ask for a Scale quote.
Price history
Seven years of the Documate and Gavel pricing page
Read from Internet Archive copies of documate.org/pricing and gavel.io/pricing. Lite has never changed its price. What changed is what the price buys, and the Standard tier.
-
2019
Documate. Lite $99 with 2 creator seats and 20 workflows. Standard $199 with 5 seats and unlimited workflows. A 30 day money back guarantee, "no questions asked".
-
2021
Same $99, now 1 builder seat and 10 workflows with 200 fields each. Standard $199 drops to 3 builder seats.
-
2022
Yearly billing appears in the price code: Lite $83 and Standard $165 a month paid annually.
-
2023
The page moves to gavel.io and adds Pro at $350, or $290 yearly. Standard is still $199.
-
2024 to 2026
Standard rises to $250, or $210 yearly, about 26 percent, with 1 builder seat. Scale appears at $417. The refund promise is gone and the terms say all charges are final.
The Standard change shows up between the October 3, 2023 and June 17, 2024 captures. Copies from January and March 2024 carry no price table, so the exact month is not on the record.
Read the page twice
Three places the Gavel pricing page disagrees with itself
$165
An old Standard table still sits in the page
The raw HTML carries a legacy table with Standard at $165, 2 builder seats and 25 workflows. The script then overwrites it with $210 and $250. A crawler that reads the HTML without running the script sees the old number, which is how $165 survives on some aggregators.
3 or 6
Pro's organizational users
The Pro card says "2 Builder + 3 Org User Seats". The comparison table further down gives Pro 6 organizational users and Standard 3. Whether you need to buy users four to six at $35 each depends on which one your account reflects. Ask before you count.
$417
Scale is a floor, not a price
Scale reads "Starting at $417/mo", billed annually, with "discounted per-seat pricing" and custom limits. One aggregator lists it as $417 per year. It is $5,004 a year at minimum, and the real number comes from a quote.
The terms of service
Five clauses that decide what a year of Gavel really costs
- Paid in advance, renewed until you stop it
- "The user will be charged in advance during the applicable payment period (e.g., each month or each year for subscriptions)." There is no separate renewal clause, so the plan simply keeps charging.
- No refunds as a right
- "All charges are final unless otherwise provided in these Terms." Partial periods are not refunded, though Gavel "may, in its sole discretion, provide a refund on a case-by-case basis."
- Price changes with no stated notice period
- "All prices are subject to change upon notice," by email or in-app message. No minimum number of days is given.
- Downgrades can cost you templates
- "Subscription changes, including downgrades, may result in loss of access to Content and features." Dropping from Standard to Lite with 30 templates leaves 20 of them over the limit.
- Seven days to change your mind after cancelling
- Account data is kept "for seven (7) days solely to allow for account reactivation" and then permanently deleted. Export your template logic first.
Gavel Exec pricing
The contract review add-in is a separate per user price
The price is "$160 /mo per user or $1740/user billed annually", which is $145 a month on the yearly plan, a 9 percent discount rather than the two free months Workflows gets. Paid plans include 1,000 completions a month, the trial gives 25 free queries per user, and team pricing starts at 10 seats. A firm of five transactional lawyers on Exec yearly pays $8,700 before it builds a single template.
That puts Exec in the same price band as the big legal AI seats. For comparison, Thomson Reuters lists CoCounsel Essentials at $360 a month, and Harvey publishes no price at all; both are covered in our Harvey AI pricing breakdown and our CoCounsel pricing comparison.
Monthly
$160
per user a month
Yearly
$1,740
per user, $145 a month
1,000 completions a month on paid plans. 25 free queries per user to try it. 10 seats before team pricing.
Compared honestly
Gavel against the document automation tools that print a price
| Tool | Entry price | Who is included | Extra people | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gavel Lite | $99/mo, $83 yearly | 1 builder | Not possible, upgrade to Pro | A solo who builds a handful of forms and connects Clio |
| Gavel Pro | $350/mo, $290 yearly | 2 builders, 3 org users | $50 builder, $35 user | Firms selling forms online with payments and e-signature |
| Knackly Starter | $250/mo, $209 yearly | 4 users | $40 a user | Small teams where several people build and run templates |
| Knackly Professional | $1,000/mo, $834 yearly | 12 users | $50 a user | Larger practices that need API access |
| HotDocs | No price printed | Quote | Quote | Firms with an existing HotDocs template library |
| Clio Draft | No price printed | Quote | Quote | Clio Manage firms filling court forms |
| CaseAgent | $149/mo, $74 yearly | Solo 1, Firm 5, Practice 15 users | No per user charge inside a plan | Drafting from the case file itself, not from a questionnaire |
Where Gavel wins: it is the cheapest way for one person to automate a document set, it puts Stripe payments, DocuSign and white label on a published plan, and Lite connects to Clio Manage from day one. Knackly wins as soon as a third or fourth person needs a login, because its users cost $40 and come four to a plan. For a fuller list, see our guide to the best legal document automation software.
