#1 CLAUDE alternative
Claude for Legal connects your existing tools. August replaces them. If your firm is evaluating both, let us help you decide which approach best fits your needs.
Trusted by firms on five continents
Claude for Legal
Anthropic's legal vertical, designed as an orchestration layer for enterprise and BigLaw. Claude for Legal connects to Westlaw, iManage, Relativity, Harvey, DocuSign, and more than 20 other tools. It's built for firms that already run these platforms and want AI to tie them together.
Might be right if you:
Already run an enterprise legal stack and want AI to connect it all.
Have dedicated IT support to manage integrations across multiple vendors
Prefer a self-service setup with an easy trial before committing
Operate at enterprise scale with existing legal infrastructure in place
August
A legal platform built end-to-end for boutique, small, and mid-size firms, typically five to 150 lawyers. Unlike an orchestration layer, August replaces your stack rather than sitting on top of it. One platform covers research, drafting, document review, and deposition support under a flat monthly fee with a dedicated team in your account from day one.
Best for firms that:
Want research, drafting, document review, and deposition support on one platform under one bill
Need flat, predictable monthly pricing with no token or per-query charges
Value a dedicated CSM and forward-deployed engineer from day one
Practice litigation, mixed practice, or transactional work without a dedicated IT function
No Tech Stack Needed
Claude for Legal's headline price is $20 per seat. What that price doesn't include is Westlaw, iManage, Relativity, or any of the other tools Claude connects to. Those are separate licenses your firm holds or needs to acquire. Claude orchestrates the stack. Your firm pays for every layer of it.
August is a flat monthly fee. You get unlimited queries and document hosting, with no per-token charges or invoicing surprises. One bill covers everything.
A Team That Knows Your Name
Most legal software vendors reserve dedicated support for their largest accounts. August includes a dedicated Customer Success Manager and a forward-deployed engineer in every account, regardless of firm size. Your CSM can help configure your workflows, build your playbooks, and stay in the account after onboarding.
Built for How Litigators Work
General-purpose AI tools generate text. August is built around how litigation happens. Saved playbooks let your firm codify its standards and apply them consistently across matters. The real-time deposition assistant provides in-session support and coaching. Tabular Review extracts structured data across document sets. Forced source citations with a verification UI mean every output can be checked before it goes anywhere near a filing.
Firm Customization
August's Playbooks let you encode your firm's standards and client preferences with no-code configuration—no engineering resources or vendor-led custom development required.
Pricing: What’s Your Real Spend?
Legal AI pricing looks simple until it isn't. A $20 per seat headline can become a $60 to $500 per user monthly bill once token usage from document review, research queries, and drafting work is factored in. For a five-attorney firm running regular contract review or active discovery, the costs can add up fast.
We operate on a different model entirely.
August
Flat monthly fee. No per-query charges, no per-token billing, and no per-document storage fees. Unlimited queries and unlimited document hosting are included in the base price. The dedicated CSM and forward-deployed engineer are included. What appears on the invoice at the end of the month is what you agreed to at the start of it.
Claude for Legal
Pro: $20 per month per seat.
Team: $25 to $30 per seat, five-seat minimum.
Enterprise: approximately $50,000 per year, 50-seat minimum, plus metered token usage.
Token usage is billed on top of the subscription at rates of $3 to $25 per million tokens depending on the model. For firms running active discovery or regular contract review, real spend commonly reaches $60 to $500 or more per user per month. Every tool Claude connects to, including Westlaw, iManage, and Relativity, is a separate license billed independently.
Compare
See how August compares to Claude
Pricing & Ownership
Pricing model
Per-token or per-query charges
Document hosting
White labeling
Low entry price
Support & Onboarding
Dedicated CSM
Forward-deployed engineer
Onboarding Model
Self-Service Trial
Legal Workflows
Playbooks and saved prompts
Deposition assistant
Tabular Review
Forced source citations
Client portal
Integrations & Infrastructure
Legal connectors
Multi-model architecture
Word add-in
Context window
BigLaw Mindshare
Professional Responsibility: Does Your AI Meet the Standard?
ABA Model Rule 1.6 requires you to make reasonable efforts to protect client information, and that obligation extends to every platform you bring into your practice. Your vendor selection is as much a professional responsibility decision as it is a technology purchase.
August's co-founder built security infrastructure at Blackstone. Enterprise-grade security is the default configuration across every account. SOC 2 certification means our security controls have been independently audited, not self-reported.
We also built forced source citations and a verification UI into the platform to reduce the risk of hallucinations. In May 2025, in Concord Music Group v. Anthropic, the court noted that Claude had generated a fabricated citation in a filing. The presiding judge described it as “a very serious and grave issue.”
Moving from Claude for Legal to August
Hitting file caps mid-matter gets old fast. So does an invoice that doesn't match what you budgeted. When you're ready to make the switch, we make it easy.
We map your tech stack. Our team identifies what August can replace and what should stay, before anything changes.
Your documents come with you. We host unlimited documents natively from day one. No 30 MB file caps. No 20-file conversation limits. No shuffling files in and out to stay under a threshold.
We build your workflows before you go live. Your dedicated CSM and forward-deployed engineer configure your playbooks, saved prompts, and deposition workflows before anyone logs in.
You're operational on Day 1. Your team hits the ground running with responsible, verifiable legal AI assistance.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between August and Claude for Legal?
Claude for Legal is an orchestration layer. It connects the tools your firm already licenses, including Westlaw, iManage, and Relativity, and adds AI on top. You still pay for every tool in the stack. August is a complete platform. One subscription covers research, drafting, document hosting, document review, and deposition support. No stack to manage, no separate licenses to maintain.
Is August more affordable than Claude for Legal?
Claude for Legal starts at $20 per seat. Once you factor in metered token usage on active document review or discovery work, real spend commonly reaches $60 to $500 or more per user per month. Then add the cost of the tools Claude connects to. August is a flat monthly fee. What you see is what you pay.
Can August replace iManage, Westlaw, and Relativity?
For most boutique and small firms, yes on document management. August hosts unlimited documents natively and functions as a full DMS, which replaces iManage or NetDocuments for the majority of our customers. We don't replicate Westlaw's full case law database, but our research workflows cover the analytical groundwork most litigation practices need. Tabular Review handles the structured extraction work that firms currently run in Relativity, and many of our customers reduce or eliminate that subscription after onboarding.
Does August have a 1M-token context window like Claude?
Claude Opus 4.7 and Sonnet 4.6 offer a 1M-token context window, which sounds significant until you hit the 30 MB per file and 20 files per conversation cap in the chat interface. August hosts your documents natively with no per-conversation file limits. Your entire matter is available without manually managing what fits in a session.
Is August secure for client data?
Our co-founder built security infrastructure at Blackstone. Enterprise-grade security is the default across every account, independently audited under SOC 2. We built forced source citations and a verification UI into the platform because ABA Model Rule 1.6 isn't a checkbox. It's a professional obligation, and we treat it that way.
Who is August best for?
Boutique, small, and mid-size law firms, typically five to 150 lawyers. Litigation-focused practices get the most immediate value from our deposition assistant, Tabular Review, and playbook functionality. Mixed-practice and transactional firms benefit from flat-rate pricing and a dedicated team without a minimum firm size requirement. If your practice wants one platform and one bill instead of a connected stack of separately licensed tools, August was built for you.
