Free Contract Management Software

The contract process is a whirlwind of writing, negotiating, collecting signatures, and storing data. While writing a contract is a significant element of the contract process, other elements are just as important and can easily go off track. That’s why it’s crucial to keep track of every aspect of your contract process.

What if you send a contract to another party but don’t receive a countersignature, leaving you unprotected against contract violations? Or maybe your contracts involve a series of deadlines, and you have a hard time keeping track of them all. If contracts are a large part of your business, you may want to consider contract management software to help you keep up.

Contract management software is a digital solution that allows business professionals to create, sign, collect, and store contracts. Not only do these software tools increase the speed and efficiency of the contract process, but they also reduce the expenses and frustrations that come with traditional paper contract processes.

In the world of contracts, creating and signing are only two small elements of a much bigger picture. To successfully complete a contract, you must effectively execute the contract management process. From beginning to end, the process involves a few crucial stages.

Contract management is made up of five key steps:

1. Generation is the creation stage of your contract.
2. Negotiation includes the internal review and external negotiation of the contract’s terms.
3. Signatures must be acquired from all parties involved. This is typically where bottlenecks occur and where contract management software is so valuable.
4. Monitoring includes the review, auditing, and tracking of your contract’s progress through the signature and approval processes.
5. Renewal, too often overlooked during the initial contract process, is essential for making sure your contract remains current and beneficial over time.

By effectively managing each stage of the contract process, you will reduce the burden on your team and streamline your contract’s approval timeline.

Some contract management software is better for larger enterprises that deal with millions of dollars in contracts each year. Others offer more basic packages that simply help manage versions of contracts and provide electronic signature capabilities.

You can set up contract management software to alert you when deadlines are approaching, track delivery schedules, use electronic signatures on your contracts, and keep track of any compliance issues that may arise.

There are also programs that integrate with Microsoft 365 so you can create and edit your contracts in Microsoft Word, while others connect to large enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Which one you choose will depend on your organization’s needs.

In traditional contract management, you use multiple tools across multiple platforms to wrangle and oversee each stage of the contract process. But with contract management software, all your tools are in one place and available to help you streamline the entire contract process.

The best contract management software products store your contracts — including your standard contract templates. They also use workflows to help create new contracts, which saves you the time and trouble of creating them from scratch every time you need one.

With a variety of available contract management software on the market, you’ll need to decide which best fits your needs and budget. While some offer advanced options, they may not be necessary for your purposes — and will cost you more than you should be paying. Before making your decision, weigh some of these options to find the best fit.

1. Jform
2. DocuSign CLM
3. Juro
4. Outlaw
5. Cobblestone
6. Conga
7. ContractNow
8. Trackado
9. PandaDoc
10. Concord
11. Icertis

A full-service platform with options to fit every business, Jform is designed to offer users a variety of solutions to fit their needs. Specializing in form creation and management, Jform also makes creating, signing, managing, and analyzing your contracts simple. Build contracts from scratch using a drag-and-drop form builder or speed up the process with one of more than 600 e-sign document templates.

Not only does Jform feature automated, secure contract building and management, but it also offers a full suite of benefits available to all users, including

• Automated approval processes with Jform Approvals
• Shareable databases through Jform Tables
• Jform Sign’s e-signature and contract-tracking capabilities
• Real-time alerts and notifications

With solutions ranging from single-user free plans to enterprise-level custom options, Jform is an effective and easy-to-use contract management solution.

Pricing

Starter: Free for a single user
Bronze: $34/month
Silver: $39/month
Gold: $99/month
Enterprise: Custom

For many, DocuSign is synonymous with e-signatures. This makes its contract lifecycle management (CLM) software a favorite among users. DocuSign prioritizes automation and efficiency, with tools built to empower users through document creation, collaboration, and analysis. As an e-signature program first, its CLM software is also optimized to make collecting signatures easier than ever.

Pricing

Although DocuSign has pricing available for its e-signature solution, pricing for its CLM software is available only upon request.

Highly rated and visually appealing, Juro bills itself as an all-in-one replacement for your current contract management process. Not only does Juro offer contract management solutions from document creation to storage, it also offers a plethora of integrations. With more than 5,000 integrations available (through Zapier), Juro prioritizes interconnectivity and ease of use. Juro prides itself on being simple and effective.

