Best Contract Management Software 2025: Reviews, Comparisons & CLM Buyer’s Guide

Automating and centralising contract management is now table stakes for compliance-driven businesses. If you’re researching Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) software, you’re already on the right path, but here’s the critical truth:CLM on its own is no longer enough.

Today, nearly every CLM vendor promises automation and AI. These features may streamline contract creation and negotiation, but they don’t address the deeper issues: fragmented risk checks, uncontrolled spend, and siloed vendor data.

That’s why leading organisations are looking beyond CLM to platforms that connect contracts, third-party management, and spend into one unified process.

 

What Is contract Management software?

Contract management software is designed to automate and streamline the way businesses handle agreements. At its most basic, it enables teams to create, negotiate, sign, renew, and report on contracts by digitising the manual work traditionally involved in these workflows.

Modern contract lifecycle management solutions typically include features such as automated workflows, eSignatures, and AI-powered insights, all of which help to improve speed and accuracy.
But CLM software alone only solves the contract workflow. It accelerates documents, but it doesn’t unify the bigger picture of risk, compliance, and spend. Without that connection, organisations are still left exposed to audit failures, uncontrolled costs, and vendor blind spots.

What are the benefits of contract lifecycle management software?

According to World Commerce & Contracting, 26% of a typical organisation’s workforce is involved in the contracting process.That means more than a quarter of employees are touched by storing, retrieving, tracking, or reviewing contracts. It's a huge operational burden if those processes are still manual or scattered across systems and different point solutions. Digitalising with contract lifecycle management software delivers clear advantages:

• Enhanced Accuracy and Efficiency: Automating contract processes reduces manual errors, ensures key clauses are captured and increases data accuracy, all of which improve compliance and operational performance.
• Optimised Renewals: Centralised tracking ensures critical dates aren’t overlooked, helping organisations secure better terms and avoid costly auto-renewals.
• Improved Collaboration: By creating a shared workspace, CLM aligns Legal, Procurement and Finance, cutting silos and enabling faster, more strategic teamwork.
• Stronger Compliance Management: Version control and structured storage keep contracts current and audit-ready, safeguarding reputation and reducing regulatory risk.
• Accelerated Time-to-Contract: Digital workflows remove bottlenecks, enabling faster deal cycles and revenue recognition.

These benefits explain why CLM adoption has accelerated. But they also reveal the inherent limitation: CLM is powerful within the contract process, but it doesn’t connect to the wider third-party lifecycle.

By unifying contracts with risk and spend data, organisations can go beyond administrative efficiency to deliver perpetual audit-readiness, measurable ROI, and faster, safer growth. This is where Gatekeeper redefines what CLM can achieve.

Rather than your contract management approach looking like this:

Gatekeeper allows it to look like this:

How to assess the best contract management software

When assessing contract management software, platforms like G2 provide invaluable insights through independent user reviews and ratings. We have focused on three essential criteria to help you when shortlising CLM software: ease of use, ease of setup and quality of support.

• Ease of Use: Software should be intuitive for all stakeholders, from Legal to Procurement to Finance. Teams need to adopt it quickly without lengthy training programmes, so the easier it is to use the faster it delivers value.
• Ease of Setup: Implementation should be smooth and low-friction, enabling organisations to realise benefits quickly without costly delays or disruption to existing workflows.
• Quality of Support: Reliable and expert support ensures issues are resolved promptly. This protects business continuity and helps teams maintain momentum.
  

From a business perspective, these factors are critical because they directly influence time-to-value, productivity and overall return on investment.

Correct 11/09/2025

Contract lifecycle management software reviews

1. Gatekeeper
Gatekeeper is the only unified platform for managing contracting, third-parties and spend. Where traditional CLM tools stop at documents, Gatekeeper closes the gaps that create risk, cost and wasted time.

Our platform connects every third-party touchpoint into a single continuous process:

• Risk-First: Screen and approve vendors before they touch systems or data, blocking unacceptable risk at the start.
• Contract Fast and Safely: Accelerate negotiations with guard-railed workflows, clause support and integrated eSignatures, so agreements close quickly without compromising compliance.
• Manage for Value: Link contract terms to live spend and performance data to prevent leakage, surface savings and keep every renewal under control.

Gatekeeper also integrates seamlessly with existing business systems. As NetSuite Partner of the Year 2024 and the only Built for NetSuite SuiteApp for contract and vendor management, we enable Finance, Procurement and Legal teams to work from one unified source of truth.

With LuminIQ Agents automating the manual grind, Gatekeeper delivers perpetual audit-readiness, accelerated time-to-contract and measurable savings that flow straight to the bottom line.

Independent customer reviews of Gatekeeper highlight:

• "Gatekeeper is a very user-friendly system, with implementation thoroughly supported by the Gatekeeper team"
• "Standout feature for Gatekeeper is definitely its scalability... as the organisation matures, Gatekeeper also has the necessary tools to adapt to its growing needs and maturity"
• "The intuitive system makes it straightforward to add new records and keep existing information updated, with simple search functions, ease of editing/uploading and simple to build workflows and custom fields."

One of Gatekeeper’s customers, Funding Circle, saved over £1 million by improving their visibility and control of contract spend, allowing them to easily identify and terminate contracts that no longer served them.

2. Agiloft

Agiloft positions its platform as a data-first contract lifecycle management solution with an increased focus on embedded AI capabilities.

Recent updates highlight its “AI on the Inside™” strategy, integrating tools for contract review, clause analysis, while the launch of its Prompt Lab and AI Your Way workflows gives users greater control over generative AI analysis. 

