Sandstone vs. Gavel Exec: In-House Legal Platform or AI Contract Review in Word?

Sandstone runs intake, routing, a contract repository and playbook-driven redlines for in-house legal departments. Gavel Exec helps lawyers review, redline and draft in Word. Here’s which one fits.

By Richard Poelderl · Last updated: November 14, 2026

Choose Sandstone if your in-house legal department’s bottleneck is the volume of requests arriving from Slack, Teams, email and business systems, and you want one platform to capture, route, redline and report on that work, bought through a demo and a quote. Choose Gavel Exec if your lawyers mainly need AI contract review and redlining in Word, at a law firm or on an in-house team, and want to start today on their own: it starts with 25 free queries and no credit card, then costs $160 per user per month.

This comparison covers Sandstone as described on sandstone.com and docs.sandstone.com on November 14, 2026.

Sandstone

Sandstone is a New York company building an AI platform for in-house legal departments, launched in January 2026 and backed by Sequoia and Lightspeed. Sandstone captures legal requests from the tools the business already uses, routes them with counterparty and deal context attached, keeps contracts and past decisions in a connected repository, and uses agents to redline, draft and answer questions against your playbooks, in its web app and in Word. It can run as a CLM or sit beside one, such as Ironclad, and reports on cycle times and workload.

Gavel Exec

Gavel Exec is AI contract review, redlining, and drafting software for legal teams. It works in Microsoft Word and online, so attorneys can review contracts inside Word or use browser-based workflows for broader contract analysis.

Gavel Exec supports playbook-based review, redlining, drafting, benchmarking, batch analysis, and multi-document comparison. Playbooks can be generated with AI, built from uploaded files, created manually, or started from built-in playbooks created by practicing attorneys. Gavel Exec publishes pricing at $160 per user per month or $1,740 per user annually, and offers 25 free queries per user with no credit card required.

Why teams choose Gavel Exec over Sandstone

Start reviewing today, on your own: Gavel Exec is a Word add-in for AI contract review and a browser app you sign up for yourself, with 25 free queries per user and no credit card. Sandstone doesn’t list a trial or a list price; you start with a demo and terms are scoped to your team.
Built for law firms as well as in-house teams: Gavel Exec is built for solo, small and mid-sized firms and small in-house teams that negotiate in Word. Sandstone is built only for in-house legal departments and names Fortune 1000 and large enterprise teams as its best fit.
The Word step without a platform rollout: Gavel Exec works on its own, in Word for Windows, Mac (2016 or later), Word on the web and Microsoft 365. Sandstone’s add-in signs in to a Sandstone workspace, and its install guide doesn’t list Word for Mac versions.

Already using Sandstone? Where Gavel Exec fits

If Sandstone runs your intake, routing and repository, keep it for that work. Sandstone’s add-in already reviews and redlines in Word against your workspace playbooks, so another seat may add little. Sandstone says as much: if drafting and reviewing in Word is your whole week, a dedicated Word tool may be enough on its own. Gavel Exec is worth trying for lawyers who negotiate most of the day and want playbooks generated from signed agreements and spreadsheets, or who work outside the in-house team, such as outside counsel. A playbook kept as a Word document works as a source in both. Neither vendor documents running both add-ins together, so test them in your Word setup.

When evaluating the legal tech company Sandstone,

Sandstone is an AI platform for in-house legal departments: intake and triage from Slack, Teams, email and ticketing tools, a repository and CLM, playbooks, agents that redline and draft, a Word add-in and reporting. It is priced per seat or per request by quote, starting with a demo. Gavel Exec is AI contract review, redlining and drafting in Word on Windows, Mac and the web, plus a browser app, for law firms and in-house teams. It starts with 25 free queries and no credit card, then costs $160 per user per month. In both, a lawyer decides on every change.

When to choose Sandstone or Gavel Exec

When to choose Sandstone

Choose Sandstone if your in-house legal department wants one platform for the work around contracts: intake from Slack, Teams, email, Jira, ServiceNow, Zip, Coupa and Salesforce; routing by expertise and capacity; counterparty history; a repository and CLM; playbook-driven redlines in Word; e-signature; and reporting on cycle times and workload. It is SOC 2 Type 2 and offers request-based pricing. Not for you if you are at a law firm or want to start without a sales process: Sandstone is built for in-house teams, and pricing is scoped on a demo with no trial listed.

