Westlaw is the research standard. Irys is built for the whole matter.

Unlike most legal AI vendors, Thomson Reuters publishes real numbers for small firms. As of August 3, 2026, its online store listed Westlaw Advantage at $256.75 per month for single-circuit coverage and $399.75 per month for all states and federal coverage. Westlaw Edge with AI-Assisted Research started at $155.35 per month for single-circuit coverage on a three-year term, and $266.50 per month for all states and federal on a three-year term.

Those figures carry conditions. Online pricing applies to new customers at firms of up to 10 attorneys. Two-year plans carry a 12 percent discount and three-year plans an 18 percent discount, so the lowest advertised rates assume a multi-year commitment. Pricing for larger firms and existing customers runs through sales and is not publicly listed. Some capabilities, such as Word drafting through CoCounsel Essentials, are sold as separate tiers or add-ons.

Westlaw offers a 7-day free trial. Published prices change and vary by coverage, term length, and firm size, so confirm current figures with Thomson Reuters before budgeting.

Authority depth. No AI-first platform replicates a century of editorial work overnight, and Irys does not claim to. Westlaw's headnotes, Key Number System, and KeyCite remain a benchmark for verifying that an authority is still good law.

Agentic research at scale. Agentic research at scale. Deep Research on Westlaw Advantage plans and executes multi-step research across Thomson Reuters' legal content.

Familiarity and ecosystem. Many associates arrive already trained on Westlaw, and firms invested in Practical Law and CoCounsel get a connected Thomson Reuters environment. If your firm's workflows are built around that ecosystem, it is a real advantage.

Westlaw is research-first. Drafting and document work in the Thomson Reuters ecosystem come through CoCounsel products, each with its own plan and entitlements; access to Westlaw or Practical Law content requires the relevant content subscriptions. Irys is built as one matter platform: legal research, drafting, document analysis, and matter context in a single product at a single published price that does not change based on jurisdictional coverage.

Irys preserves matter structure across sessions, so the next task can use the relevant documents, facts, people, dates, and authorities without rebuilding the context in every prompt. Output is source-linked, so you can check where each material statement came from, and a Word add-in keeps drafting where you already work. Built-in e-signature carries documents through execution.

Workbench, currently in beta, connects Irys to applications like Gmail, Google Drive, Calendar, Outlook, OneDrive, and Slack, and can prepare work across them. Workbench requires your approval before it sends or files work on your behalf; it does not act autonomously.

Pricing is public and flat. Irys One is $299 per month with no per-token or per-query overage on the advertised plan. Irys Teams is $329 per seat per month for teams of 2 to 50 attorneys. The trial is 7 days with no credit card required. Many firms will keep a research subscription alongside Irys; the practical question is which platform carries the daily work of the matter.

Marketing pages, including this one, are a starting point. Both products offer 7-day trials, so run the same real matter through each and ask the questions that decide the outcome.

Can it show the exact source behind a factual statement in its answer?

Can it tell you whether a cited authority is still good law, and explain how it knows?

Can it carry what it learned during research into a later drafting or review task without you reconstructing the context?

Can it work across your email, files, and Word without manual copying and pasting?

Can it produce a usable file, not just chat text?

What exactly is included in the quoted price, and what depends on jurisdictional coverage, term length, add-ons, or a separate product?

What term are you committing to, and what happens to the price at renewal?

Can you complete a real matter during the trial before signing a multi-year agreement?

Choose Westlaw when validated research authority is the center of your practice, when KeyCite is non-negotiable for your workflow, or when your firm is already invested in the Thomson Reuters ecosystem and wants agentic research on top of it.

Choose Irys when you want research, drafting, matter context, connected application actions, and finished work product in one platform, at a published price you can verify today, with a self-service trial that lets you test it on real work before committing.

These are not mutually exclusive. Plenty of firms will run both. But if you are paying separately for research, drafting tools, and e-signature, and still rebuilding matter context in every chat window, it is worth seeing what a single matter platform changes.