Per-case vs per-seat pricing for legal software: which costs your firm less?

The two models

Per seat means you pay a monthly fee for each person who logs in. It is how most case management systems price: Clio EasyStart is listed at $49 per user per month, CasePeer from $79, SmartAdvocate and Neos from $109. Add a person, pay more. Open more cases with the same people, pay nothing extra.

Per case means you pay for each case you open. EvenUp moved to per-case pricing for its AI platform in 2025. PlaintiffStack charges $250 per case with every app included and no monthly fee. Add a person, pay nothing extra. Open more cases, pay more.

PlaintiffStack publishes this guide and sells per-case pricing, so read it with that in mind. We have tried to show the math honestly, including the cases where per-seat pricing is clearly cheaper. It often is.

The break-even math

On license cost alone, the comparison is simple. A seat costs its monthly price times twelve each year. Divide that by the per-case price to get the number of new cases per seat per year at which the two cost the same.

Most plaintiff firms open far more cases than that per person. So on license cost alone, per-seat pricing is cheaper for almost every high-volume firm. Per-case pricing only competes when it replaces costs that the seat price leaves out. The break-even also moves with the prices: a lower per-case price or a higher seat price pushes it up, and the calculator lets you try both.

Worked examples

These use $109 per user per month (SmartAdvocate's listed starting price) and $250 per case. They are illustrations, not quotes.

The license line favors per-seat pricing in every row. The question is what else you pay for.

What the seat price leaves out

A seat-priced case system is rarely the whole bill. Add up what your firm actually pays, from your own invoices:

• AI. Demand and chronology tools are often sold as add-ons, higher tiers or separate vendors. Third parties estimate AI demands from one large vendor at about $300 base and $500 to $800 or more with add-ons, per demand.
• Intake and CRM. Many PI firms run a separate intake system.
• Client updates. Portal or texting apps, often priced per user or per case.
• E-signature, document assembly, texting and phone.
• Implementation and migration fees, and the annual commitment or license minimum.
• Seats for people who rarely log in, such as part-time staff, contract attorneys and co-counsel.

Take the small PI firm above. Its six seats cost $7,848 a year. Suppose 70 of its 120 cases reach a demand and it buys AI demands at the third-party estimate of $300 to $800 each: that line alone is $21,000 to $56,000. Its bill is then about $29,000 to $64,000 before intake, client updates or e-signature, against $30,000 plus AI usage on per-case pricing. Close enough that the answer depends on the firm's actual invoices.

When those lines are added, the gap narrows, and for some firms it closes. When they aren't there, because the firm is happy with a lean set of tools, per-seat pricing stays cheaper.

When per-seat pricing wins

Be honest with yourself about which group you're in. Per-seat pricing is usually the better deal when:

• You open many cases per person. Volume workers' comp is the clearest example. In California, the WCAB sets and approves applicant attorney fees (Labor Code 4906), and comp fees are usually a smaller share of smaller awards than PI fees, so a flat charge on every file weighs more.
• You already own AI and tools you like, and only need the case system.
• Your case values are low relative to the per-case price.
• Your staff is stable, so you are not paying for idle seats.
• You turn away few cases after opening them, or a per-case vendor would bill you for files that never convert.
• You need features a per-case vendor lacks. Trust accounting, email sync or a specific integration can matter more than the price model. PlaintiffStack, for one, has no trust accounting and doesn't connect to Outlook or Gmail yet.

When per-case pricing wins

Per-case pricing is usually the better deal when:

• It replaces several bills. If one price covers the case system, the AI, intake, the client portal and e-signature, compare it with the sum of those, not with the seat price alone.
• Case values are high. In employment cases, contingency fees plus statutory fee-shifting (California's Fair Employment and Housing Act lets a court award attorney's fees to a prevailing plaintiff, Government Code 12965) make a per-case charge small against the fee.
• Your headcount moves. Contract attorneys, seasonal staff and co-counsel cost nothing extra.
• You want cost to follow intake. A slow quarter costs less; a busy one costs more, in step with the fees those cases will earn.

To see the per-case price against the fee: on a PI case that settles for $30,000 with a 33.33% fee, the fee is $10,000, and $250 is 2.5% of it. On a comp file with a small award, the same $250 is a much larger share.

Hybrid models

Some vendors mix the two: a platform fee plus a per-case or per-use charge, seats plus AI credits, or a per-case price with a monthly minimum. Compare them the same way: total cost for your seats and your case count over a year, including the add-ons you will actually use. Watch for usage charges with no estimate shown up front, and for minimums that turn a variable price into a fixed one. PlaintiffStack is itself a mix of this kind: a per-case price, plus AI usage billed separately with an estimate before each run.

Questions to ask any per-case vendor

1. What counts as a case: a lead, a signed client, an opened matter?
2. Is a case declined or dropped soon after opening still billed?
3. Is a reopened case billed again?
4. Is the price per case once, or per year the case is open?
5. What is included, and what is billed separately (AI usage, storage, texting)?
6. Is there a minimum, a monthly fee or a contract term?

Ask per-seat vendors the mirror questions: what is the minimum seat count, what costs extra, and what happens at renewal.

Then run your own numbers in the case management cost calculator with your seat count, your case count and what you pay today for every tool, and compare written quotes, not list prices.

Where PlaintiffStack's price fits

PlaintiffStack charges $250 per case, every app included, with no monthly fee and no long lock-in contract. AI usage is billed separately: each tool shows an estimated cost before it runs, typically cents per run, and how usage is billed is part of your quote. Ask on the demo how a case is counted for your firm, and get the answer in writing.

By the math above, it costs more than a seat-priced system for firms that open many cases per person and already have the tools they want, which includes many volume comp shops. It fits California plaintiff firms whose current bill spreads across a case system, AI tools and several smaller apps, and firms whose cases carry fees large enough that $250 is a small share. Its limits: California rules only, no OCR for scans yet, SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 in progress, and a young company. See pricing and AI demand letter software cost.