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Most in-house legal teams reach a breaking point when spreadsheets and email can no longer keep pace with the volume of contracts. That's when the search for contract management software begins.
This guide explains what contract management software does, how to assess your options, and what to prioritize when buying one in 2026.
Contract management software is a digital platform designed to handle the full lifecycle of contracts, from initial drafting and negotiation through execution, storage, and renewal tracking. Instead of relying on email chains, Word documents, and manual spreadsheets, these systems centralize everything in one place.
At its core, an automated contract management system helps legal teams create contracts faster, collaborate more efficiently, track obligations and deadlines, and maintain a searchable repository of executed agreements. The goal is to reduce manual work, minimize risk, and give legal departments (and the business) real-time visibility into their contract portfolio.
For in-house legal teams managing hundreds or thousands of contracts, the right software can transform what used to be a chaotic, reactive process into something structured and proactive. This means no more hunting through email for the latest version of an NDA or manually setting calendar reminders for renewal dates. The system handles that for you.
To make the most of these tools, consider building a solid foundation with a well-structured contract playbook that defines your best practices, approval workflows, and negotiation standards.
In-house legal departments face unique challenges that generic tools can't solve. Dealing with high request volumes, tight turnaround expectations, and pressure from leadership to do more with less can be overwhelming. According to 2024 industry data, 59% of Chief Legal Officers reported increased workloads, while 42% of legal departments operate under cost-cutting mandates despite growing demands.
Contracts are often the highest-volume legal request. Sales needs NDAs; Procurement needs vendor agreements, and Marketing needs partnership deals. Each request involves multiple rounds of reviews, redlines, approvals, and follow-ups. Without a centralized system, legal issues can become bottlenecks, even when delays occur on the business side.
Contract management software addresses this by:
The transition to proper contract management software can be transformational for teams still using spreadsheets or email to manage contracts. For teams already using some form of CLM but struggling with other legal requests, it may be time to consider something broader than contract-focused tools.
Check out our guide on the best AI tools for contract review to see how automation can complement your contract management strategy.
Not all contract management systems are created equal. Some are built for enterprise complexity. Others are lightweight tools for small teams. Nonetheless, the best contract management software should include these core capabilities:
If your team is assessing contract management systems, these features should be table stakes. The question becomes which combination of features matters most for your specific use case and volume.
After careful review, weāve curated a list of the leading contract management systems for in-house legal teams in 2026. Each has different strengths depending on a team's size, complexity, and specific pain points.
Streamline AI is an AI-powered legal operations platform built for in-house legal teams. Unlike traditional CLMs that focus only on contracts, Streamline handles intake, triage, and matter management for all types of legal requests, including contracts, employment matters, regulatory inquiries, IP issues, and more.
Best for: In-house legal teams with 10+ lawyers handling high volumes of diverse legal requests (not just contracts) who need complete visibility and workflow automation across their entire department.
Why it stands out: Most contract management software assumes contracts are the only problem. In reality, in-house legal departments handle dozens of request types. Streamline was built by a legal professional who experienced this firsthand and needed a solution to manage the chaos of all legal intake, not just contracts.
One of the biggest challenges in-house legal teams face is being blamed for delays when the reality is anything but. Streamline provides end-to-end visibility, showing where requests actually sit in the pipeline.
So, when business stakeholders can see that Legal responded in two hours, but the request has been waiting on the Sales team for three days, Legal stops being the black box. It becomes the transparent, data-driven partner.
Streamline AI eliminates the manual work of managing legal requests by automating intake, triage, and routing. Lawyers spend less time asking āWhatās the status?ā or hunting through email chains and more time on substantive legal work.
The platform's AI capabilities accelerate contract reviews by up to 50%, meaning Legal can handle higher volumes without additional personnel.
Streamline AI provides you with the metrics to demonstrate Legal's value and advocate for necessary resources. You can show leadership exactly how many requests hit the team, how quickly you respond, and where process improvements are needed.Ā
If you already use a CLM tool like Ironclad for contract execution, Streamline integrates with it so contracts flow seamlessly between systems. You keep the contract tools you like while gaining operational efficiency across everything Legal does.
Unlike enterprise software that requires IT support for every workflow change, Streamline AI's intuitive interface lets legal operations professionals and general counsel set up and modify workflows themselves. They can launch new intake forms, adjust approval processes, or create custom reports without submitting IT tickets.
Ironclad is a contract lifecycle management platform designed for enterprise legal teams. It handles everything from contract drafting and negotiation through execution, storage, and renewal management.
Best for: Large enterprise legal teams (20+ lawyers) managing thousands of contracts annually, and who need deep contract-specific functionality and have the IT resources to support a complex implementation.
Ironclad is ideal for handling complex, high-volume contract portfolios. The platform provides extensive customization options for contract templates, approval workflows, and compliance requirements. Its reporting and analytics capabilities enable enterprise teams to break down contract performance by business unit, contract type, or counterparty.
Its AI review capability has matured significantly, and helps legal teams accelerate initial contract analysis and flag non-standard terms. For organizations already using Salesforce, Ironclad's native integration creates a seamless experience for Sales teams to generate contracts directly from deal records.
