7 Top-Rated Affordable Contract Management Software

Myth buster for legal teams: Contract management software isn’t just a digital storage to help with organizing and managing contracts. 

If you think contract management is just a glorified digital filing cabinet, then you’re missing out! Sure, it stores your contracts in one place, but that’s just one aspect of this comprehensive tool. It saves the time and errors of manual contract lifecycle management, right from contract generation to billing and invoicing. Additionally, the tool enables you to handle the contract management workflow, assign tasks, and sync your daily to-do calendars for smooth operations.

This article lists seven top-rated affordable contract management software solutions based on verified user reviews and pricing found on vendor websites. Per our research, we’ve considered products with base plans priced less than $34 per month as affordable software and arranged them in ascending order of their prices. 

The software tools listed in this article focus on different aspects of contract management, such as task and project management, document management, time tracking, invoicing, eSigning, and workflow management.

We selected products for this article based on their average ratings between April 2022 - April 2024, which may differ from their current overall average ratings.

Indy’s contract management system enables users to create, send, and sign contracts within the tool. Users can keep all the contracts, and related documents in one secure location and track changes made to these contracts over time. The tool also enables the electronic sharing of drafts from the contract repository with internal and external stakeholders for review of feedback. 

The base price plan for Indy allows creating up to three contracts per month and a 10GB file storage. Switching to a high-end plan enables unlimited contracts, 1TB file storage, and an AI contract generator. 

Base plan features:*

• Contract templates: Access pre-built contract templates, such as independent contractor agreements and non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). The feature allows customizing templates to add or remove clauses or modify details such as payment terms or project scope. 

• eSigning: Sign contracts using the built-in electronic signature feature or upload new ones. The feature allows sending contracts to clients with a custom message for personalization. 

• Contract monitoring: Keep track of each contract’s status, including draft, sent, viewed, and signed. The feature allows resending contracts that are due for approval or signature.

Starting price: $9 per month

Cost to upgrade: Available on request from the vendor

Billing cycle: Annual

Customer support options: Email, chat, FAQs, and help center

Who should consider Indy?

Businesses working with freelance contractors can benefit from the templates, eSignatures, and version control features of Indy. The tool helps eliminate scattered files and makes it easy to access. Users can ensure they’re using the latest version of the contract and access the audit trail for uninformed changes. Additionally, tool features including electronic sharing enhance the internal review and feedback on the contract process before sending them to clients.

The contract management capabilities of HoneyBook enable users to send contracts for eSignatures and track the process in real time. Users can set automated reminders for pending signatures or contract renewal dates. The tool also allows storing signed contracts for organizing, sharing, and retrieval. Users can visualize and track key metrics, such as contract volume, completion rates, expiration dates, and detailed contract insights metrics using the tool’s intuitive dashboard.

The base price plan for HoneyBook offers unlimited contract signature templates with calendar scheduling, a client portal, basic performance reports, and custom contract branding. Upgrading to a higher price plan offers additional features, such as task scheduling, automation rules, and detailed reports.

Base plan features:*

• Client portal: Allow clients to access a secure portal where they can review, sign, and store all their agreements. 

• Smart field: Automatically populate client and project details into the contract. This includes the client’s name, contract date, location, and other relevant information.

• Proposals: Combine contracts and payment invoices in a single document to share with clients and customers.

Starting price: $12.99 per month

Cost to upgrade: $19.99 per month

Billing cycle: Annual

Customer support options: Blog, training, help center, and chat

Who should consider HoneyBook?

Businesses looking to standardize their contract approval workflow and eSigning process with clients can leverage HoneyBook. The tool’s client portal offers a secure platform for clients to review and sign documents without waiting for the team members to guide them through. This improves communication and speeds up decision making. The contract branding feature allows adding the brand colors, logo, and preferred font style for clients to resonate with the brand. This ensures consistency while maintaining the brand value, making a positive first impression on clients, and strengthening their perception of the business.

Fiverr Workspace generates invoices automatically based on the freelancing contract terms and the tracked time spent on projects, once a project is marked complete by the client. Clients can make the payment for the project cost and the tool releases payment to the freelancers. Additionally, the tool allows adding supporting documents with the invoices, such as the signed contracts, purchase orders, or a list of deliverables.  

Fiverr’s base plan offers unlimited access to contract edits, custom branding, and invoices. Users may have to connect with the vendor’s support team to get a customized plan, which may be priced higher than its base plan.

Base plan features:*

• Contract notes: Add notes within the order communication section. These can be used to document discussions, agreements, or any changes to the initial agreement. 

• Custom hours: Edit specific time-frames or activities, or set up custom invoices at any time to ensure getting paid on time and for the complete work.

• Milestones: Break down complex projects into smaller, manageable stages with corresponding payments. 

Starting price: $18 per month

Cost to upgrade: Available on request from the vendor 

Billing cycle: Annual

Customer support options: Blog, guide, FAQs, and email

Who should consider Fiverr Workspace?

