The honest answer is that it depends on who reviews it, how they charge and what the contract is. Solicitors don’t have a standard price for contract review, and the same document can cost very different amounts at different firms. What you can do is understand how the pricing works, so you can compare quotes and decide how much review a particular contract deserves.
How solicitors charge for contract review
Solicitors in England and Wales usually charge in one of two ways. The first is by the hour. Hourly rates vary with the seniority of the person doing the work, the type of firm and where it is based, so a partner at a specialist commercial firm in a city centre will usually cost more per hour than a junior solicitor at a smaller regional practice. The final bill depends on how long the work takes, which can be hard to predict at the start.
The second is a fixed fee, quoted for a defined piece of work such as “review this supplier agreement and send a written note of the main risks and suggested changes”. More firms now quote fixed fees for contract review because clients prefer certainty. Check exactly what the fee covers: a single review, or also a call to discuss it, a marked-up draft and a round of negotiation with the other side.
Either way, VAT at the standard rate is normally added. Firms will usually need to check your identity before they start, as part of their anti-money laundering obligations, and will send you terms of business or an engagement letter to agree.
Getting a clear quote
The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s Transparency Rules require firms to publish prices on their websites for certain services, including residential conveyancing, uncontested probate and some employment tribunal and debt recovery work. General contract review isn’t one of them, so you usually won’t find a published price and will need to ask. The SRA Code of Conduct does require solicitors to give clients the best possible information about how their matter will be priced and its likely overall cost, so you are entitled to ask for a clear quote or estimate before you instruct anyone.
When you ask, send the contract and explain what you need. “Tell me what the main risks are” is a smaller job than “negotiate this on my behalf”, and a firm can only price accurately if it knows which you want.
What makes a review cost more
Whoever reviews it, certain things make the work bigger. Higher-value deals carry more risk, so the reviewer will take more care. Agreements with several parties, such as shareholder or joint venture agreements, involve more cross-obligations to check. Contracts in regulated sectors like financial services or healthcare bring compliance issues on top of the ordinary commercial ones. Unusual or heavily negotiated terms take longer than a standard form.
Length matters less than you might expect. A short contract with an unusual restriction or liability clause can take more thought than a long document that follows a familiar pattern.
Where AI contract review fits
AI contract review is a newer option. QuickLegalCheck costs £49 + VAT per contract. You get a free first look in about 30 seconds, and the full report usually arrives within about ten minutes. It covers contracts under the law of England and Wales, flags the clauses that carry risk, explains them in plain English and suggests what you might ask to change. The review method was designed by experienced UK contract lawyers, and there is a 7-day money-back guarantee.
It is important to be clear about what it isn’t. QuickLegalCheck is not a law firm and doesn’t give legal advice. Nobody is looking at your particular circumstances, taking responsibility for advice to you, or negotiating with the other side on your behalf. For many everyday contracts that is fine, because what you need is to understand what you are signing and spot anything unusual. For others it isn’t enough.
Which level of review does your contract need?
For a standard employment contract, a freelance or consultancy agreement, an NDA or a routine supplier contract, an AI review is often a sensible first step. It tells you what the key clauses do and whether anything looks out of the ordinary, and you can decide from there whether you need more.
A solicitor is the better choice when the stakes or the complexity are high: a large deal, a business sale or investment, a shareholder or joint venture agreement, a regulated activity, a dispute that has already started, or anything where you need someone to advise on your particular position and negotiate for you. It is also the right call if an AI report raises something you don’t understand or can’t judge the importance of. Taking the report to a solicitor can help you focus their time on the points that matter.
Weighing cost against risk
The price of the review is only half the calculation. The other half is what it would cost you to get the contract wrong. Say a services contract caps the supplier’s liability at the fees paid in the last three months, and the work goes badly enough to cause you a much larger loss: the cap may be the end of the story. Or say an employment contract has a wide restriction on working for competitors: whether it could be enforced depends on the facts, but finding out after you have accepted a new job is a stressful way to learn. The more a contract could cost you if it goes wrong, the more review it is worth paying for.
If you want to see what an AI review looks like before paying for one, have a look at the sample report. The comparison page sets out how AI review, online legal services and solicitors differ.
Related: what the contract review covers, and a complete sample report.