When to choose Gavel Exec

Choose Gavel Exec if your lawyers negotiate contracts in Word and want AI redlines against built-in or their own playbooks, plus market benchmarking, starting today at a published per-seat price. It suits solo, small and mid-sized firms and small in-house teams. Not for you if your bottleneck is legal intake, request routing or a contract repository; a platform such as Sandstone handles that work, and Gavel Exec focuses on reviewing, redlining and drafting once the contract is open in Word.

Sandstone vs. Gavel Exec: pricing, trial and features

US public terms checked November 14, 2026. Sandstone doesn’t publish a list price; Gavel Exec does. Sources: Sandstone pricing and Gavel Exec pricing.

Feature	Sandstone	Gavel Exec
Price	Not published; quote-based. Seat-based or request-based pricing, scoped on a demo.	$160/user/month or $1,740/user/year; 1,000 queries per user per month; team pricing for 10+ seats.
Billing	Not published; terms are agreed in your Sandstone contract.	Month-to-month with no long-term contract; annual option billed annually.
Free Trial	No free trial listed; demo on request.	25 free queries per user; no credit card required.
AI Features	Intake and triage agents, routing, context map, repository with AI fields, playbook redlines and drafting, benchmarking, reporting.	Review, priority-ranked redlines, drafting, playbooks, market benchmarking and browser analysis.
Playbooks	Built from your templates, past redlines and policies; refined with each use.	Built-in playbooks; rules from .docx, PDF or CSV; manual editing, sharing and import/export.
Word Integration	Word add-in from AppSource; current Word, cloud and web versions; Mac not specified. Also Outlook, Slack, Teams, Salesforce.	Word add-in for Windows, Mac (2016+), Word on the web and Microsoft 365, plus a web app at exec.gavel.io.
Support	Docs and support site at docs.sandstone.com; email and phone contact.	Exec help center and phone support 7 days a week; demo for security and vendor questions.

Sandstone and Gavel Exec: ratings and demos

Sandstone has no review rating to report yet. As listed on G2, November 2026, its Sandstone page says there are not enough reviews to provide buying insight, and its Capterra and GetApp listings show no reviews. Sandstone’s site quotes in-house customers, including a general counsel in commercial real estate who says it handles “the initial intake and routine redlining”.

Watch Gavel’s 71-second Exec walkthrough to see a Series A stock investment agreement redlined against an attached term sheet, then a vendor-agreement playbook run with accepted edits appearing as tracked changes. Sandstone’s Agentic Workflows page walks through an illustrated example: an MSA request arrives from sales, is triaged and routed, gathers context from Salesforce, Slack and a prior contract, is reviewed against an enterprise MSA playbook and goes out for e-signature. It is an animated illustration, not a recording of the product. Vendor demonstrations show how a product operates, not how well it compares.

Transcript: Gavel Exec walkthrough (71 seconds)

[0:01] Meet Gavel Exec, the data-driven AI tool for contract redlining and drafting. Built by lawyers right inside Microsoft Word, ask Exec to negotiate your contract to standard market terms or to your preference.

[0:15] Negotiate the agreement and ensure the terms match the attached term sheet. Exec analyzes the contract, any relevant documents from your source database, and drafts suggested language with clear explanations.

[0:31] With Playbooks, lock in your negotiation positions as rules that use your precedent and reliable market benchmarks. Understand gaps with one click and immediately apply changes.

[0:45] Exec draws on thousands of real-world negotiation patterns to give you market-aligned language. And it’s continuously learning from you and your team’s preferences with a collaborative platform.

[0:59] Drive better outcomes with concrete data and reliable issue spotting. Supercharge your contract analysis. Start a free trial of Gavel Exec today.

Gavel Exec contract document beside its review panel in Microsoft Word — Official Gavel Word interface image. It shows the working environment, not the NDA scenario above or a comparison test with Sandstone.

