Casetext Acquisition and Pricing: What Happened After Thomson Reuters Bought It

There is no Casetext pricing in 2026. Thomson Reuters acquired Casetext for $650 million in June 2023 and retired the standalone product on April 1, 2025. The CoCounsel AI lives on inside Westlaw, and Thomson Reuters now publishes a self-serve price for it.

For a solo attorney, Westlaw Advantage with CoCounsel Essentials (all states plus federal) runs about $639 per user per month on a 1-year term per Thomson Reuters' own configurator (CostBench, checked June 9, 2026). Casetext used to start at $65 to $100 a seat (Lawyerist; LawSites, May 2019). So the same lawyer who paid roughly $100 a month at Casetext now pays 5x to 6x for the closest bundle. If you came for a live Casetext quote, the comparison below is really Westlaw plus CoCounsel against the current per-seat alternatives.

If you searched "Casetext vs Westlaw pricing" in 2026, you are probably one of two people. Either you are a former Casetext customer trying to figure out where your subscription went, or you are doing pre-purchase research and you found a 2023 comparison post that still ranks. Both groups deserve a current answer.

Here is what actually happened, and what it means for pricing in 2026.

Casetext acquisition at a glance

Sources: Thomson Reuters press release, August 2023 (price and close date); Thomson Reuters press release, June 2023 and TechCrunch, June 2023 (announcement); Paxton AI, 2025 (shutdown).

The short version

• June 2023: Thomson Reuters acquired Casetext for $650 million in cash.
• 2023 to early 2025: Casetext continued as a standalone product. CoCounsel (the AI assistant) was the headline feature. SmartCite was the citator.
• April 1, 2025: The standalone Casetext product was retired. CoCounsel technology was absorbed into Westlaw, currently shipping as CoCounsel Legal alongside Westlaw Advantage.

Casetext's CoCounsel technology now ships inside Westlaw as CoCounsel Legal.

• Today: "Casetext pricing" no longer exists. The product is gone. If you want what Casetext used to offer, you are looking at Westlaw pricing.

Part of our legal AI vendor comparison and pricing series.

What Casetext used to cost

For context, here are the pricing tiers Casetext was running at the time of the acquisition and through 2024 (base-tier figures per Lawyerist and LawSites, May 2019; CoCounsel-tier figures are pre-shutdown estimates):

These were the prices that made Casetext popular with solo lawyers and small firms. The $65 to $99 tier was genuinely affordable, and SmartCite was a credible (if less editorial) citator alternative to KeyCite and Shepard's.

CoCounsel at $400 was expensive, but it was self-serve and contracted month-to-month, which was a real differentiator from Westlaw and Lexis enterprise contracts.

That whole pricing structure is gone.

What Westlaw plus CoCounsel costs today (mid-2026)

Westlaw is the platform that absorbed Casetext, so the price you actually pay now is a Westlaw price. The big 2026 change is that Thomson Reuters added a self-serve pricing configurator for firms up to 10 attorneys, so you no longer have to wait for a sales call to see a number.

Here is the published self-serve figure for the closest Casetext successor, plus the research-only Westlaw baseline:

The headline: the closest self-serve bundle to "what Casetext used to be" (research plus AI, no sales call) is Westlaw Advantage with CoCounsel Essentials at about $639 per user per month for a solo on a 1-year term, per Thomson Reuters' own configurator as read by CostBench in June 2026. A 3-year term drops it to roughly $519 a seat (about 18% off, same source).

Casetext's comparable tier was around $100 a month (Lawyerist). So the move from Casetext to its official successor is roughly a 5x to 6x jump in seat cost. Even the research-only Westlaw Classic all-states-plus-federal tier at about $266 is roughly 2.7x the old Casetext Premium price, and that tier has no CoCounsel AI in it at all.

For a 3-lawyer firm, the AI bundle is on the order of $1,900 per month at the solo self-serve rate (per-seat rates fall as you add licenses, so a firm quote is usually lower than 3x the solo number). That is before Practical Law or any secondary sources Casetext customers used to get bundled.