Pricing

While all plans allow an unlimited number of users, the number of contracts per plan varies from up to 500 per year to more than 500 per year. However, pricing is available by quote only.

By separating its contract management solutions into different industries, Outlaw tailors its program to fit specific needs. The platform is separated into three sectors: sales, legal, and finance/HR/operations. These solutions offer unique benefits for users in each particular sector. However, each program features Outlaw’s unlimited contracts and storage.

Pricing

Outlaw provides flexible pricing based on needs, which means you’ll need to request a quote.

Cobblestone software offers a number of different digital solutions. It has programs that cover contract management, vendor management, purchase orders, and even artificial intelligence (AI) contract management. The issue with Cobblestone is all their programs are featured separately, which means you’ll need to choose which you want and which you don’t. This is advantageous if you only want a single solution, but the costs will increase as you add features.

Pricing

Cobblestone only provides quotes upon request, but it does offer a 30-day free trial.

Where many of these options stick to contract lifecycle management, Conga positions itself as a full-service revenue lifecycle solution. If you are looking for a program to meet more complex needs, Conga may be the right fit for you. On top of contract services, it also offers configure, price, quote (CPQ) solutions and Salesforce optimization programs. From proposal to renewal, Conga has a solution for your needs.

Pricing

Conga only provides pricing information on a quote-by-quote basis. However, it does offer free trials of both its document creation and e-signature platforms.

Powered by contract and vendor management platform Gatekeeper, ContractNow is a management solution that prioritizes security and flexibility. Its program model offers businesses access to unlimited users and unlimited e-sign licenses, which increases its value for larger organizations with multiple users. However, the pricing is so steep that any company smaller than a corporation likely won’t receive any return on their investment.

Pricing

ContractNow charges $995/per month plus a 30 percent implementation fee added to your first year.

A cloud-based contract management software, Trackado focuses on making contracts accessible and easy. With Trackado, you can store contracts, set up events and reminders, create workflows from templates or from scratch, and collect e-signatures. However, Trackado does not allow you to create contracts, only to upload and manage them.

Pricing

Free: Free for a single user
Starter: $39/month
Business: $129/month
Enterprise: $299/month

PandaDoc is a program aimed at smaller companies. This product can populate contracts with data from your existing customer relationship management (CRM) systems. PandaDoc integrates with services like PayPal and Stripe, along with HubSpot and Salesforce, and offers electronic signature capabilities and workflow management. You can use it to keep track of proposals, quotes, and contracts.

Pricing

Free eSign: Free, but no document creation included
Essentials: $19/month
Business: $49/month

Another program focused on smaller companies, Concord is a full contract management software platform that helps users create, negotiate, electronically sign, and store agreements. Concord includes a repository to manage standard contract clauses and connects to Salesforce, Dropbox, and DocuSign, among other programs. Concord also offers an application programming interface (API) that lets you add it to your own applications.

Pricing

Standard: $17/month
Pro: $49/month

The opposite of the previous two options, Icertis positions itself as an enterprise-level contract management platform. With a number of industry solutions, Icertis’ Contract Intelligence Platform is designed to offer full-service solutions for companies with significant contract needs. Its AI solution features benefits for every stage of contract management, from building to analysis.

Pricing

Icertis does not share pricing publicly. Request a custom quote.

Don’t let your contracts get stuck in the complicated management process. Research your options to discover the program that works best for your organization.

For example, if you’re a small business and you’re looking for a simple contract management solution, a product like PandaDoc might be right for you. But if you’re a large enterprise with a significant number of users and contracts to manage, you may consider an option like ContractNow.

Ultimately, choose a solution that fits your workflow (and budget) to help your team adopt it with ease. As you would with any contract, take time to evaluate programs before making a final decision. Use this knowledge to learn more about solutions like Jform that allow your team to manage contracts stress-free.

AS ALWAYS, CONSULT AN ATTORNEY BEFORE RELYING ON ANY FORM CONTRACT OR CONTRACT TEMPLATE. THE CONTENT ABOVE IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.