Do Sandstone and Gavel Exec both redline contracts against a playbook?

Yes. Sandstone’s Word add-in reviews a contract against a playbook from your workspace, without one, or by making edits you describe. You enter the counterparty and the party you represent, and Sandstone returns high-priority items and suggested changes, each with its reasoning. You apply, apply with a comment, reject or regenerate each one, and when replying to a counterparty’s markup you decide on their changes first. Sandstone builds playbooks from your templates, past redlines and policies, and its agents can also redline and draft as part of a workflow that started as a request in Slack or email.

Gavel Exec redlines the whole agreement in Word as priority-ranked tracked changes and comments, based on built-in playbooks or your own, with the reasoning behind each change. You can generate playbook rules from checklists, spreadsheet playbooks or signed agreements (.docx, PDF or .csv). You accept or reject each change in Word, as with a colleague’s markup.

Both benchmark: Sandstone says it compares clauses with external market data as well as your own precedent, and Gavel Exec marks each provision on-market, off-market or missing for the jurisdiction, industry and company size you choose. The difference is what surrounds the document. Sandstone carries the request, the counterparty history and the record of how the matter was resolved; Gavel Exec focuses on the negotiation in Word. In both, a lawyer decides on every change.

Illustration: an NDA request from sales, reviewed for your company

A sales lead asks legal in Slack to turn around a prospect’s mutual NDA before a call on Friday. The prospect’s draft keeps information confidential for one year and adds a residuals clause letting its staff use anything they remember. Your illustrative playbook calls for three years and no residuals clause. The expected redline replaces “one (1) year” with “three (3) years”, deletes the residuals clause and adds a comment explaining both. You decide whether to accept, edit or reject each change before the draft goes back. In Sandstone, the request, routing and redline sit in one record; in Gavel Exec, the work starts when you open the NDA in Word. Done by hand, this is a clause-by-clause read against your checklist. This is an evaluation scenario, not a test either product ran.

What do you need to run Sandstone or Gavel Exec in Word?

Sandstone is a platform first: a workspace at app.sandstone.ai connected to the systems where requests start, with add-ins for Word and Outlook, Slack and Microsoft Teams apps and a Salesforce app. Sandstone’s Word add-in guide covers self-serve install from AppSource and central deployment by a Microsoft 365 admin, and says enterprise plans need Exchange Online. Sandstone says its CLM is ready in days, not a year-long project.

Gavel Exec needs an account at exec.gavel.io; the web app works without a download. To redline a specific document, add the Word add-in from Microsoft AppSource. It runs in Word for Windows, Word for Mac (2016 or later), Word on the web and Microsoft 365; if IT manages Microsoft 365 centrally, an admin may need to enable it. Gavel Exec lets you set the country and state or province for drafting and review, and asks teams working in another language to talk to Gavel first. Sandstone doesn’t publish supported regions or contract languages on the pages checked.

Does Sandstone have a Word add-in?

Yes. Sandstone for Word installs from Microsoft AppSource, or your admin deploys it centrally, and you sign in with your Sandstone workspace credentials. Sandstone’s docs ask for a current version of Word and say cloud and web versions are supported; they don’t list Word for Mac versions. Gavel Exec runs in Word for Windows, Mac (2016 or later), Word on the web and Microsoft 365, plus a web app.

Is Sandstone a CLM?

It can be. Sandstone says it can serve as a CLM or sit on top of an existing CLM as an AI and analytics layer, and it lists a repository with AI-extracted fields, approvals, renewals and a Salesforce app. Gavel Exec is not a CLM: it reviews, redlines and drafts contracts in Word.

Does Sandstone work for law firms?

Sandstone is built for in-house legal departments: general counsel, legal ops and in-house lawyers at scaling companies and enterprises. Its own site says it isn’t meant as a law-firm practice system. Gavel Exec is built for solo, small and mid-sized firms as well as small in-house teams.

How much does Sandstone cost vs. Gavel Exec?

Gavel Exec costs $160 per user per month, or $1,740 per user per year, with 1,000 queries per user per month, after 25 free queries per user with no credit card. Teams of 10 or more seats get team pricing.