Businesses working on complex projects with multiple milestones can leverage the time tracking and automated invoicing features of Fiverr. This helps save time and ensure accurate billing for multiple projects. The automated invoicing and custom hours feature also eliminates the need for manual calculations that are prone to delays and errors, simplifying contract management and client billing.

As the name suggests, DocuGenerate contributes to the contract management process by generating contracts in PDF formats based on user inputs or uploaded data sources. Users can create new templates by uploading a Microsoft Word, Open Document, or Plain text and adding relevant tags, such as company name, client name, contract date, or payment. The tool allows generating a single or multiple documents in one go. Users get the option to download these documents individually or as a compressed zip file. Additionally, they can save documents to the tool’s cloud storage.

DocuGenerate’s base subscription plan allows creating up to 500 documents and five templates per month with batch document generation. Upgrading to a higher plan increases the limit up to 10,000 contracts and 100 templates along with team collaboration tools.

Base plan features:*

• Auto detect tags: Use pre-defined tags to add to the generated contract templates. The feature allows tagging a single or multiple templates at once. When clicked upon, the tag automatically highlights all the templates within. 

• Fix invalid tags: Detect any incorrect naming conventions, typos, or untagged templates automatically. The tool will flag such templates for the users to edit for consistency and searchability. 

• Document storage: Store, organize, manage, and share the generated or uploaded contract documents. The tool offers built-in cloud storage and integrates with third-party storage such as Google Drive or OneDrive for additional storage.

Starting price: $19 per month

Cost to upgrade: $39 per month

Billing cycle: Annual

Customer support options: Help center, blog, chat, FAQs, and email

Who should consider DocuGenerate?

Businesses dealing with standardized contracts with minimal customization can leverage DocuGenerate for its automatic contract generation feature. This helps save time on pulling out client data and errors of manual data entry. In addition, the tool enhances document organization with tags for quick search. These tags are vetted for any invalid entries to ensure a consistent naming convention for all the stored documents within internal cloud storage.

Bonsai offers a comprehensive contract management solution designed to streamline the entire contract lifecycle for businesses and freelancers. The tool generates documents, creates timelines, and assigns tasks within a contract management process. The tool also provides a library of legally-reviewed contract templates covering various business needs, such as freelancer agreements, NDAs, and service contracts. These templates ensure a strong foundation for compliant contract agreements.

The base subscription plan for Bonsai offers unlimited clients and projects, invoicing and payments, proposal and contracts, scheduling, task management, time tracking, client CRM, forms, and expense tracking. Upgrading to a higher price plan offers custom branding, subcontracts, 1099 templates, and a client portal.

Base plan features:*

• Automated rules and instructions: Set up custom actions to be performed automatically on the user’s behalf. For example, sending welcome emails to clients or requesting client approvals or eSignatures on contracts. 

• Task management: Create tasks for projects with details and due dates. The feature allows reordering these tasks as needed and managing the upcoming to-dos.

• Reports: Utilize the tool’s dashboard to generate team bandwidth reports. The reports include metrics, such as billable hours, non-billable hours, and billable amount. These metrics can be further filtered for specific days, dates, or months. 

Starting price: $21 per month

Cost to upgrade: $32 per month

Billing cycle: Annual

Customer support options: Blog, how-to guide, FAQs, knowledge base, and chat

Who should consider Bonsai?

Businesses looking to manage the entire project lifecycle, from proposals and contracts to invoicing and time tracking, can use Bonsai. The tool features eliminate the need for multiple tools and keep everything organized and shareable. Its library of legally-reviewed templates ensures that the contracts have a strong foundation, protecting the business and the clients from legal penalties. The tool also automates repetitive tasks, such as reminders and welcome emails to manage communication with clients.

Agiled offers an AI add-on for users to write contracts and proposals based on entered user inputs in the form of text-based prompts. For example, ‘Create a contract for digital marketing services,’ which you can edit for font style, size, and color, line spacing, background image, and other formatting elements. The AI add-on also acts as an assistant to get answers to queries, such as ‘How many contracts exist in the account?’ ‘How many unpaid invoices exist in the account?’ or ‘How many contracts exist in my account for (a specific) role?’

The base price plan for Agiled offers access to three users with unlimited contracts and client accounts, projects and tasks, and invoices along with the AI add-on for an added cost. Upgrading to a higher price plan allows up to 15 users with workflow automation, accounting capabilities, priority support, and data migration assistance.

Base plan features:*

• Contact management: Store contact information for leads, clients, and other individuals within one place. This includes names, emails, phone numbers, and custom form fields for additional details. 

• Task templates: Use pre-defined instructions or checklists that outline the steps involved in completing a task. The instructions serve as a blueprint for creating new tasks that share similar functionality.

