Per-user pricing feels harmless when you sign up. You pick a plan, add yourself and your paralegal, and the monthly number looks fine. Then you hire a part-time intake person, your associate wants to see her leads, and your office manager needs access to run reports. Every one of them is another seat.
Legal CRM pricing usually comes in one of two shapes: per user or flat. Neither is a scam, and neither is always cheaper. But they push your firm toward very different habits, and that's worth understanding before you sign.
How per-user pricing works
Per-user (or per-seat) pricing charges a set amount for each person with a login. More people, bigger bill. It's common across business software because it's simple to explain and scales with the size of the customer.
For a firm where one person does everything, it can be perfectly reasonable. The trouble starts when intake is a team effort, which in most small firms it is.
How flat pricing works
Flat pricing charges one price for the account, usually tiered by something other than headcount. That might be features, usage or volume. You can add a paralegal, a receptionist or a contract intake specialist without the bill moving.
Flat doesn't mean unlimited everything. Most flat plans still have limits somewhere, like the number of calls, messages or contacts. The question is whether the limit tracks something that grows with your revenue or something that grows with your payroll.
Why per-seat pricing fits intake badly
Intake isn't one person's job at most firms. Look at who touches a new lead in a typical week:
- The person who answers the phone.
- The paralegal who follows up on missed calls.
- The attorney who runs the consult.
- A second attorney covering when the first is in court.
- The office manager who checks the numbers.
- Maybe a part-time or seasonal helper during busy stretches.
With per-seat pricing, every one of those people is a decision about cost. And firms respond to that in predictable ways.
They share logins. Three people use one account. Now you can't tell who called whom, and if someone leaves, you're changing a password the whole office uses.
They keep people out. The attorney doesn't get a seat because "she can just ask." So leads get forwarded by email, and you're back to the problem the CRM was supposed to fix.
They avoid growing. Adding a part-time intake person during tax season or after a new ad campaign means another subscription to manage, so it doesn't happen.
None of these show up on an invoice. They show up as leads nobody followed up with.
A simple example
Here's illustrative math, using made-up numbers that don't belong to any real product.
Say a CRM charges $50 per user per month. A firm starts with three users, so it pays $150 a month. Over the next year it adds a second attorney, a paralegal, a part-time intake person and an office manager. That's seven users and $350 a month, more than double, without a single extra lead coming in.
Now say the same firm is on a flat plan. It adds those same four people and the bill doesn't change. The only thing that would move the price is a real change in volume, which usually means the firm is getting more business.
The point isn't that per-user pricing is always more expensive. For a solo who'll never add staff, it may well be cheaper. The point is that per-user pricing charges you for staffing up, and flat pricing charges you for volume.
What else to compare besides seats
Seats are only one line on the bill. When you compare legal CRM pricing, check:
- What counts toward the limit. Calls, texts, contacts, storage? Know what you'd hit first.
- Overage rates. What happens in a busy month? A clear, published overage rate beats a surprise upgrade.
- Setup fees. Some tools charge to get started, or expect you to pay a consultant to configure them.
- Who does the setup. "No setup fee" and "we set it up for you" aren't the same thing. One is free and you do the work. The other is free and you don't.
- What's included. Is texting part of the plan or an add-on? Are integrations with your practice management software included?
- The cost of the tools around it. A cheap CRM that needs a separate answering service, a separate texting tool and a separate scheduler isn't cheap. We cover this in the hidden costs of piecing together intake tools.
How IntakeGenius prices
We picked flat pricing with unlimited users on every plan, because we think intake is a team sport and you shouldn't have to ration logins. Plans are tiered by volume instead.
CRM + Messaging
| Plan | Monthly | Messages included | | --- | --- | --- | | Starter | $299 | 3,000 | | Growth | $499 | 6,000 | | Scale | $899 | 12,000 |
AI Voice Agent
| Plan | Monthly | Calls included | Overage per call | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Starter | $299 | 300 | $2.00 | | Growth | $799 | 750 | $1.75 | | Scale | $1,699 | 1,500 | $1.50 |
Full Intake Stack (agent, CRM and messaging together)
| Plan | Monthly | | --- | --- | | Starter | $499 | | Growth | $1,099 | | Scale | $2,199 |
For most small firms, Full Intake Stack Growth is the right fit. Every plan has unlimited users and no setup fees, and we do the setup for you. Full details are on our pricing page.
If you're trying to figure out whether the spend makes sense, start with what a missed call costs a law firm. It's usually the number that settles the question.
Where IntakeGenius fits
IntakeGenius is built for firms where intake is shared across a few people, which is most small firms. You can give every attorney, paralegal and helper access to IntakeCRM without the bill creeping up, and the AI voice agent handles the calls that come in while they're busy.
Want to walk through which plan fits your call volume? It's a 15-minute call, no slides.