By profession · Best legal intake software
Best legal intake software: 7 law firm intake tools compared on real pricing
Most roundups of the best legal intake software will not tell you what anything costs. We checked all seven vendors' own pricing pages in July 2026 and published what we found, including the four that refuse to list a price at all.
This page is written by the team behind Consultations, which is one of the seven. We have tried to be straight about where the others beat us, because a comparison that only flatters its author is worth nothing to a buyer. Read the table, then check the vendors yourself.
One AI conversation · qualifies and books · you get a prepped brief
Pick a profession, watch the brief fill itself
The AI runs the discovery consultation, qualifies the lead, collects details and documents, and books the paid appointment, then hands you a prepped brief.
Intake brief
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Discovery consultation
liveIntake brief
Qualification
Scored against this firm's intake criteria, with the reasons on the brief.
Appointment
bookedat
Brief ready for
Brief readyLive and interactive · qualified, briefed, and booked
Every lead qualified, briefed, and booked · intake and scheduling, not advice · you own your data
In short
Last updated July 2026
For most US law firms in 2026 the choice comes down to three models. Clio Grow is the safest pick if the firm already runs on Clio, at $59 per user per month on top of a Clio Manage plan. Smith.ai is the best pick if what you really need is a human answering the phone 24/7, from $300 a month for 30 calls. Consultations is the pick if you want the software itself to run the discovery conversation, collect the documents, book the paid consult, and hand you a brief, priced per firm rather than per lawyer. Lawmatics, Intaker, Captorra, and Lead Docket are all quote-only.
Works with your calendar
Intake only · never advice
Why it works
What your practice gets with the best legal intake software
Real prices, not "contact sales"
Every price here was read off the vendor's own page in July 2026, with the gaps marked as gaps.
Honest about the trade-offs
We name the cases where Clio, Smith.ai, or Lead Docket is the better buy than us. Those cases are real.
Compared on what matters
Not feature-checklist bingo. Who holds the conversation, who chases documents, and what it costs per lawyer.
What it handles
Run the intake, qualify the lead, book the appointment
Consultations runs the discovery conversation, asks the right questions, collects the details and documents you need, qualifies the lead, books the paid appointment, and hands you a prepped brief, all in one place.
- See published pricing for seven legal intake tools side by side
- Understand per-user, per-call, and quote-only pricing models
- Work out what a solo, a five-lawyer firm, and a twenty-lawyer firm each pay
- Separate the tools that hold a conversation from the ones that hold a form
- Pick the right tool for your practice area and intake volume
Verdict
QualifiedDetails collected, lead qualified, and the paid appointment is on your calendar.
Why Consultations
Intake run, lead qualified, appointment booked
Not a calendar link, not a static form, not a separate qualification step. One AI conversation replaces the calendar link plus form plus qualification plus brief, and hands you a prepped client ready for the meeting.
Runs the consultation
The AI runs the discovery conversation, asks the right follow-ups, and collects the details and documents you need before the call.
Qualifies and books
It scores fit against your criteria, qualifies the lead, and books the paid appointment straight onto your calendar.
Intake, not advice
Intake, qualification, scheduling and admin only. Your licensed professionals give the advice. Client data is consented, private, owned and exportable.
How the pricing models actually differ
Legal intake software is sold three ways, and the model matters more than the feature list. Per-user pricing (Clio Grow, Lawmatics) charges by how many lawyers you have. Per-call pricing (Smith.ai) charges by how many leads you get. Quote-only pricing (Intaker, Captorra, Lead Docket) charges whatever the sales conversation lands on.
The per-user model has an odd consequence: a firm that hires a lawyer pays more for intake, even though intake volume did not change. The per-call model has the opposite one: a firm whose marketing starts working gets a bigger bill. Neither tracks the thing you actually care about, which is qualified consultations that show up.
Who each tool is genuinely best for
Clio Grow is the right answer for a firm already running Clio Manage. The intake data lands in the matter with no double entry, and that integration is worth real money in saved admin time. Smith.ai is the right answer for a firm whose actual problem is that nobody picks up the phone, because a trained human answering at 9pm beats any software.
Lead Docket is the right answer for a Filevine firm spending seriously on advertising and needing lead-source ROI to the dollar. Captorra is the right answer for a mass tort or high-volume PI operation with a staffed intake department that needs scripted dialogs. Consultations is the right answer when you want the intake conversation itself handled, end to end, without hiring for it.
What we did not test
This comparison is built from each vendor's own published documentation and pricing pages, read on July 14, 2026. It is not a hands-on bake-off, and we have not run live matters through every product. Where a vendor does not publish a price, we say so rather than repeating a number from a review site, because several of those numbers are years out of date.
