VIGILIST · GUIDE 001

Relativity alternatives for small law firms: the 2026 guide

Published July 2026 · By the Vigilist team

Relativity is the industry standard for a reason — and for a hundred-lawyer firm with a litigation-support department, it earns its keep. This guide is for everyone else: the two-to-ten-lawyer teams who need enterprise-grade review without enterprise procurement.

Why small firms go looking for an alternative

It's rarely the software. It's the way the software is sold. Most small firms can't buy RelativityOne directly — they reach it through service providers, and the provider channel adds layers that hit small matters hardest:

• Quote-only pricing. There is no public price. Getting a number means a sales cycle, and comparing vendors means running several.
• Seat fees. Industry survey data shows $50–100 per user per month at many providers — on a three-lawyer matter, that's often more than the hosting.
• Processing charges. $25–75 per GB at ingestion is the most common range providers report, billed before anyone reads a page.
• Processed-data billing. Per-GB fees are typically charged on expanded data — extracted text, images, families — often 1.3–2× the size of what you actually collected.
• Annual terms. Commitments and minimums are typical, which turns a three-month matter into a twelve-month bill.

What changed in 2025–2026

A lot, to Relativity's credit. In October 2025 it announced that aiR — its generative-AI review product, previously estimated around $0.20–0.25 per document — would move to all-inclusive per-GB pricing and be included in standard RelativityOne subscriptions from early 2026. DISCO followed in February 2026 with a single all-inclusive per-GB price. Third-party estimates of the new effective rates are a fraction of the old stack. What didn't change: the prices are still unpublished, the channel still adds fees, and the commitments still assume enterprise matters. If your firm's biggest case this year is 20 GB, the reset mostly happened to someone else's bill.

The alternatives

1. Vigilist — for AI-first review with a published price

Best for: small litigation teams that want the AI to make the first pass and want to know the bill in advance. Vigilist reads the entire production overnight — coding every document, building a knowledge graph of every person, organization, and event with each relationship cited to the document that proves it — and validates its work with control sets, recall, precision, and elusion statistics preserved as run. Pricing is published: $18/GB/month, all-in, billed on the raw gigabytes you upload. No seats, no minimums, no lock-in. (Yes, this is us — see the disclosure above.)

2. DISCO — for enterprise teams that want one negotiated number

Best for: larger teams with steady case volume. DISCO's 2026 model is a single per-GB fee on processed data with Cecilia AI included — genuinely simpler than the old stack. Pricing is quote-only; third-party reporting puts typical accounts at $20,000+ per year, and terms for small matters are undisclosed.

3. Everlaw — for full-featured litigation work, if the platform fee pencils

Best for: firms that will use the whole suite — depositions, chronologies, trial prep — across enough matters to absorb the base fee. Third-party estimates put Everlaw at $18–35/GB/month plus a platform fee of $2,000–5,000/month. Single-document AI assistance is included; batch AI actions are sold separately as credits.

4. Logikcull — for self-serve simplicity on smaller reviews

Best for: straightforward matters a paralegal can run end-to-end. Pay-as-you-go per-GB with a 10 GB minimum and unlimited users. Its GenAI ("ASK") is fact-finding search rather than corpus-wide first-pass review, so plan on humans reading.

5. Nextpoint — for big data, small team, light AI

Best for: data-heavy matters where per-GB billing anywhere else would sting. Nextpoint charges per user (third-party estimates start around $125/user/month) with unlimited data, processing, and productions included. There's no corpus-wide AI first-pass, but if your problem is terabytes rather than review speed, the model is compelling.

6. GoldFynch — for the smallest matters and budgets

Best for: matters measured in single-digit gigabytes. GoldFynch publishes its tiers — from $27/month for 3 GB, working out to roughly $6/GB — with unlimited users and free processing. AI capability is minimal, and that's the trade.

Side by side

Estimates and survey figures as of July 2026; quote-only vendors do not publish pricing. Confirm current terms with each vendor.

How to choose

• Start with your matter size, not the per-GB rate. On a 5–20 GB matter, minimums, platform fees, and seat fees dominate the bill. The cheapest sticker often isn't the cheapest invoice.
• Ask what "AI included" means. A chat assistant you consult document-by-document, a batch action metered in credits, and a first pass that reads everything by default are three different products at three different real costs.
• Ask how you'd defend it. If AI makes review calls, a court may ask how you know it didn't miss anything. Look for control sets, recall and elusion statistics, and reports preserved as run — not just a confidence score.

Frequently asked questions

Can a small firm buy RelativityOne directly?

Usually not in practice. Most small firms reach Relativity through service providers, which typically add seat fees (commonly $50–100/user/month), processing charges, and annual terms on top of quote-only platform pricing.

What is the cheapest Relativity alternative?

For matters that don't need AI review, GoldFynch publishes the lowest tiers (from $27/month, roughly $6/GB). For AI-first review with defensibility statistics included, Vigilist publishes $18/GB/month all-in.

Did Relativity's 2025 pricing changes make it affordable for small firms?

They lowered effective per-GB estimates and bundled aiR, but pricing remains quote-only, the provider channel still adds fees, and annual commitments remain typical. The structural obstacles for small matters are largely unchanged.

What should AI document review cost in 2026?

Survey data puts metered GenAI review at roughly $0.11–0.50 per document. Flat platforms now bundle it per-GB instead; on Vigilist it's included in $18/GB/month.