Sandstone’s pricing page offers two models for the same product: seat-based, which follows the people who use Sandstone, or request-based, which follows the legal requests the business sends. Neither has a published list price; terms are scoped on a demo. Its ROI calculator shows an illustrative cost range, which Sandstone says varies by use case and module and is not a quote. Request-based pricing can suit a small legal team that fields a lot of requests from a large business.

How much does Sandstone cost?

Sandstone’s pricing is not published; it’s quote-based. You choose seat-based pricing, which follows the people who use it, or request-based pricing, which follows incoming legal requests, and terms are scoped on a demo. Gavel Exec publishes a per-seat price.

Does Sandstone have a free trial?

Sandstone doesn’t list a free trial; you start by booking a demo. Gavel Exec starts with 25 free queries per user that you can use right away, with no credit card.

Security and data use: Sandstone vs. Gavel Exec

Sandstone’s security page says it is SOC 2 Type 2, encrypts data at rest (AES-256) and in transit (TLS 1.3), supports SAML SSO, role-based permissions and audit logs, and runs annual third-party penetration tests. Reports and questionnaires are in its Trust Center. Sandstone’s homepage also says its agents work across connected systems while respecting data permissions.

Gavel Exec is SOC 2 Type II certified and has Zero Data Retention agreements with the AI model providers it uses. It encrypts data at rest with AES-256 and in transit with TLS, and hosts in the United States by default, with European Union, Canada and Australia options. See Gavel security.

Does Sandstone train AI on my data?

No. Sandstone says it doesn’t train models on customer data and that its model providers are under zero data retention agreements, so they don’t keep prompts or outputs. Sandstone itself stores the data you put in the product to run the service.

Does Gavel Exec train AI models on my contracts?

No. Gavel doesn’t use customer data, prompts or document content to train AI models, and it has Zero Data Retention agreements with the AI providers it uses, including OpenAI.

Who makes Sandstone and Gavel Exec?

Sandstone is headquartered in New York and was founded by Nick Fleisher, who led McKinsey’s legal technology practice, and Jarryd Strydom, a former in-house counsel. Its advisors include former Goodwin COO Mary O’Carroll, and it names Wayfair, Hypertherm, MasterClass, Cox Media and ElevenLabs among its customers. Gavel is part of Relativity, which announced its acquisition of Gavel on June 12, 2026, and also offers e-discovery software. Gavel’s CEO and Founder, Dorna Moini, started it in 2019 and teaches the Legal Innovations Lab at USC Gould School of Law.

Who owns Sandstone?

Sandstone is an independent, venture-backed company headquartered in New York. It launched in January 2026 with a $10 million seed round led by Sequoia and raised a $30 million Series A led by Lightspeed in June 2026. Nick Fleisher is co-founder and CEO, and Jarryd Strydom is co-founder and COO.

Method: Gavel editorial review. Checked against Sandstone’s and Gavel’s public pages on November 14, 2026, including docs.sandstone.com. Gavel publishes this comparison and sells Exec; Gavel is part of Relativity. No hands-on comparative test of the two products was conducted. Corrections: contact Gavel.

It’s the best system I’ve tried, and I’ve tried many.
Martin Algie, Principal, MIA Contract Lawyers (quoted on gavel.io/exec)

How to try Gavel Exec on a live contract

Pick an agreement you have already negotiated, so you know its issues. Start from a built-in Exec playbook or generate rules from your checklist or signed agreements, run it in Word and compare the redlines with your own markup. If you’re evaluating Sandstone too, ask its team to review the same agreement in its Word add-in during the demo and compare what each flags, what you reject and how long checking takes.

Start with 25 free queries and no credit card. If your problem is requests getting lost between Slack, email and procurement tools, that is a legal intake platform’s job, and Sandstone is built for it.

Try Exec on a contract you’re negotiating

Run a built-in playbook or your own rules on a live agreement in Word and review each tracked change. 25 free queries per user, no credit card.

Start free trial Get a demo

Frequently asked questions

Methodology

This comparison uses publicly available product, pricing, and review information. Features, pricing, and access terms may change, so buyers should verify current details directly with each vendor.