For related vendor / pricing / buyer-guide coverage, see How Much Does Westlaw Cost in 2026? Solo, Small-Firm, Westlaw Plus Pricing, Lexis+ AI vs Westlaw AI (2026): Pricing, Accuracy, and Which One Hallucinates Less, and Harvey vs Legora vs CoCounsel: What Each One Actually Costs in 2026.

What happened to SmartCite?

SmartCite was Casetext's citator. It used AI to flag negative treatment and good-law status across federal and state opinions. It was bundled with even the cheapest Casetext tier.

SmartCite is no longer available as a standalone product. The functionality migrated into Westlaw via CoCounsel Legal, but is presented through the KeyCite flag system, not as SmartCite.

If you trusted SmartCite signals and want the closest current equivalent, you are looking at KeyCite, which is bundled with Westlaw Edge and higher tiers, not Westlaw Classic.

For solo lawyers, the practical effect: the citator you used to get for $65/mo is now bundled with a $194/mo product.

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Westlaw Precision vs Casetext

A search that keeps showing up in legal research logs is "Westlaw Precision vs Casetext." It is essentially comparing a product that no longer exists with a product that has been deprecated in favor of Westlaw Advantage.

For completeness:

• Westlaw Precision was Thomson Reuters's first major AI-tagged research product, launched in 2022. It used AI to surface cases with specific legal issues, fact patterns, or outcomes. It was bundled into a high-end Westlaw tier.
• Casetext (pre-2025) was a separate, lower-priced AI legal research platform with CoCounsel AI and SmartCite.
• Today, both have effectively been replaced by Westlaw Advantage with CoCounsel Legal, which is what you would actually subscribe to in 2026.

If you found a 2023 article comparing these two, ignore the conclusion. The pricing has changed, the products have merged, and the comparison is no longer meaningful.

What former Casetext customers are doing in 2026

Based on what we have heard from US solo lawyers and 2-15-lawyer firms over the last year, here are the three migration patterns:

1. Upgraded to Westlaw with CoCounsel. Typical for firms that were already on Casetext's Premium or CoCounsel Core tier. Painful but familiar. The seat cost jumped several times over (a solo's self-serve bundle is about $639 a month versus roughly $100 at Casetext).
2. Dropped down to Google Scholar plus a free Fastcase bar benefit. Typical for solo practitioners who used Casetext mainly for case search and the occasional AI summary. Loses the AI features but keeps the case lookups working at zero marginal cost.
3. Switched to a per-seat AI legal research platform. A growing class of platforms (Paxton AI, Vincent AI on vLex Fastcase, others) ship per-seat with self-serve onboarding at $99 to $200 per user per month, no enterprise contract. This is the closest economic match to what Casetext used to be.

The third group is the one experiencing the least pricing shock. Vincent AI on the vLex Fastcase platform leans heaviest on the secondary sources and citator side. Paxton AI is more drafting-focused.

The research-first pitch closest to original Casetext is in-app AI research across federal and state opinions plus a public statutes API covering the U.S. Code, CFR, and 50-state codes, at a self-serve, published price with a free trial.

The per-seat, self-serve research surface closest in economics to original Casetext, with citations that link to the source opinion.

What to look for in a Casetext replacement

If you are picking a successor, here is the checklist that matters:

1. Per-seat self-serve pricing, no annual contract. This was the whole point of Casetext. Anything that puts you back into a sales-led enterprise procurement cycle is not a real replacement.

2. A credible citator. SmartCite, KeyCite, and Shepard's all work. AI citation graph traversal with treatment flags works too if it is grounded in current case law. Free Google Scholar citation links are not enough for filings.

3. Federal and all 50 state case law in the base price. Casetext's $99 tier included this. Westlaw's $99-equivalent tier does not.

4. AI grounded in cited sources. The post-Mata v. Avianca era and ABA Formal Opinion 512 require it. Look for confidence scores, source links to original opinion PDFs, and (ideally) character-level highlight positions so you can verify the cited passage in the actual judgment.

5. A real free trial without a sales call. Casetext used to offer this. Westlaw and Lexis+ AI do not, in practice.

The honest comparison table

Bottom line

There is no Casetext to compare Westlaw to in 2026. The product is gone, and the pricing structure it represented for solo lawyers and small firms went with it.