Agiloft is a flexible contract and commerce lifecycle management platform that emphasizes customization and configurability.
Best for: Organizations with unique, complex contract requirements that need a highly tailored solution and have technical resources to support extensive configuration.
Agiloft's strength is its flexibility. If an organization has specific contract workflows that don't fit standard patterns, Agiloft can be configured to match its exact needs. The platform handles complex approval chains, multi-party negotiations, and specialized contract types that simpler tools struggle with.
The no-code approach means technically savvy legal ops professionals can make adjustments without developer support, though initial setup often requires professional services. Agiloft's compliance and audit capabilities provide the necessary rigor for highly regulated industries like healthcare or financial services.
DocuSign CLM combines contract lifecycle management with DocuSign's industry-leading e-signature capabilities in an integrated platform.
Best for: Teams that heavily rely on DocuSign for e-signature and want to consolidate contract management and execution in one vendor relationship.
The primary advantage of DocuSign CLM is the seamless connection between contract management and e-signature. There's no integration to maintain or data to sync between systems. For teams that send hundreds of contracts for signature monthly, this streamlined experience saves significant time.
DocuSign's AI capabilities, powered by its Intelligent Insights feature, help extract key terms and flag potential issues during contract reviews. The mobile experience is powerful, enabling executives and legal teams to review and approve contracts from anywhere.
Concord is a straightforward contract management platform designed for teams that want core CLM functionality without enterprise complexity.
Best for: Legal teams with 3-10 lawyers managing moderate contract volumes and who prioritize ease of use and quick implementation over advanced features.
Concord's appeal is simplicity. The interface is clean and intuitive, requiring minimal training for legal teams and other users. For teams transitioning from email and Word documents, Concord provides immediate improvements.
The collaboration features work well for teams that comprise multiple internal stakeholders and external counterparties in contract negotiations. Everyone can comment and suggest edits within the platform, thus maintaining a single source of truth.
PandaDoc is a document automation platform with strong contract management features, particularly suited for sales agreements, proposals, and quotes.
Best for: Organizations where Sales drives most contract activities and Legal needs simple reviews and approval workflows for standardized agreements.
PandaDoc excels in the sales-to-contract flow. Sales teams can generate proposals and contracts directly from CRM data, reducing manual data entry and speeding up deal cycles. The document builder is more visual and user-friendly than traditional CLM tools, making it accessible to non-legal users.
For standardized contracts like NDAs, service agreements, or sales contracts with limited negotiation, PandaDoc provides good automation at a lower price point than enterprise CLMs. The payment collection feature is unique among contract tools, enabling organizations to collect signatures and payments in a single workflow.
Icertis is an enterprise CLM platform designed for large, global organizations with complex contract portfolios spanning multiple jurisdictions and business units.
Best for: Fortune 500 companies and global enterprises managing tens of thousands of contracts across multiple countries, languages, and regulatory environments.
Icertis handles scale and complexity better than most competitors. For organizations managing contracts in dozens of countries with varying regulatory requirements, Icertis provides the structure and compliance capabilities needed to maintain control.
The platform's AI capabilities analyze contracts to identify risks, extract obligations, and provide insights across the entire contract portfolio. For procurement and supplier management use cases, Icertis offers features that extend beyond the typical CLM scope.
Juro is a contract collaboration platform designed for modern, fast-moving businesses, particularly in the tech sector.
Best for: Tech companies with lean legal teams that need to enable business stakeholders to self-serve on routine contracts while maintaining legal oversight.
Juro's approach is different from traditional CLMs. Instead of treating contracts as documents that get passed around, Juro enables real-time collaboration in a browser. Legal teams can set up templates with guardrails, allowing Sales or Procurement to generate contracts independently within approved parameters.
The Slack integration allows teams to check contract status, request approvals, and get notifications without leaving their communication platform. For tech companies that operate at high velocity, this reduces friction significantly..
Precisely is a CLM solution built natively on the Salesforce platform, making it ideal for organizations heavily invested in the Salesforce ecosystem.
Best for: Companies where Salesforce is the system of record and legal workflows need to integrate tightly with Sales, Procurement, or other Salesforce-based processes.
For organizations that use Salesforce, Precisely eliminates integration headaches. Contracts are Salesforce objects, data flows seamlessly, and you leverage existing Salesforce investments in training, security, and infrastructure.
Sales teams can generate contracts directly from opportunity records without leaving Salesforce. Similarly, Legal can set up approval workflows using familiar Salesforce automation tools, and reporting leverages Salesforce's powerful analytics capabilities.
LinkSquares is a contract management platform that emphasizes AI-powered contract analysis and repository management. It is particularly suitable for post-signature contract visibility.
Best for: Legal teams that need to gain visibility into existing contract portfolios and extract insights from large volumes of executed agreements.
LinkSquares' AI capabilities shine when analyzing existing contract portfolios. The platform can ingest thousands of executed contracts, extract key terms, identify obligations, and make everything searchable. For teams dealing with a mess of contracts across file shares and need to understand what they have, LinkSquares provides fast insights.
