Spellbook vs CoCounsel: Word contract suite or Westlaw-backed drafting platform

Spellbook vs CoCounsel at a glance

Gavel Exec sits in the last column for reference.

What each tool is for

Spellbook is a contract suite. Its homepage calls it "The complete contract AI suite," counts 5,000+ legal teams as users, and lists Review, Draft, Ask, Playbooks, Compare and Associate as the pieces. The Word add-in carries Review, Draft, Ask, Playbooks and Compare; the Google Docs add-on, in beta, covers Reviews, Playbooks and Ask; Associate is a separate multi-document agent.

CoCounsel Legal is a research-and-drafting bundle. Thomson Reuters describes it as full access to CoCounsel Essentials, Westlaw Advantage plus Practical Law Dynamic Tool Set, and says it "reasons from Westlaw, Practical Law, and your organization's own knowledge." CoCounsel for Microsoft Word is the add-in layer, and the next-generation CoCounsel Legal agent arrived inside Word with the September 2026 release.

The practical consequence: a Spellbook buyer still needs a research subscription if lawyers check case law, and a CoCounsel Legal buyer pays for research even if the lawyers only negotiate contracts. Thomson Reuters also sells CoCounsel Essentials on its own, with the price shown after you enter firm details.

Research depth: public databases or Westlaw and Practical Law

CoCounsel Legal is the research-led product of the two. Its Deep Research feature works through a question step by step and returns a cited report grounded in Westlaw and Practical Law, and the Word agent is "grounded in Westlaw and Practical Law content" with links to relevant Practical Law material. Thomson Reuters' product page says that includes Practical Law Global guidance across more than 100 jurisdictions.

Spellbook's Ask is a different kind of tool. Its help center lists the legal sources it can search: CourtListener, Case.law, Justia, Cornell Law, GovInfo and EDGAR in the United States, CanLII and Justice Canada, the Legal Information Institute network, EUR-Lex and dozens of national legislation sources in Europe and Latin America. Answers cite the source, and selecting a legal source keeps the AI on those databases instead of the general web. The list includes no Westlaw or LexisNexis content and no citator.

For a lawyer who must confirm a case is still good law, CoCounsel's Westlaw grounding is the deciding feature. For a contract lawyer who wants a quick statutory check while drafting, Spellbook's Ask covers the public record in many jurisdictions as part of the suite license.

Playbook review in Word: how the two differ

Both products review a third-party contract against a playbook and put the result into Word, and the differences are in who writes the rules and how findings are ranked. Spellbook's rules hold preferred language, fallback positions and flagging criteria for each clause, teams can start from Spellbook starter playbooks, and the suggested replacement language lands as tracked changes attributed to the reviewing lawyer. Playbooks are shared across the team, and Spellbook recommends running a new playbook on five to ten past contracts before using it live.

CoCounsel's "Compare to playbooks" offers two libraries: custom playbooks you build in the add-in and Practical Law pre-built playbooks. Each clause is flagged as missing, having issues or acceptable, and issues are grouped into high risk, major and minor tiers. Missing clauses are inserted at the cursor, major issues come with an "Accept" button for the suggested revision, and minor issues arrive as a summary. A custom playbook shared with the organization is read-only for others.

Spellbook has the edge for a team that wants reviewers to adjust fallback positions themselves. CoCounsel has the edge for a team that would rather begin from Practical Law's editorial positions than write a playbook from a blank page, and for teams that want a built-in severity ranking. Spellbook's in-house package also lists a Playbook Build Service, which does not appear in the law firm package.

Multi-document and bulk work

CoCounsel publishes a number and Spellbook publishes a list of project types. CoCounsel Legal's Tabular Analysis feature answers "up to 100 questions across as many as 10,000 documents at once," with results in one sortable table footnoted to the source. Spellbook's Associate is an agent that plans multi-document projects, with data room reviews, disclosure schedules, financing documents and employment packages named as examples, and it can revise several documents in one step; its pages state no document ceiling.

For diligence across thousands of documents with the same questions, CoCounsel is the better fit. For a deal lawyer who wants an agent to update terms across a set of related agreements, Associate is built for that job.

Document management connectors

Both connect to iManage, and CoCounsel reaches further. Spellbook's iManage integration lets you import iManage files into Ask and Associate projects and ask questions across them, with existing iManage permissions and ethical walls applied; its integration pages do not mention NetDocuments. CoCounsel's product page says you can analyze and draft with iManage content and turn NetDocuments files into matter context, and the help center lists iManage cloud, iManage on-premise and SharePoint connectors for the new CoCounsel Legal, with NetDocuments shown in the classic version's connector list. An application administrator sets connectors up.

A NetDocuments firm should ask Thomson Reuters which CoCounsel version supports that connector before signing. Gavel Exec does not connect natively to iManage or NetDocuments today and reviews the agreement you have open in Word through its add-in.

Pricing and contract terms

CoCounsel is the only one of the two with a visible price. Thomson Reuters' small-firm page shows CoCounsel Legal "Starting at" $551.85 per month, next to Westlaw Advantage with CoCounsel at $415.35 per month on its solo-firm page. The buy path offers plans for firms with 1 to 3 attorneys and 4 to 10 attorneys, firms over 10 attorneys contact sales, the figure is shown to new customers only, and CoCounsel Legal comes in 1-year, 2-year and 3-year plans. For the Westlaw Advantage with CoCounsel Essentials plan, Thomson Reuters lists 12% off for 2 years and 18% off for 3 years. The page does not say whether $551.85 covers one attorney or a firm, so confirm that during checkout.

