6 best contract management software in 2023/24

Contract management can be a complex process riddled with potential pitfalls, but with the right software in place, it can become a seamless operation that enhances your business's efficiency and reduces risks. The best contract management tools of 2023 serve as all-encompassing solutions, simplifying every facet of contract management, from creation and execution to analysis and renewal. This guide offers an insightful look into the best contract management software available on the market, helping you make an informed choice that aligns with your business's unique needs and goals. In 2023, here are the 7 best contract management software tools on the market.

• What is Contract Management Software?
• Who uses Contract Management Software?
• The X Best Contract Management Software
• How to make the right decision when choosing software

What is Contract Management Software?

Contract Management Software is a digital tool designed to streamline every aspect the of contract administration process. It automates the entire contract lifecycle, from drafting and negotiation to execution and renewal, eliminating the need for manual intervention.

A robust contract management system enables businesses to effectively and efficiently manage contracts with improved efficiency, control, and insight by centralising all contract-related data, offering real-time visibility into contracts, monitoring compliance, and issuing alerts for critical dates and milestones.

Who Uses Contract Management Software?

Contract Management Software has found its application across various business sectors, proving to be a valuable tool for several departments within an organisation. Here's a rundown on who exactly can benefit from using it:

Legal Teams: The legal department often finds itself buried under the bulky paperwork of contracts. Contract management software can streamline this process, ensuring contracts are compliant with regulatory standards and reducing the risk of legal disputes. Workflows allow legal teams to automate low-value, high-volume work such as contract reviews, giving them back valuable hours in the day.

Sales Teams: Sales professionals can use contract management software to accelerate contract generation and eliminate any delays in the sales cycles.  

Human Resource: HR can leverage contract management tools to manage employment contracts, monitor compliance with local laws, and ensure timely contract renewals.

Finance Team: Finance teams can make the data locked away inside their contracts useful and usable across the business, allowing them to seamlessly monitor compliance and spending across each department, equipping them to make business decisions based on risk and opportunity.

Procurement Team: The contracting process for procurement often becomes a hindrance, causing delays and bottlenecks across the wider enterprise. Contracting software enables procurement teams to effectively and quickly create, negotiate, review, and manage contracts, using the data inside them to inform the decision-making process.  

Management Team: Senior executives can gain real-time visibility into the contract lifecycle, such as obligations and uncovering enhanced data, helping in strategic decision-making.

Customer Success: Customer success teams can make light work of clients' agreements and run due diligence reviews to monitor compliance and ensure no key dates are missed.

“The main benefits I have seen through using Summize is how much time we have saved. It’s so much faster to create a contract through the Teams integration and has freed up the legal teams time to focus on more high-value work”. Neeltje Bramer, Legal Counsel at Ionity.

Explore more details about IONITY's experience in the business' customer success story.

The 7 Best Contract Management Software

1. Summize

Summize stands out as the prime choice for contract management software in 2023, boasting an easy-to-use interface, rapid contract analysis, and an impressive suite of integrative features focused on the end user experience. Its capabilities include contract creation, collaboration, monitoring, and reporting, enabling businesses to simplify and accelerate their contract processes.

Pricing is competitive and offers value for the features provided along with excellent customer support. As per G2 reviews, users rave about Summize's superior customer service, intuitive design ease of use and integrations. Compared to other tools, Summize provides fast, accurate summaries and a user-friendly experience by embedding workflows into the tools you and your business know, love and use every day.

"NOTHING. I am serious about this. At this point in the process, we have not run into one thing we do not like". G2

"Automating manual contract tasks like pulling key dates straight into my Outlook makes life so much easier. Summize helps to simplify and accelerate the entire contract lifecycle, it doesn’t force us out of our existing applications like MS Word. The integration to SharePoint and Adobe Sign made working Summize into our existing processes seamless". G2

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2. Conga Contracts  

Conga Contracts is known for being a contract management tool for sales and commercial teams. It integrates into Salesforce to enable users to manage contracts in their current tools, but the capabilities fall short of offering a legal front door like Summize. Users have access to workflows, eSignature tools, AI and more.

However, according to G2 reviews, the learning curve can be steep, with pricing on the higher end. They offer a standalone signature tool which they integrate with. The task of connecting these tools can quickly complicate the process rather than simplify it.

