Vesence vs Spellbook: which suits mergers and acquisitions lawyers

Vesence vs Spellbook at a glance

Here is how the two products line up for a law firm deal team, with Gavel Exec in the right-hand column as a third option.

What Vesence is

Vesence is a Y Combinator company from Sweden (Vesence AB, hiring in Stockholm and San Francisco), and it bills its product as "the computer built for agents doing 99% of the work." That computer is a cloud workspace with mail, a calendar, a browser, a drive, documents, spreadsheets and a terminal, where agents do the first pass and you accept or reject what they produce. It also ships add-ins for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, and lets you pick models from Anthropic and OpenAI. When Artificial Lawyer reported its $9 million seed round on October 28, 2025, Vesence described its system as "a proactive AI reviewer" working in Word and Outlook; its current site sells the wider workspace to law firms, banks, investment firms, consulting firms and life sciences companies.

Its law firm page lists the deal work its agents take on: organizing a data room and preparing a first diligence report, finding change-of-control provisions across a target's contracts, drafting an agreement "from the firm's precedent and the term sheet," applying a client's email comments as tracked changes, and comparing a counterparty markup with the original. Its financing and credit practice area adds analyzing materials and preparing financing documents. In Word, its Check action looks at cross-references, defined terms, numbering and logical inconsistencies across the whole document and ranks each issue by severity. Projects connect to SharePoint, iManage and NetDocuments.

• Price: not published on its website. Its terms for the cloud workspace describe the standard plan as one monthly subscription per workspace that includes $30 of AI usage credit each paid month, say adding users doesn't multiply that fee, and say the current price is shown in billing and confirmed at checkout; the Office add-ins are sold under an order form. Its request page says "Vesence is invite-only," with an invite request or a 15-minute demo as the way in.
• Trial: by invitation. Vesence's terms say "Your invitation states the number of trial days," trials start at Stripe checkout and "No payment card is required," and the subscription cancels without a charge if no payment method is added before the trial ends. Pilots of the Office add-ins under an order form are free unless the order form says otherwise. Its homepage and demo page don't advertise a trial.
• Review in Office: the Word add-in reviews "against playbooks, checklists, or custom instructions," and the Outlook add-in checks language, recipients and attachments before you send and removes metadata and hidden markup from files.
• Security: SOC 2 Type II and GDPR compliance; hosting in Microsoft Azure's European Central region, with all customer data processing in the EU; encryption in transit and at rest; Microsoft Azure's content filtering and abuse monitoring turned off; zero data retention on the Enterprise plan; and a statement that Vesence never trains AI models on your data. Sign-in runs through Microsoft Entra ID single sign-on.
• Customers and funding: customer stories from law firms including Cederquist, Kanter, Wesslau and Snellman, and backing from Y Combinator, Emergence, 20VC and Creandum. Maja Wettergren, Cederquist's managing partner, says the firm reached "90% weekly usage."

Limits: Vesence lists no price on its website, and access, including any trial, runs through an invite or a demo. Its FAQ says you need a Microsoft 365 work account, so it fits firms already on Microsoft 365. We found no market benchmark data on its site, and its Research feature searches your files and connected knowledge without naming a case-law database.

What Spellbook is

Spellbook's homepage headline is "The complete contract AI suite," and the site pitches it to transactional lawyers for contract review. The Word add-in carries five tools (Review, Draft, Ask, Benchmarks and Playbooks), puts its redlines in as native track changes, and has a Google Docs version. Associate, which Spellbook calls "The AI agent for transactional law," runs in the browser, lists data room reviews, financing documents, disclosure schedules and employment packages as example projects, and can "Update terms, party details, and fix issues across document sets."

For deal terms, Spellbook's Compare feature (listed as Benchmarks in the Word add-in) sets a contract beside what Spellbook describes as a live data pool covering more than 80 countries, with filters for industry, jurisdiction and deal type that work without leaving Word. Spellbook lists M&A, financing, commercial, real estate, employment and technology among the transactional practices it serves. Its newer product, Autonomous Contract Management (ACM), takes in contracts from intake forms, Gmail, Outlook and Slack; a Spellbook blog post last updated October 7, 2026 says ACM is generally available, though the homepage still reads "Get early access." Through the iManage integration, files come into Ask and Associate with your firm's iManage permissions and ethical walls still applied.