The technical successor inside Thomson Reuters is CoCounsel on Westlaw Advantage, at roughly 5x to 6x the per-seat cost of the original Casetext (about $639 self-serve for a solo versus roughly $100 before).

If what you valued about Casetext was the per-seat self-serve economics, the comparison you should be running in 2026 is Westlaw with CoCounsel Legal vs the new class of per-seat AI legal research platforms. That is where the price-to-feature ratio is actually competitive.

For more on per-seat AI legal research, see /features/legal-research.

FAQ

Is Casetext still available in 2026?

No. Thomson Reuters retired the standalone Casetext product on April 1, 2025, almost two years after buying it for $650 million in June 2023. You can no longer sign up for Casetext or get a Casetext quote. The technology lives on inside Westlaw.

What replaced Casetext?

Casetext's CoCounsel AI now ships inside Westlaw as CoCounsel Legal, alongside the Westlaw Advantage flagship. SmartCite, the old Casetext citator, was folded into Westlaw's KeyCite flag system rather than carried over by name. So the official successor to Casetext is Westlaw with CoCounsel Legal, not a standalone product.

What is the Casetext vs Westlaw price difference now?

Casetext's popular tiers ran $65 to $99 per seat per month before shutdown (Lawyerist). The closest self-serve successor is Westlaw Advantage with CoCounsel Essentials, about $639 per user per month for a solo on a 1-year term per Thomson Reuters' configurator (CostBench, June 2026), so roughly 5x to 6x more. Research-only Westlaw Classic with all states plus federal is about $266 per month per Capterra and the Franklin County Law Library, but that tier has no CoCounsel AI.

How much did Casetext cost before it shut down?

Casetext Basic was $65 per user per month and Casetext Premium was $99, both including SmartCite. CoCounsel Core, the full agentic AI suite, was $400 per user per month, with enterprise tiers typically running $500 and up. Those prices no longer exist; they are listed here for historical comparison only.

What happened to SmartCite?

SmartCite is gone as a standalone citator. Its negative-treatment and good-law functionality migrated into Westlaw and is now surfaced through the KeyCite flag system. KeyCite sits behind Westlaw Edge ($169 to $194 per the same public tables) and higher tiers, not Westlaw Classic, so the citator that used to come bundled at $65 now rides on a more expensive product.

Is there a cheaper Casetext alternative for solo lawyers?

The closest economic match to original Casetext is the new class of per-seat, self-serve AI research platforms that skip enterprise contracts. Vaquill AI runs on self-serve, published pricing (sign up for the latest), with in-app AI research across US federal and state opinions plus a statutes and legislation API covering the U.S. Code, CFR, and 50-state codes. Other per-seat options include Paxton AI and Vincent AI on vLex Fastcase.

Can I still use CoCounsel without Westlaw?

No. CoCounsel is sold bundled with Westlaw, not as the standalone seat Casetext offered (aivortex, May 2026). Thomson Reuters does publish a self-serve price for the bundle now (about $639 a seat for a solo), but it still rides on a Westlaw subscription with a 1-year or 3-year term, not the month-to-month signup Casetext was known for.

Does Thomson Reuters publish a price for CoCounsel, or do I have to call sales?

For firms up to 10 attorneys there is a self-serve configurator that shows a price by firm size, jurisdiction, and term (CostBench, June 2026). A solo, all states plus federal, sees about $639 per user per month on a 1-year term. Firms with more than 10 attorneys still get a custom quote from a sales rep.

Sources

• TechCrunch: Thomson Reuters buys Casetext for $650M
• Paxton AI: Casetext has shut down (April 2025)
• CostBench: CoCounsel (Thomson Reuters) pricing, self-serve configurator, checked June 2026
• aivortex: CoCounsel pricing 2026 (bundled-only, May 2026)
• Lawyerist: Casetext review (historical pricing)
• LawSites / Bob Ambrogi: legal research price comparison (May 2019)
• Capterra: Westlaw Edge pricing
• Franklin County Law Library: Westlaw pricing tiers

Arshita Anand

Co-Founder & CEO · Attorney

Arshita leads product and strategy at Vaquill, building the legal AI suite that solo, small-firm, and in-house US lawyers use to run a matter end to end.