Definely vs. Gavel Exec: contract proofreading suite or playbook-based redlining in Word

What each tool is built to do

Definely helps a lawyer hold a long, complex agreement in their head: rules map every clause, definition and cross-reference before any AI runs, and proofreading, comparison and precedent search sit on top of that map. Gavel Exec is built to produce the first-cut markup: it reads the whole agreement against a playbook and returns priority-ranked tracked changes, each with the reasoning behind it.

Definely's tagline is "The maker cannot be the checker," and its site describes the product as "independent review for complex contracts." Its target customer is a Magic Circle or Am Law 200 firm or a corporate legal department working on facility agreements, share purchase agreements and similar documents. Named customers include A&O Shearman, Slaughter and May, DLA Piper, Dentons and Samsung.

Gavel Exec is aimed at transactional attorneys, in-house legal teams and solo, small and mid-sized firms that draft and negotiate in Word. The question it answers is which positions to push back on in this draft, in what order, and how they compare to the market.

Proofreading, defined terms and cross-references

This is the work Definely is built around. Definely's Proofread feature runs hundreds of rule-based checks in one pass: undefined, unused, duplicated and inconsistently capitalized terms, out-of-sequence clause numbers, cross-references to deleted clauses, numerals that do not match their written words, and leftover square brackets and drafting notes. Because the checks follow rules, Definely states that "the same contract gets the same results every time."

Its Maintain context feature turns every defined term and cross-reference into a clickable link, lets you edit a definition in split screen while reading the clause that uses it, and shows terms defined in other documents of the same transaction. Definely Cascade, launched in August 2025, traces the first-, second- and third-order effects of a single edit across a document.

Gavel Exec works on the substance of the draft: its review explains each tracked change, lists missing terms and adds margin comments, and its drafting tools rewrite a clause from a prompt or a Quick Action. If a definitions report on a 200-page agreement is the job, Definely is the tool for it.

Playbook redlines and market benchmarks

Here the position reverses. Gavel Exec reviews a draft against a playbook and returns a complete redline of the agreement as priority-ranked tracked changes, each explained, together with margin comments and a list of missing terms. Its playbooks are either built in (developed with attorneys in corporate and real estate law) or generated from your own checklist, spreadsheet playbook or signed agreements in .docx, PDF or .csv.

Definely does not use playbooks. Its Compare feature checks a draft against a benchmark you choose: your standard form, a precedent marked as gold standard, or a term sheet. Every deviation is quoted from both documents, missing clauses are flagged with suggested wording, and anything you accept lands as a tracked change. Definely's stated principle is "Definely suggests; you decide," and it says the product "never edits your document directly." For a firm that wants a human to drive every change, that is a feature. For a lawyer who wants a full first-cut markup of a 60-page draft, it means reviewing each suggestion before it becomes a change instead of receiving a whole redline to accept or reject.

Market data is the second gap. Gavel Exec's benchmarking labels each provision on-market, off-market or missing and lets you filter by jurisdiction, industry and company size, so a lawyer can tell a client where a position sits against comparable deals. Definely's Compare feature measures a draft against documents you supply, including a term sheet, rather than an external market dataset.

Precedent, document management systems, platform and data

Definely Vault connects to iManage, NetDocuments or SharePoint so a firm's precedent becomes searchable clause by clause without being moved, with access permissions inherited from the document management system (DMS) and a browser-based admin console for knowledge management teams. Lawyers search in natural language and insert the clause, and Definely adds any definitions it relies on. Gavel Exec does not yet offer a native iManage or NetDocuments integration. Precedent is uploaded as project files or attachments, which Gavel Exec cites.

On platform, Definely's Windows install guide calls for Windows 10 or 11 and Office 2019 or later (Microsoft 365 included), and Mac users get a different setup from its support team. Word on the web is not covered in its installation guide, and Outlook is not listed as a Definely integration. Gavel Exec installs from Microsoft AppSource for Word on Windows, Mac (2016 or later), Word on the web and Microsoft 365, plus a web app at exec.gavel.io for batch analysis and multi-document comparison. Definely also offers a Model Context Protocol (MCP) connector that puts its proofreading, defined-term and precedent-search tools inside Claude and ChatGPT.

On security, both vendors hold SOC 2 Type II. Definely adds ISO/IEC 27001 (information security) and ISO/IEC 42001 (AI management systems), is General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant, encrypts stored data with AES-256 and data in transit with TLS 1.2 or later, and states on its technology page that customer data is never used to train AI models. Its AI FAQ adds that Enhance data sits in a private Amazon Web Services (AWS) tenancy in United Kingdom and EU-Central regions under a 14-day retention policy. Gavel Exec works under Zero Data Retention agreements with the model providers it uses, including OpenAI, is hosted on AWS in the United States unless a customer chooses a European Union, Canada or Australia region, and gives each customer an isolated database. The full list is on Gavel's security page.

Definely vs. Gavel Exec by criterion

Each row comes from the vendor's own site or help center or, where marked, from Definely's G-Cloud 15 listing.

Pricing: a five-lawyer team for a year

Definely does not publish prices on definely.com; every call to action is "Book a demo." The one public rate card is its United Kingdom G-Cloud 15 pricing document for public-sector buyers, published on the Digital Marketplace in January 2026. It lists annual per-user licences in pounds, excluding value added tax (VAT): Draft £500; Draft and Proof £750; Draft, Proof and Vault £1,150; and the full suite (Draft, Proof, Vault, Enhance and Cascade) £1,500, dropping to £1,350 at 101 or more users. The same document states "a minimum requirement of 100 licenses per contract." Commercial pricing for private firms may differ, and Definely has not published it.

On the G-Cloud card, the smallest full-suite contract is 100 licences at £1,500, or £150,000 a year; Draft alone at the minimum is £50,000 a year. Whether Definely sells smaller commercial deals is a question for its sales team. Spellbook's comparison calls Definely "demo-led."

Gavel Exec publishes its price on its pricing page: $160 per user per month, or $1,740 per user per year, with 1,000 queries per user per month on paid plans. Five lawyers paying annually come to $8,700 for the year. Month to month they pay $9,600 and can stop in any month. Before paying anything, each lawyer gets 25 free queries with no credit card and no sales call.

Related comparisons: Draftwise vs. Gavel Exec (precedent-led drafting) and Spellbook vs. Gavel Exec (another suite with no published price), plus the roundup of AI contract redlining software.

To see Definely beside six other tools a transactional team would shortlist, read Definely alternatives.

Last checked November 12, 2026. Gavel publishes this page and makes Gavel Exec. Definely facts come from definely.com, help.definely.com, trust.definely.com and its G-Cloud 15 listing.