Which contract management vendors are best for small and mid-size businesses?

This Buyer’s Guide to the SMB segment of the Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) market is an essential resource for business owners, legal teams, procurement leads, and investors evaluating smaller-scale opportunities. It provides independent MGI 360 Ratings™, MarketLens™ comparisons, and practical insights into the unique challenges SMBs face when adopting CLM.

Contracts are the backbone of every growing business. Behind every sale, hire, vendor agreement, and partnership lies a contract governing outcomes and relationships. For SMBs, managing contracts is especially critical, yet many still rely on spreadsheets, email inboxes, or fragmented repositories that waste time and introduce risk.

CLM is no longer just for the Fortune 500. For SMBs, it is becoming a strategic imperative with defined budgets, clear ownership, and measurable ROI. Organizations are moving beyond first-generation tools to adopt solutions that deliver agility, speed, and compliance across functions such as sales, procurement, HR, finance, and beyond.

But choosing the wrong contract management solution is costly. Nearly 40% of first-time CLM buyers replace their system within 36 months. For SMBs with limited resources, a failed implementation is particularly damaging, stalling growth, wasting budget, and reducing executive confidence. With Gen AI commoditizing advanced features like obligation tracking and clause analysis, vendors can appear similar, making differentiation harder and mistakes easier.

This Buyer’s Guide is your safeguard.

The Most Comprehensive Guide for SMB Buyers

The 2025 CLM Buyer’s Guide for SMBs from MGI Research delivers independent, structured insights to help you:

  • Understand the current and future dynamics of the SMB CLM market
  • Match vendor capabilities to right-sized use cases and budgets
  • Avoid pitfalls of over-complex, under-supported implementations
  • Build a business case for CLM as a core system of record
  • Benchmark vendors using MGI 360 Ratings™ and MarketLens™

This guide is equally valuable for vendors and investors seeking to assess the SMB segment, evaluate risks, and identify growth opportunities in an AI-driven market.

CLM Vendors Under Coverage

This report highlights 10 of the most consequential CLM vendors for SMB buyers, all of which are MGI 360 Rated™:

CobbleStone Software, DealHub, Docusign, Ironclad, Juro, LegalSifter (acquired Contract Logix), LinkSquares, PandaDoc, Provakil, and Scrive (acquired Contractbook).

These suppliers were selected for their ability to meet SMB requirements such as agility, ease of deployment, cost-to-value efficiency, and scalability.

Why These Vendors?

Scores of vendors compete in the CLM market, and this guide narrows the field to the 10 that matter most for SMBs, based on MGI’s field research, client inquiries, and industry interviews.

To be included, vendors must meet one or more of the following criteria:

  • Market visibility: Growth, frequent shortlisting, large installed base, or MGI client inquiries.
  • Innovation: Unique capabilities with potential to disrupt the market.
  • Solution strength: Breadth, depth, usability, and ability to deliver customer value.
  • Demonstrated success: Customer references and independent field research.

Inclusion is not determined by size, funding, or vendor participation. It reflects real impact and alignment with SMB buyer needs.

Avoiding SMB CLM Pitfalls

SMBs face distinct risks: overpaying for enterprise-grade complexity, stalling adoption due to limited resources, or implementing systems that cannot scale with growth. This guide helps you avoid those mistakes by:

  • Comparing real-world performance rather than surface-level demos
  • Highlighting vendor fit for SMB-specific use cases
  • Exposing the impact of Gen AI commoditization on vendor differentiation
  • Offering practical insights into CLM maturity, data readiness, and integration challenges
  • MarketLens™ Charts & 360 Ratings™

The report includes proprietary MarketLens™ charts comparing SMB CLM vendors by:

  • Go-to-Market Strength vs. Solution Strength
  • Agility vs. Complexity
  • Agility vs. Volume
  • Complexity vs. Volume

MGI 360 Ratings™ provide structured evaluations across Product, Management, Channels, Strategy, and Finance, with each vendor receiving a numerical score (0–100) and letter grade.

Who Should Read This Report?

  • SMB buyers evaluating or replacing contract management solutions
  • Legal, procurement, sales, and finance teams seeking practical guidance
  • Executives building the case for CLM investment
  • Investors analyzing SMB CLM supplier dynamics
  • Vendors aligning product strategies to SMB buyer priorities

This report is a must-read for anyone navigating contract management solutions at SMB scale, whether you are buying, selling, or analyzing the future of this rapidly evolving market.

SPEAK TO AN ANALYST: For help building an SMB evaluation strategy or conducting a vendor assessment, contact MGI Research.

MGI Research clients can download the CLM Top 10 Buyer’s Guide for SMBs below.

For full coverage across all segments, see the CLM Top 35 Buyer’s Guide.

Get the Report