• Price: not published. Spellbook says its pricing "is structured around the number of team members on your license" and sends teams to a demo for a personalized figure. For budgeting, use about $350 per user per month, reported by Gavel customers.
• Trial: Spellbook advertises a free 7-day trial to lawyers and legal teams, with a signup form on its website and no invite needed, and says larger organizations may get an extended one. On the pricing page, "Start Free Trial" is the Law Firms package's button.
• Playbooks: playbooks with "detailed rules and fallbacks," with redlines added to your contract "in your name"; the In-House Teams package adds a Playbook Build Service.
• Customers and funding: Spellbook says it has raised more than $80 million in equity, and its homepage reads "Trusted by 5,000+ legal teams."
• Security: SOC 2 Type II, and its security page also lists compliance with the EU AI Act, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Spellbook has negotiated zero data retention agreements with OpenAI and Anthropic, and its cloud providers keep customer data in Canadian and United States data centers.

Limits: No price appears on Spellbook's site. Spellbook also says it isn't primarily designed for case-law or litigation research, although it lists connections to 100+ public legal databases. Its security page names data centers in Canada and the United States and no EU hosting option, and we found no Outlook, Excel or PowerPoint add-in on its site. A Spellbook blog post last updated January 13, 2026 says market comparison access is free when your aggregate statistics join the shared pool, and that keeping your data out of the pool costs an extra fee.

Vesence vs Spellbook: the differences that matter

How much of the deal each one covers

Vesence covers more ground. Its add-ins reach Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint as well as Word, and its cloud workspace keeps a matter's mail, files and agents together, so one instruction can reach the agreement, the workbook and the client correspondence. Spellbook stays with the contract itself, in Word, Google Docs and Associate, and email reaches it through ACM intake. Vesence also sells to banks, investment firms and consulting firms, while Spellbook writes its site for transactional lawyers.

Due diligence and multi-document work

Vesence publishes the more detailed diligence workflow. You load the deal room into a shared project with your review instructions, Vesence lists what's missing, logs each issue in a findings workbook with its source and next step, and drafts the report in your format, with the source passage showing when you hover over a citation. Spellbook's Associate lists data room reviews too, and it is the one of the two that lists disclosure schedules as a project and says it can update terms and party details across a document set. Both list financing documents: Associate names them as an example project, and Vesence's financing and credit practice area says it can "prepare financing documents." Diligence teams that work from issues lists should test Vesence first; teams that want an agent working through disclosure schedules and changes across a whole set of deal documents should give Associate the closer look.

Market terms

Spellbook is stronger here. Its Compare feature measures your terms against a live data pool that Spellbook says draws on more than 80 countries, and a lawyer can narrow it to the industry, jurisdiction or deal type at hand while the contract is open in Word. We found no market data feature on Vesence's site. Its reviews run against the preferred terms, precedents and checklists you supply, and its own Compare tool, a version redline feature, can line up an opposing markup against your own playbook positions.

Markup turns and drafting

Vesence is stronger on the back-and-forth of a negotiation. It can apply a client's emailed comments as tracked changes, compare the other side's markup with the original, summarize open points for the team, and draft the reply email with the revised agreement attached for you to review and send. Its Compare engine redlines any two versions of a Word, PDF or PowerPoint file, and Word comparisons come back as native Word revisions. Spellbook's Review redlines third-party paper as native track changes against your playbook, and Draft works "from scratch or saved libraries," so on clause-level markup inside Word the two sit closer together.

Pricing, trials and access

Spellbook is easier to try. Lawyers can request the 7-day free trial from its website without an invite, and Spellbook doesn't publish its price, but about $350 per user per month, reported by Gavel customers, gives you a budget figure before the first call. Vesence is invite-only: its terms say the invitation sets the number of trial days and no payment card is needed, and its demo form asks for your name, company and work email. Vesence's terms bill its standard workspace plan as one monthly subscription per workspace, so adding users doesn't multiply the fee, but the price itself appears only at checkout or in an order form.

Security and where your data lives

Both report SOC 2 Type II, both say your data isn't used to train AI models, and both describe terms with their model providers. Spellbook has negotiated zero data retention agreements with OpenAI and Anthropic. Vesence says it has turned off Microsoft Azure's content filtering and abuse monitoring so that no third party, its cloud provider included, can access your documents or prompts, and it lists full zero data retention on its Enterprise plan. Vesence is stronger for firms that need European processing, since it hosts on Microsoft Azure's European Central region and says all processing it does for customers takes place in the EU. For a firm that wants data kept in North America, Spellbook's data centers in Canada and the United States are the closer fit.