Where CaseAgent fits is different. A template tool needs someone to decide what goes into the questionnaire. CaseAgent reads the filings, records and correspondence already in a matter and drafts the letter, pleading or discovery response from them, with each fact cited back to its page. A firm can keep Gavel for intake forms and hand CaseAgent the drafting that never repeats. More on that split in our page on legal document automation software.
Before you subscribe
Six things to settle before you pay Gavel for a year
1
Count builders, not lawyers
If two people will ever edit templates, Lite and Standard are out and the starting price is $290 or $350.
2
Check sessions per month
Every client who opens a questionnaire is a session. 100 a month on Lite is about five new matters a working day.
3
Get the org user count in writing
The page says both 3 and 6 for Pro. The difference is $105 a month.
4
Ask for a price hold
The terms let prices change upon notice. A yearly order with a written renewal price removes that.
5
Run the 7 day trial on one real document
Charges are final, so the trial is the only refund you can count on.
6
Price the build, not just the seat
Gavel sells an "automator" service for building templates for you, quoted separately. Ask for it in the same order.
Questions buyers ask
Gavel pricing questions, answered from the source
How much does Gavel cost?
Gavel costs $99 a month for Lite, $250 for Standard and $350 for Pro when billed monthly, or $83, $210 and $290 a month billed yearly in advance. Scale starts at $417 a month and is sold on annual payment only. Extra builders are $50 a month and extra organizational users $35 a month, on Pro and Scale only.
Is Gavel priced per user?
Partly. Each plan includes a fixed number of seats: one builder on Lite and Standard, and two builders plus three organizational users on Pro. Lite and Standard cannot add seats at all, so a second template builder forces the move to Pro. On Pro and Scale every builder above the allowance is $50 a month and every organizational user $35.
Does Gavel have a free trial?
Yes. Gavel offers a 7 day trial and says no credit card is required to start it. After that every plan is paid. Gavel Exec, the contract review add-in, has its own trial of 25 free queries per user. Plan the trial around building one real template end to end, because that is what the builder seat is for.
How much is Gavel Exec?
Gavel Exec is $160 per user a month, or $1,740 per user billed annually, which works out to $145 a month. It includes 1,000 completions a month on paid plans, and Gavel quotes team pricing from 10 seats. It is priced separately from Gavel Workflows, the document automation product, so a firm using both pays for both.
Can I get a refund from Gavel?
Not as a right. Gavel's terms, updated August 19, 2025, say all charges are final and users are not entitled to refunds for partial periods, although Gavel may refund case by case. In 2019 the Documate pricing page promised a 30 day money back guarantee. That promise is no longer on the pricing page.
Did Gavel raise its prices?
Yes, on the Standard plan. Archived copies of the pricing page show Standard at $199 a month, or $165 billed yearly, until at least October 2023, and $250 or $210 by June 2024, a rise of about 26 percent. Lite has stayed at $99 since 2019, but its included seats fell from two to one and its workflows from 20 to 10.
What happens to my templates if I cancel Gavel?
You keep access until the end of the period you paid for, and no further cycles are charged. After the account is cancelled Gavel keeps the data for seven days, only so the account can be reactivated, and then deletes it permanently. Export finished documents and template logic before you deactivate.
Is Gavel cheaper than Knackly?
For one builder working alone, yes: Gavel Lite is $99 a month against $250 for Knackly Starter. Once more people need logins it flips. Knackly Starter includes four users and adds users at $40, while Gavel Pro starts at $350 for five seats and adds builders at $50. For a team of four with two or more builders, Knackly Starter costs less.
Does Gavel integrate with Clio?
Yes. Clio Manage integration is listed on every Gavel plan from Lite up. Zapier arrives on Standard, and DocuSign and Stripe payments on Pro. API access and single sign on are Scale features. If your matter data lives in Clio, Lite is enough to pull it into a template, but only one person can build.
Can Gavel prices change during my subscription?
Yes. Gavel's terms say all prices are subject to change upon notice, given by email or an in-app message, and they state no minimum notice period. A yearly plan is charged in advance, so a change would normally reach you at renewal, but a monthly plan can be repriced from the next cycle.
Keep the templates for what repeats. Give the case file to an agent.
CaseAgent keeps each matter in one place and puts an AI agent inside it: it reads filings and records as they arrive, drafts letters, pleadings and discovery responses with citations back to the page, and keeps court deadlines current. Solo $149 a month, Firm $399 for up to 5 users, Practice $899 for up to 15, or $74, $199 and $449 a month billed yearly, with no setup fee and no per user charge.
See every plan on the pricing page.
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