The clause search is a huge selling point; instead of manually reviewing contracts to find specific language, you can search your entire portfolio for terms, clauses, or obligations. This accelerates due diligence, risk assessments, and policy updates.
ContractWorks is a simple, affordable contract repository and tracking tool for small teams with basic needs.
Best for: Small legal departments or solo general counsel managing limited contract volumes who need organized storage and basic tracking without complex workflows.
ContractWorks makes contract storage and tracking accessible to small teams with limited budgets. The platform focuses on doing a few things well rather than trying to compete with enterprise CLMs on features.
ContractWorks provides immediate organizational improvements for organizations transitioning from file shares and spreadsheets. The unlimited storage and simple pricing model remove concerns about scaling costs as contract volume grows.
Evisort is an AI-powered contract intelligence platform emphasizing machine learning capabilities for contract analyses and management.
Best for: Legal teams that want cutting-edge AI capabilities for contract reviews, analyses, and risk identification.
Evisort's AI technology is among the most advanced in the CLM space. The platform can automatically identify over 100 standard clause types, compare contract language against your preferred positions, and flag unusual or risky terms.
For legal teams drowning in contract review work, Evisort's AI significantly accelerates initial analysis. The system learns from your preferences and decisions, becoming more accurate over time at identifying issues that matter to your organization.
Here's the reality: most in-house legal departments don't have a contract problem. They have a legal operations problem where contracts are just one piece.
Traditional CLMs focus on contract-specific workflows. They're excellent at managing NDAs, vendor agreements, and sales contracts. But what happens when your CEO needs employment advice? When Marketing has regulatory questions? When a business unit needs help with an IP issue?Ā
Streamline AI helps by providing a unified platform for all legal intake and workflows. You get:
Accurate visibility across everything Legal does: Not just contracts. Everything. Leadership can see total request volume, where bottlenecks exist, and how quickly Legal responds across all practice areas.
Data that changes the narrative: When you can show, for instance, that Legal handles 500+ requests monthly with a team of 8 lawyers, maintaining 48-hour average response times while business stakeholders hold requests for an average of 5 days, you transform the perception thatĀ "Legal is a bottleneck. This data unlocks budget, resources, and credibility.
AI that actually reduces workload: Streamline's AI-powered intake reads unstructured emails and automatically creates structured requests. The AI contract review accelerates turnaround by up to 50%. This isn't AI for AI's sake; it's AI that gives you time back.
Integration with tools you already use: Keep your CLM if you like it. Keep DocuSign. Keep Salesforce. Streamline integrates with them all, creating a seamless experience without forcing you to replace tools that work.
Implementation in weeks, not months: Streamline AI is designed for legal teams to configure independently. No IT tickets. No months-long implementations. White-glove onboarding gets you operational quickly.
Legal teams at Grammarly, 8x8, Demandbase, and hundreds of others chose Streamline because it solves the real problem: efficiently managing all legal work, proving Legal's value with data, and transforming the department into a strategic partner.
Ready to see how Streamline AI transforms legal operations? If you're tired of managing legal requests in email, spreadsheets, and multiple disconnected tools, it's time to see what purpose-built legal ops software can do.Ā
Book a demo with Streamline AI to learn how in-house legal teams gain visibility, reduce workload, and prove their value with AI-powered intake and workflow automation across all legal requests.
Streamline AI is the best contract management software for in-house legal teams because it exceeds traditional CLM limitations. While most contract management systems focus mainly on contracts, Streamline AI provides comprehensive intake, triage, and matter management for all types of legal requests.Ā
This means your team gets a single platform for contracts, employment matters, regulatory inquiries, IP issues, and everything Legal handles. Streamline integrates seamlessly with existing CLMs like Ironclad, so you can keep specialized contract tools while gaining operational efficiency across your entire department.
Pricing varies based on features, team size, and contract volume. Streamline AI offers custom pricing based on team size and features, with implementation typically completed in weeks. Most vendors customize pricing, so discuss your specific needs before buying.
Most modern contract management systems offer integrations with Salesforce, DocuSign, and other common business tools. The depth and quality of these integrations vary. Streamline AI provides seamless integrations with Salesforce, DocuSign, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Drive, and popular CLMs like Ironclad. When evaluating options, ask for demonstrations of the specific integrations you need and check customer reviews for integration reliability.
Implementation timelines range from days to months, depending on the platform and your requirements. Streamline AI can be implemented in weeks with white-glove onboarding support, and the platform is designed for legal teams to configure independently without ongoing IT involvement.
E-signature tools like DocuSign handle contract execution but not the full contract lifecycle. You still need separate tools or manual processes for contract drafting, negotiation, approvals, storage, obligation tracking, and renewals. A CLM provides these capabilities in addition to (or integrated with) e-signature.Ā
Many teams use DocuSign alongside a CLM or choose DocuSign CLM to consolidate both needs with one vendor. If your team manages diverse legal requests beyond just contracts, a comprehensive legal operations platform like Streamline AI provides intake and workflow automation for all legal work and integrates with your existing e-signature and CLM tools.
Scale your legal team's efficiency and effectiveness with modern workflow automation tools designed for in-house legal.
