The verdict in three sentences
Contract review is repetitive and time-consuming: clause extraction, comparison to your templates, risk detection. A custom AI wired to your templates cuts that time by 60 to 70 % for a build of 20,000 to 55,000 EUR net plus a marginal token cost. The decisive question is not performance but confidentiality: where your sensitive data is hosted.
Custom build vs market tools
Luminance, Juro and peers are powerful but generic, billed per user and unaware of your in-house templates. 2026 order of magnitude.
| Criterion | Market tool (Luminance, Juro) | Custom AI |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | 3,000-8,000 EUR net (setup) | 20,000-55,000 EUR net |
| Subscription / yr | 12,000-30,000 EUR net | variable token cost |
| Fit to your templates | Limited | Total |
| Data hosting | Vendor cloud | Your choice (EU, private) |
| Token cost / contract | included | ~0.30-1.50 EUR |
| Configuration ownership | No | Yes |
Custom has a higher entry cost but removes the per-seat subscription and leaves you in control of hosting, a critical point for a firm.
Time saved, contract by contract
This is where the ROI reads. A review drops from several hours to under an hour of augmented reading.
| Contract type | Manual review | AI-assisted review | Gain |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard NDA | 45 min | 10 min | 78 % |
| Commercial contract | 3 h | 55 min | 70 % |
| Commercial lease | 2.5 h | 50 min | 67 % |
| Shareholders' agreement | 5 h | 2 h | 60 % |
| M&A (due diligence) | 40 h | 14 h | 65 % |
For a firm handling 500 contracts/yr at an average hourly cost of 220 EUR net, a 65 % gain is an order of magnitude of several hundred thousand euros of time redeployable to higher-value advisory work.
Confidentiality: the non-negotiable condition
A contract is covered by legal privilege. The AI architecture must guarantee no data is used to train a third-party model.
| Requirement | Implementation |
|---|---|
| Hosting | EU or firm's private cloud |
| Training | No client data reused |
| Encryption | In transit and at rest |
| Logging | Query and access trail |
| GDPR | Anonymization, purge, minimization |
Mini case study
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Mr. Garnier, partner at an 18-lawyer business-law firm in Paris, handles 500 contracts/yr. Average hourly cost: 220 EUR net. Around 3 h per review, i.e. 1,500 h/yr, i.e. 330,000 EUR of engaged time. He invests 42,000 EUR net in an AI wired to his 40 templates, hosted in a private cloud, token cost ~600 EUR/yr. Review time drops 65 %: ~215,000 EUR of redeployable time/yr toward higher-billed advisory work. The build is amortized in under 3 months, without compromising privilege.
FAQ
Does the AI replace the lawyer?
No. It prepares the review (extraction, comparison, risk alerts) but legal validation stays human. The gain is reading time, not an automated decision.
Is our data used to train an external model?
No, with a correct architecture. In custom, we guarantee contractually and technically that no client data is reused for training.
How much do tokens cost?
Around 0.30 to 1.50 EUR per contract depending on length and model. For 500 contracts/yr, that stays under 1,000 EUR, negligible against the time saved.
Can it plug into our in-house templates?
Yes, that is the whole point. The AI compares each contract to your templates and flags deviations, which no generic tool does as finely.
How long to deploy?
Between 8 and 16 weeks depending on the number of contract types, the volume of templates and the level of integration with your DMS.
Let's scope your project. State your contract volume, your document types and your hosting constraints: we price a review AI between 20,000 and 55,000 EUR net plus tokens. Detailed quote within 48 h. WhatsApp +221 77 596 93 33.
Mohamed Bah
Fondateur, Kolonell
Passionate about digital and entrepreneurship in Africa, Mohamed has been helping Sénégalese businesses with their digital transformation since 2020. Founder of Kolonell, he believes every SME deserves a professional and accessible online présence.