Spellbook publishes no figure. Its pricing page says "Pricing is determined by the number of team members on a license," directs buyers to a demo for a quote, and splits inclusions by audience: law firms get the suite with group training and online support, and in-house teams add the Playbook Build Service. Gavel customers who were quoted report roughly $350 per user per month. Spellbook's help center says monthly plans end at the close of the billing period, annual plans run to the end of the paid term, and no refunds are offered.

Trials: 7 days self-serve or a scheduled trial

Spellbook's trial starts on its website. Trials started there "expire automatically after 7 days, no charge, no action needed," sales-assisted trials can convert to a paid plan unless you confirm otherwise with the representative, and Associate projects created during the trial become inaccessible until you upgrade. Larger organizations can ask for an extended trial.

CoCounsel's "Request free trial" and "Start Free Trial" buttons lead to a form, and the CoCounsel Essentials trial page says a representative "will reach out shortly to schedule your free trial." Thomson Reuters does not state the trial length. Spellbook is the easier product to test this week. Gavel Exec's 25 free queries per user also start the same day, with no credit card and no call with a representative.

Security and data handling

Spellbook lists SOC 2 Type II compliance, says it has "negotiated agreements with both OpenAI and Anthropic for zero data retention (ZDR)," and stores customer data in cloud data centers located in Canada and the United States. It states compliance with GDPR, CCPA and PIPEDA, will sign a business associate agreement for protected health information, and cites an independent legal opinion from CMS Law classifying it as low-risk under the European Union AI Act. Sign-in runs through Microsoft accounts, so multi-factor authentication can be enforced in Microsoft Entra.

Thomson Reuters says customer data in CoCounsel Legal is "never used to train underlying models" and, in its February 2026 announcement that one million professionals use CoCounsel across 107 countries and territories, that it "does not repurpose customer inputs to train third-party models or generate outputs for other users." The product page says CoCounsel Legal is "SOC 2 and ISO 42001 certified" without naming the SOC 2 report type (Type I or Type II) or a hosting region, so request those documents from Thomson Reuters directly.

Which should you choose?

• Choose Spellbook if your team negotiates in Word or Google Docs, wants market data from Compare to Market and an agent for multi-document projects, and prefer a 7-day trial before any pricing conversation.
• Choose CoCounsel Legal if you want Westlaw and Practical Law research in the same tool as contract drafting, review document sets in the thousands, run on iManage or NetDocuments, and accept a 1- to 3-year term at a price you can see online.
• Consider Gavel Exec if you want playbook-based redlining in Word plus benchmarking in the web app at $160 per user per month, with 25 free queries per user and no research bundle, billed month to month where CoCounsel Legal is sold on 1-, 2- or 3-year plans.

A third option: Gavel Exec

A lawyer comparing these two often wants only the contract half of CoCounsel, priced openly and below Spellbook's reported quote. Gavel Exec, Gavel's AI contract review and drafting software, runs as a Word add-in on Windows, Mac, Word on the web and Microsoft 365, plus a web app at exec.gavel.io. It redlines an entire agreement as priority-ranked tracked changes and states why it made each one, adding margin comments and a missing-terms list.

• Playbooks: start from built-in playbooks developed alongside corporate and real estate attorneys, or turn a checklist, a spreadsheet playbook or executed agreements you upload into rules (.docx, PDF or .csv). Playbooks and Projects can be shared read-only or with edit access.
• Benchmarking: in the web app, Gavel Exec marks provisions on-market, off-market or missing and lets you narrow results by jurisdiction, industry and company size.
• Price and trial: $160 per user per month, or $1,740 per user per year, with 1,000 queries per user per month on paid plans. Month to month, no long-term contract. 25 free queries per user, no credit card, no sales call.
• Security: SOC 2 Type II certified, Zero Data Retention terms with each AI model provider it uses, OpenAI among them, no training on customer data, and hosting on AWS in the United States unless you choose EU, Canada or Australia.

Martin Algie of MIA Contract Lawyers in Australia reports first-cut review time falling from roughly 15 to roughly 5 hours a contract. Over 2,000 legal organizations in 28 countries use Gavel.

Limits: Gavel Exec includes no case-law research database, so it cannot replace CoCounsel's Westlaw and Practical Law access; its source checks draw on your precedent, uploaded matter files, SEC EDGAR filings and government sources. It is built for transactional work, and Relativity, Gavel's parent company, covers litigation and e-discovery. There is no native iManage or NetDocuments connection today, and redlining a specific document or creating a playbook requires the Word add-in. For the one-on-one pages, see Spellbook vs Gavel Exec and CoCounsel vs Gavel Exec.

How to test Spellbook and CoCounsel side by side

1. Split a month of work into research and contracts. If most AI minutes would go to case law and Practical Law guidance, request the CoCounsel Legal trial first. If they would go to redlines, start Spellbook's 7-day trial today and run Gavel Exec's 25 free queries alongside it.
2. Load one playbook into each. Write out your positions for one agreement type with preferred language and fallbacks. Build the rules in Spellbook's Playbooks, create a custom playbook in CoCounsel for Microsoft Word, and upload the same document to Gavel Exec to generate rules.
3. Review a contract you already negotiated. Run the same third-party draft through each tool and compare the tracked changes with the markup you actually sent. Note how each handles a missing clause and how CoCounsel's high risk, major and minor tiers line up with your view.
4. Test research on a memo you have written. Ask CoCounsel's Deep Research and Spellbook's Ask the same question and check whether each finds the authorities you cited.
5. Get the commercial terms in writing. From Thomson Reuters: whether $551.85 per month is per attorney or per firm, the term length and renewal terms, and whether Noetica requires a separate subscription. From Spellbook: the per-user price, seat minimum, monthly versus annual terms, and the Pay to Get fee for Compare to Market if you won't contribute data.

More comparisons: Spellbook alternatives, CoCounsel alternatives, our ranked guide to AI contract review tools and every Gavel comparison.