“Not so user friendly. Difficult to toggle between different pages or go back and forth, which is something needed when looking in a contract repository”. G2  

3. ContractWorks  

ContractWorks offers a range of features, including contract drafting, negotiation, and compliance tracking. A few users on G2 reviews report that it lacks a comprehensive search feature, which can make finding contractual information complex and slow.

Pricing is a bit higher for the features and maturity of capabilities on offer. It does, however, offer a secure, document management system but falls short of Summize's rapid contract analysis and AI-powered repository.

“When signatures are needed you need to send to a specific address. If that is not correct, signers struggle to reassign. It is usually rejected and has to be reassigned. The AI can be kind of hit or miss sometimes”. G2

4. PandaDoc

PandaDoc is a comprehensive tool that aims to be a feature-rich, affordable, all-in-one solution. The platform allows teams to oversee the entire contract lifecycle and to build, track and sign all their agreements in one place.

Pricing is competitive, and the tool offers good value for its feature set. However, it has limited integrations and requires vast amounts of training. Many users mention that it has an unclear pricing structure with many hidden charges for features that they were unaware of.

“Once they get you on to their program they add extra charges for things that they don't speak about in the high pressure sales process. We been using for sometime and out of the blue we get an big invoice for our Saleforce connection”. G2

5. Agiloft Contract Management Suite  

Agiloft offers a customisable and extendable platform with reporting capabilities. Designed to streamline the entire contract lifecycle, from initiation and approval to renewal, it allows for integrations with other business systems, giving a holistic view of all contract-related activities.

While its pricing is competitive, it’s on the higher side for many smaller organisations.

Reviews report that the user interface is complex and could be more user friendly, as well as problems with the AI Assistant. When stacked up against Summize, it lacks a straightforward user experience and the mature AI capabilities Summize.

“The user-interface can appear complex initially, and requires careful design to ensure that it is a simple and intuitive as possible”. G2

6. Icertis Contract Management (ICM)  

Icertis Contract Management (ICM) stands out for its flexibility and scalability, making it suitable for businesses of all sizes. According to G2 reviews, occasional glitches in the system have been reported and the repository needs vast improvements. Pricing is on the higher end, which doesn’t reflect the maturity and capability of the product and features.

In comparison, Summize still takes the lead in terms of speed and user-friendliness, while offering more advanced and extensive functionality.

“While iCertis presents all the functionalities and features of a contract lifecycle management tool, the implementation and training are items that were quite tough to get used to”. G2

Key Features to Look for When Making Your Decision - Best Contract Management Software 2023

When deciding on the best contract management software for your business in 2024, there are key features to consider which we have listed below:

Integrations: The software should seamlessly integrate contact workflows into your existing tech stack, ensuring a smooth transition and a zero-change approach to contract management. You can see the full list of integrations here.

Central Repository: It should provide a centralised repository for your agreements and related files, easily accessible through a simple search. This enables stakeholders to access contractual information efficiently and quickly.

Summize’s central repository is powered by AI, which surfaces contract data into a useful summary to deliver a seamless search experience. Dive into your contract information quickly, including milestones, clauses and terms.

Legal Front Door: Advanced tools will offer embed workflows into your existing tools to establish a user-friendly legal front.

Summize embeds workflows into Jira, Salesforce, Teams and Slack to business stakeholders to self-serve on contract generation, first-pass reviews, issue resolution, and guidance – without legal intervention.  

Artificial Intelligence: A leading CLM solution leverages AI throughout the contract lifecycle, expediting processes and automatically extracting contractual information and data. This accelerates cycles, mitigates risk and ultimately reduces the need for manual intervention.

Summize AI speeds up the first-pass review process and produces clear and concise summaries for users. Make light work of complex contracts in Word with AI Prompts and the AI-Assistant for rephrasing, translating, shortening and querying your contracts.

Rich Data: It should uncover hidden data, enabling data-rich reports and analytics that enhance decision-making capabilities.

Key Date Extraction: Can the tool automatically extract critical contract milestones, such as auto-renewals, and provide built-in email reminders?

Playbooks: The tool should integrate your company's Playbooks to ensure consistency and compliance in negotiations

Get started now with contract management

Implementing the best contract management software such as Summize can bring transformative benefits to your organisation. Aside from streamlining your contract management process, it provides a strategic edge by enhancing visibility, control, and insight into all contract-related matters.

Summize offers a comprehensive solution that safeguards your business against contractual risks, ensures compliance, provides real-time updates, and ultimately, drives business growth.

Take the first step towards smarter, faster, and more efficient contract management. Contact us today or book a demo to get started.