• Calendar sync: Connect the Agiled account with Google Calendar and achieve two-way synchronization of scheduled tasks. Any event created or modified in Agiled will automatically reflect in the synced calendar and vice versa. 

Starting price: $24 per month

Cost to upgrade: $49 per month

Billing cycle: Annual

Customer support options: Blog, knowledge base, resource hub, and chat

Who should consider Agiled?

Businesses looking to streamline contract creation with automation can benefit from the AI add-on offered by Agiled. Apart from the essential contract management capabilities (document generation or eSigning), the tool’s AI capabilities ensure a strong foundation for client agreements with reduced time and errors. The AI add-on also acts as an assistant for contract insight summarization from the stored documents. This includes understanding the total count of contracts, pending and completed contracts, or due payments.

Jotform offers contract workflow automation to create contracts from scratch using a drag-and-drop form builder and share them with single or multiple clients. The clients can use the tool’s form builder to electronically sign the contracts and send them back to the administrator. Users can also set up automated notifications and reminder emails to notify clients of deadlines, missed payments, expiring contracts, or incomplete forms. 

The base price plan for Jotform allows single-user access to up to 1GB of cloud storage, 100 payment submissions, and 100 document eSigning. Upgrading to a higher price plan offers up to 100GB storage, 1,000 payment submissions, and 1,000 document eSigning along with HIPAA compliance [1].

Base plan features:*

• Workspaces: Create a shared workspace for team members to access and manage forms, data, and other assets collaboratively in a secure location.

• Approval workflows: Set rules for each approval flow, track activity during the process, and allow each team member to submit approvals and feedback individually. The feature allows creating any form and turning it into approval flows. 

• Shareable database: Collect, organize, and manage data in the form of a table. The feature allows the sharing of selected data with tea members. The feature allows custom access settings to control who can view or edit the shared data. 

Starting price: $34 per month

Cost to upgrade: $39 per month

Billing cycle: Annual

Customer support options: User guide, FAQs, help center, blog, videos, online ticketing system, and online academy

Who should consider Jotform?

Businesses looking to speed up contract creation without using AI tools can benefit from Jotform’s drag-and-drop builder. The form builder allows creating contracts from scratch or using pre-built templates. The functionality to automatically remind stakeholders of deadlines and payments ensures timely action from both ends while keeping everyone informed. Plus, the tool allows creating workspaces where dedicated project teams can work together on documents or brainstorm ideas, facilitating a focused environment.

All the products listed in this article include the features mentioned below. To identify these, we asked users to rate, on a scale of “low importance” to “critical,” how important different features are for contract management software. The features showcased are those that the highest percentage of reviewers rated as “highly important” or “critical” over the past two years (as of April 3, 2024).

A contract management tool can cost as low as $7 per month or up to $99+ per month, depending on various factors—features, number of users, contract templates, AI capabilities, training availability, deployment options, and storage. Most contract management solutions typically include the following pricing plans:

• Free trial: No-cost plans ranging from a week to a month, giving users access to all or limited software features. These are ideal for businesses that wish to try out a tool before purchasing it.

• Free version: A free plan offers access to basic features, such as a contract generator, eSigning, and document storage. These are ideal for small business owners with a limited budget.

• Entry-level: Starts at $7 per month and offers essential contract management features, such as contract generation, time tracking, contact management, reporting dashboard, eSigning, client portal, and billing ad invoicing. These are ideal for small businesses and teams with basic contract management needs.

• Mid-tier: Range from $14 to $49 per month and offers features, such as customizable workflows, workflow automation, shared workspaces, and calendar sync. These are ideal for small businesses and teams that have outgrown basic contract management solutions and don’t require the full range of functionality offered by enterprise-level tools.

• High-end: Advanced software plans go up to or over $99 per month and offer unlimited entry-level and mid-tier features with accounting capabilities and priority support. These advanced features are ideal for projects requiring cross-team interactions.

Here are some questions to ask software providers before making a final purchase of the best contract management software:

• Does the base plan limit the number of team members to collaborate on tasks and documents?

Some contract management software vendors limit the number of team members added to the workspaces or the files shared with them. Users need to look for a tool with sharing capabilities that meet the team size without exceeding the available budget. Some vendors allow adding new team members with per head change added to the plan instead of switching to a higher plan, assisting with cost cutting. 

• Does the tool allow automating repetitive tasks, such as reminders or chasing approvals?

Many contract management software platforms include automation capabilities in their base plan. However, these might come with certain limitations, such as the number of tasks automated, reminders set, or approvals requested, all per user per month. Check the base plan feature list for the required automation capabilities and their limitations before making a purchase. 

• Does the base plan enable integration with other business tools?

Similar to other base plan features and capabilities, software integration also comes with certain imitations. These include the number of software tools integrated with the contract management software and the type of integration (API, browser extension, or add-on). Check if the integration capabilities of the tool match the business requirements and the team’s technical knowledge.