The Intaker starter plan figure of $80 a month that circulates on comparison sites, for example, traces back to Intaker's own blog post from January 2023 and appears nowhere on their current site. Treat it as stale. If you find anything on this page that is wrong or has changed, tell us and we will correct it.
The question none of the roundups answer
Every tool in this category will capture a lead. The real question is who does the next twenty minutes of work: reading the inquiry, asking the follow-up questions the form could not ask, checking the matter against the practice areas, chasing the police report, and getting a consultation on the calendar before the potential client calls the next firm.
In six of these seven products, that person is one of your staff. That is not a criticism of the software, it is what the software is for. It is worth being clear-eyed about it when you compare a $59 per-user license against the cost of the person who has to work the queue it fills.
Honest comparison
Legal intake software pricing, July 2026
Every figure below was read from the vendor's own pricing page on July 14, 2026. "Not publicly listed" means exactly that: the vendor does not publish a price anywhere on its site.
| Tool | Best for | Published price (July 2026) | Pricing model | Holds the intake conversation? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clio Grow | Firms already running Clio Manage | $59 per user per month, on top of Clio Manage at $89 to $119 per user | Per user, per month | No. Forms and a pipeline |
| Lawmatics | Firms of 3 to 30 with real marketing spend | Not publicly listed. Minimum 3 users. QualifyAI scoring from $150 per month | Per user, quote only | No. Forms and automated sequences |
| Smith.ai | Firms that need the phone answered by a human | Human: $300 per month for 30 calls, $11.50 per extra call. AI: free for 25 calls, then $150 per month | Per call, plus per-call add-ons | Humans do. Included intake caps at 5 questions |
| Intaker | PI firms buying Local Services Ads and chat leads | Not publicly listed | Quote only | Partly. Chat and text capture |
| Captorra | Mass tort and high-volume PI with intake staff | Not publicly listed | Quote only | No. It scripts the call your staff make |
| Lead Docket | Filevine firms tracking marketing ROI | Not publicly listed. Custom quote form only | Quote only | No. It queues leads for your intake team |
| Consultations | Firms that want intake run end to end without hiring | $49 solo, $129 up to 5 professionals, $299 up to 20 | Per firm, per month | Yes. It runs the discovery and briefs the attorney |
Consultations is one of the seven tools compared here, so read this table with that in mind and verify every price with the vendor. Clio's figures are the annual-commitment rates it publishes in its own page markup; the month-to-month rate is higher and Clio does not publish it.
People also ask
Best legal intake software: the questions buyers actually search
What is the best legal intake software?
There is no single best legal intake software, because the three pricing models suit different firms. Clio Grow is best for firms already on Clio. Smith.ai is best when the real gap is a human answering the phone. Consultations is best when you want the software to run the discovery conversation and book the consult itself. Match the model to your firm before you compare features.
How much does legal intake software cost?
Published legal intake pricing in July 2026 ranges from $49 a month to well over $2,000. Clio Grow is $59 per user per month on top of a Clio Manage plan. Smith.ai starts at $300 a month for 30 answered calls. Consultations runs $49 to $299 a month by firm size. Lawmatics, Intaker, Captorra, and Lead Docket do not publish prices at all.
What is the best legal intake software for a small law firm?
For a small firm, the pricing model decides it. Per-user tools like Clio Grow get expensive as you add lawyers, and per-call tools like Smith.ai get expensive as your marketing improves. A solo or small firm with steady intake volume usually does better on a flat per-firm plan, and should insist that whatever it buys responds after hours.
Is conversational AI intake better than intake forms for law firms?
Conversational AI intake beats a form whenever the next question depends on the last answer, which in law is most of the time. A form cannot ask whether the potential client saw a doctor or already signed with another firm. Forms are still the cheaper, sane choice for simple, low-volume intake in a single practice area.
Why do so few legal intake vendors publish pricing?
Four of the six best-known legal intake vendors (Lawmatics, Intaker, Captorra, Lead Docket) publish no price at all, because sales-led pricing lets them quote each firm differently based on size and ad spend. It is legal and common. It also means comparison shopping takes weeks of demos, which is the point.
Does legal intake software handle conflict-of-interest checks?
Most legal intake software collects the information a conflict check needs and some products match it against existing clients and matters. No intake tool should be making the conflicts determination for you. Consultations asks the conflict-relevant questions your firm defines and surfaces the answers in the brief. A lawyer at the firm reviews and decides.
Good questions
Questions about the best legal intake software
Explore more
More ways teams automate client intake with Consultations
From the blog
Go deeper on the best legal intake software
Run the intake and book the appointment.
Let the AI run the discovery conversation, qualify the lead, collect the details and documents, book the paid appointment, and hand you a prepped brief. Intake only, never advice, and your client data stays yours.
One AI conversation · qualifies and books · prepped brief in hand · intake only, never advice