Although Agiloft claims to help businesses of all sizes with its flexible and quick-to-customise solution, independent customer reviews on Capterra show the opposite:

• “Licensing makes it really difficult for larger organisations to reap the full benefits of the tool.”
• “Because of its significant flexibility, it is easy to attempt to over configure and integrate with too many tools out of the box. I was assigned a highly knowledgeable CSM, but found that he was unable to keep us on-track and too willing to add services, which resulted in the project taking longer and becoming more convoluted than we needed it to be.”
• “Each agreement and corresponding amendment is its own record so there is no way to enter a name and see an overview of all current terms.”

3. Docusign CLM

DocuSign CLM now forms part of its Intelligent Agreement Management platform, with its Iris AI engine powering new tools across the agreement lifecycle.

Recent updates include obligation management for tracking milestones like renewals and payment deadlines, tools such as Workspaces and Agreement Desk (beta) for collaborative workflows and intake, and multi-channel notifications (SMS, WhatsApp) to accelerate sign-offs.

The platform also offers AI-assisted review and custom data extraction and dashboard-based visibility over active tasks and contract status. Some features are still in beta or limited to specific regions/plans.

However, Docusign CLM customer reviews reveal that:

• “This is one of the most cumbersome and exhausting softwares I've ever used. DocuSign CLM is extremely inefficient and unnatural to use.”
• “The user interface can feel unintuitive at times, especially for new users. There’s a learning curve, and finding certain features or settings isn’t always straightforward.”
• “One drawback of DocuSign CLM is that customer support can sometimes be slow to respond or lacks the depth of expertise required for complex implementation issues, which frustrates users needing timely resolutions.”

4. Conga

Conga positions its contract lifecycle management solution as part of the broader Conga Platform, focusing on flexibility and automation across the entire contract process. The platform integrates with a wide range of CRMs, ERPs, and procurement systems, aiming to support diverse business environments.

Recent updates highlight AI-driven capabilities like bulk document upload, automated extraction of clauses and provisions, multilingual analysis, and risk scoring to flag non-standard terms. Conga also offers configurable workflows, templates, and dashboards to manage obligations, renewals, and approvals, helping teams maintain visibility and compliance while reducing manual effort.

However, customer reviews of Conga CLM show high levels of dissatisfaction with feature usability, interface design and overall scalability:

• “Their support team is not always aware of the features /functionality/limitations which is frustrating when dealing with support on issues.”
• “The main pain area is performance scalability. As the volume of contracts and associated metadata grows, system performance can occasionally lag, especially when executing bulk operations or generating extensive repor”
• “It took a while to learn how to use it properly and it can at times be somewhat clunky and cumbersome.”

5. Ironclad

Ironclad positions its platform as an AI-enabled contract lifecycle management solution. Its Jurist assistant now includes guided prompts and a prompt library. The company has combined its Dashboard and Repository into a single interface for managing live workflows and archived contracts.

Updates also include changes to its entity and obligation features, allowing contracts to be linked to entities and used in workflow conditions, alongside adjustments to user permissions and dashboard layouts. Ironclad has expanded its learning resources through Ironclad Academy, adding new training content and optional skill badges for users.

Despite advanced AI features, Ironclad customer reviews highlight missing functionality, poor AI capabilities and system intuitiveness and:

• “Feature rollouts can sometimes feel incomplete, with new capabilities occasionally lacking full functionality or requiring additional refinement post-launch.”
• “The repository is a bit clunky and there are some features that are not intuitive to utilise”
• “The AI capabilities are not good enough. Also, we wanted it to manage also the legal ticketing but it's not 100% suitable for this. Also, the reports are very basic.”

Why Gatekeeper is the Best Contract Management Software for Compliance-Driven Teams

Gatekeeper is the only unified platform that connects risk, contract, and spend management in one continuous lifecycle. Powered by LuminIQ AI Agents , it transforms contract management into a strategic advantage for Procurement, Finance, Compliance and Legal teams.

1. Risk First: Build a Trusted Foundation

Gatekeeper provides a secure, centralised contract repository that eliminates scattered inboxes and shared drives. Every agreement is version controlled, searchable by metadata, and tied to the vendor’s risk profile.

LuminIQ AI strengthens visibility by extracting obligations and key terms from both legacy and new contracts. Legal, Procurement, and Finance no longer need to chase missing details, and high-risk vendors are flagged early so nothing slips through the cracks.

2. Contract Fast and Safely: Enable Speed with Guardrails

Speed is essential, but not at the cost of compliance. Gatekeeper provides guard-railed workflows, templates, and collaborative redlining through its partnership with LegalOn, to keep negotiations moving while ensuring policy alignment.

• Redlining options integrate with Microsoft Office and Google Docs to simplify stakeholder collaboration.

• Native and integrated eSignatures accelerate execution, allowing contracts to be signed securely without leaving the workflow.

• Touchless contracts automate routine agreements such as NDAs, freeing Legal to focus on high-value negotiations while Procurement moves suppliers through faster.

This partnership between Legal and Procurement means contracts are both fast and safe, without compromising compliance.

3. Manage for Value: Stay in Control Beyond Signature

Where many tools stop, Gatekeeper continues.

• Automated renewals ensure critical dates are never missed and prevent costly auto-rolls.

• Best-practice workflows and templates standardise processes, reduce errors, and embed compliance by design.

• Spend and performance visibility helps Finance and Procurement track value delivered, identify consolidation opportunities, and prevent leakage.

With LuminIQ surfacing insights directly from live data, teams stay aligned long after signature, ensuring the business captures the value it negotiated.

wrap Up

With a quarter of your workforce engaged in contract processes, inefficiencies can no longer be ignored. The best contract management software offers a transformative solution to the challenges of manual processes, bringing visibility, control, and compliance to your organisation.

Take the first step towards streamlined contract management. Book a demo today and discover how Gatekeeper can transform your operations.