Smart contract pioneer, Clause, has announced that on 16th April it will formally move out of Beta and ‘open for business’, where it will begin to charge people who want to use their platform on a pay as you go basis (PAYG), in what is a major landmark for the smart contract sector.
The company, which has offices in New York and London, has also published a price list so that potential users of the system can know more easily what costs they may be facing to leverage the technology.
The move is a landmark not just in the history of Clause, but in the evolution of smart contracts – which is why Artificial Lawyer has been covering the build-up to the announcement in some detail.
It matters on several levels: it marks a move into the ‘real politik‘ of tech adoption – i.e. if it works well and has a great use case then people will use it and pay for it, if not….then they won’t – so this will be a big test.
Also, Clause is not a charity. And if the company, which remains relatively small, is going to scale up and serve what is a potentially huge global market for complex smart contracts, then it’s going to need revenue.
And, simply on a human level, it’s been great to see Clause evolve and steadily widen the circle of stakeholders it has engaged with around the world, from law firms, to regulators, to standards organisations and more. Everything has been meticulously put in place to give the launch the best chance of success. Not to mention several years of detailed development and product testing.
Some legal tech companies zoom into public consciousness and then fade away, having not made a lasting impact. Others are in perpetual Beta and never really launch a commercially viable product. Clause has done everything it can to be a company that goes the distance and makes an impact.
All good, so, let’s get down to business. What will be on offer and how much will it cost law firms and companies wanting to build some smart contracts to use in real life scenarios?
PAYG pricing starts at $20 per month – which seems very reasonable relative to the pricing of most legal tech products. All Beta accounts will also be automatically transferred over to commercial accounts on the 16th April.
Clause will also launch a Developer Portal, which will allow you to use the Clause API to ‘create and manage smart legal contracts and to trigger them with data from external systems’.
‘Whether you are building an innovative startup, or automating your existing back-office contract management systems, Clause has you covered,’ says the company.
Some of the things you can do are:
- Automate contract payments or notifications
- Build smart Master Supply Agreements
- Connect your Smart Clauses to your existing IT systems
- Create custom templates with your own legal text and logic
And, in more detail the pricing system looks like this below, with two main aspects: service and support.
Service Cost
User Seats $10 per user per month
Contracts $5 per contract per month
Contract Updates $0.50 per Update
Support Tier
Bronze Free
Silver $100 per month
Gold $500 per month
And, as part of the launch efforts, Clause will give away $100 of free credit to spend to any user as they wish, ‘so you can evaluate whether Clause is the right connected contracting solution for you’, they add.
Good luck to Peter Hunn and all the team at Clause!