Which should you choose?

• Choose Vesence if your firm runs on Microsoft 365, your deal teams want agents that work across Outlook, Word and Excel on diligence and markup turns, and client or regulatory demands mean processing has to stay in the EU. Access, including any trial, starts with an invite request or a 15-minute demo, and Vesence lists no price on its website.
• Choose Spellbook if you want a contract suite with a 7-day trial you can request on its website without an invite, market comparison by deal type from a data pool Spellbook says spans 80+ countries, an agent that lists disclosure schedules and changes across whole document sets among its projects, or Google Docs support.
• Consider Gavel Exec if most of your AI work is reviewing and drafting deal paper in Word, and you want a per-user price listed on the website ($160 per user per month, and month-to-month billing on the monthly plan), playbooks you can build from checklists, spreadsheet playbooks or signed agreements and share with colleagues at read-only or edit access, and benchmarks that cover M&A deal documents.

A third option: Gavel Exec

Gavel Exec is AI contract review and drafting software that runs inside Microsoft Word as an add-in and on the web. For a transactional lawyer it overlaps more with Spellbook than with Vesence: it marks up a full agreement as priority-ranked tracked changes with the reasoning for each, and its precedent-based drafting in Word carries the defined terms and clause structure of a prior executed agreement into a new draft. Unlike either vendor, it publishes its per-user price on its website. Each user can also start with 25 free queries and no credit card.

• Playbooks: built-in playbooks written by practicing attorneys, or rules Gavel Exec builds from documents you already have: a checklist, a playbook kept in a spreadsheet, or agreements you've signed, uploaded as Word, PDF or .csv files. Colleagues can be given read-only or edit access to shared Projects and Playbooks.
• Benchmarking: each provision rated on-market, off-market or missing filtered by the jurisdiction, industry and company size that match the deal, and M&A deal documents are among the agreement types it covers. Benchmarking lives in the web app.
• Security: SOC 2 Type II. Zero Data Retention agreements cover the AI model providers Gavel uses, OpenAI included, and customer data, prompts and documents stay out of model training. Data sits in the United States on Amazon Web Services by default, and EU, Canada and Australia hosting are options.
• Price: $160 per user per month, or $1,740 per user per year, with 25 free queries per user and no credit card. The monthly plan is billed month to month, with no long-term contract.

With Gavel Exec, Martin Algie of MIA Contract Lawyers says a first-cut contract review that used to take him about 15 hours now takes about 5.

Limits: Gavel Exec works in Word and its web app only, so it doesn't draft email in Outlook or check spreadsheets the way Vesence's add-ins do. Benchmarking isn't in the Word add-in, there's no case-law research database, there's no native iManage or NetDocuments integration yet, and obligation or renewal tracking across a portfolio isn't part of the product. The Spellbook vs Gavel Exec page covers that head-to-head in detail, and transactional teams can also read how transactional attorneys use Gavel Exec.

How to test Vesence and Spellbook side by side

1. Request Vesence access before you start Spellbook's trial. Vesence is invite-only, and its terms say the invitation sets the number of trial days, while Spellbook's trial lasts 7 days, so request your Vesence invite or demo first and start Spellbook once you know when you'll have Vesence in hand.
2. Use one counterparty markup you've already closed. Take a purchase agreement your firm negotiated, load your positions into each tool, and compare Vesence's tracked changes and Compare output with Spellbook's Review redlines against the final agreed version.
3. Run a small diligence set through both. Give each 15 to 20 target contracts and ask for every change-of-control and assignment consent with a source citation, then set Vesence's findings workbook beside the output of Associate's data room review.
4. Get the commercial terms in writing. Ask both for the total price at your real headcount (Spellbook prices by team member; Vesence's terms bill its standard workspace plan per workspace), the contract term, where data is processed and stored, and whether zero data retention is included (Vesence lists it on its Enterprise plan).

More comparisons: Spellbook alternatives, Spellbook vs Harvey for firms weighing a broader legal AI platform, a guide to AI contract redlining software, and every Gavel comparison.