7 Best Contract Management Software Solutions: Guide for 2025

You've nurtured a prospect through months of calls, demos, and presentations, and they're finally ready to buy. You have momentum — until you enter the contract phase, and everything halts. Why? Because the contract itself must be carefully vetted. This is the stage of the deal where things can slow down, as legal teams go back and forth across email and different document versions to negotiate details like payment terms, liability limits, and privacy rights. It's why your team needs contract management software, a digital tool that helps organizations create, track, and manage contracts throughout their entire lifecycle.

Contract management software is vital to helping both sales and legal teams keep deals on track. Let's take a closer look at what contract management software is and how to choose the right solution for you.

Contract management software is a tool that streamlines the processes of contract drafting, approval, execution, and tracking — covering the entire contract management lifecycle within a single platform. This gives sales teams the ability to manage renewals, amendments, upsells and more within your customer relationship management (CRM) software, regardless of your billing model. Contract management software can manage anything from usage-based pricing to subscription billing.

As a sales professional, you already know the importance of a CRM. When implemented well and maintained consistently, it helps you manage leads, opportunities, and customer relationships. CRM systems excel at managing the overall sales lifecycle, but they can fall short when it comes to contract management. That's because there are some core differences:

• CRM software primarily focuses on managing customer relationships, sales processes, and marketing activities. It tracks customer interactions, sales opportunities, and sales forecasting.
• Contract management software is designed to handle the lifecycle of contracts, from creation and negotiation to signing and renewal. The focus is on managing the critical legal components, compliance, and agreements involved before a deal can be closed.

While different by definition, contract management software capabilities are often built into a CRM, especially into enterprise-grade cloud solutions that allow sales teams to manage entire quote-to-cash cycles. When the two solutions are combined, there’s better visibility into deal status, less chance that a critical deadline impacting sales revenue will be missed, and confidence that the customer relationship is managed appropriately upon signing.

Contract management software can directly impact your success. By accelerating your contract cycles, you'll have more time to focus on hitting your sales targets and pursuing new opportunities. Here are some of the main benefits:

• Accelerated sales cycles: Contract management software speeds up the contracting stage by using features like templates for quick contract creation, automated approval routing, electronic signatures, centralized storage, collaboration tools for negotiations, and automated renewal alerts and tracking.
• Improved accuracy and compliance: Automated workflows reduce the risk of errors that can derail deals or create legal issues down the line. Template libraries provide consistency, while approval workflows ensure all key stakeholders review agreements before execution, supporting accurate revenue recognition processes.
• More visibility and control: Real-time dashboards and sales analytics provide visibility into contract status, approval stages, and potential bottlenecks. This makes it easier to know exactly where each deal stands so your business can proactively address any issues before they impact closing dates.
• Optimized renewals and expansion: Automated workflows and centralized tracking allow your business to maximize opportunities, maintain seamless service, and secure better terms during renewal negotiations. For sales teams, this means protected recurring revenue and easier upselling opportunities.
• Better collaboration: Modern contract management platforms enable real-time collaboration among sales, legal, and procurement teams. You can say goodbye to long email chains and lost document versions, because everyone is working from a central source of truth.

Choosing the right contract management solution means looking at the options and determining which features hold the most value for you. We curated a list of top contenders from G2, Capterra, and Gartner, which rate software based on user feedback, features available, and overall satisfaction.

Each of the tools listed here has a minimum rating of four out of five stars, ensuring they are top contenders for streamlining your sales process, improving collaboration, and helping your team work smarter.

Salesforce Revenue Cloud automates and streamlines revenue operations on an integrated platform that includes contract creation and revision, digitized signatures, and accurate versioning and clause revisions for legal and finance teams during pre-deal negotiations. It offers seamless integration with Salesforce's AI for sales and CRM capabilities. It also integrates with Revenue Cloud Billing for end-to-end revenue management across any channel or revenue model. Reviewers appreciate the software’s automation, flexibility for configuration, and the accuracy and time saved by streamlining the end-to-end process within a single system.

How it helps sales teams:

• Contract creation and compliance: Contract negotiations are simplified with automated processes and easy version and approval tracking. Pre-approved templates, clause libraries, and e-signature integration help sales teams save time and stay compliant. Legal teams can also manage clause libraries and create templates for sellers to use during the contracting process.
• CRM integration: With contract lifecycle management built into Salesforce's AI-powered CRM, teams can move deals from opportunity to quote to contract quickly and efficiently. Deal data stays synced, so the right information flows into each contract. This connected, automated process ensures that sensitive data remains protected, improves the customer experience, and helps strengthen sales relationships.
• Reporting and analytics: Dynamic dashboards provide real-time insights into revenue streams, forecasts, and other critical KPIs measured by your team, allowing you to make informed decisions. Predictive analytics help optimize pricing strategies, improve retention, and identify cross-selling opportunities.

Docusign CLM is designed to streamline the agreement lifecycle with automated workflows and digital signature routing, which the company is known for. The solution offers enterprise-grade security and multiplatform integration. Reviewers note that it's particularly useful for companies prioritizing e-signature functionality and that it makes signing easy and intuitive for customers.

How it helps sales teams:

• Contract creation and compliance: Create digital, automated workflows using a drag-and-drop editor, or use a library of preconfigured workflows to accelerate the pace of closing a deal and ensure compliance. Collaborate with legal across versions, redlining, and clause libraries. Use conditional rules to flag any contracts with non-standard terms that need review.
• CRM integration: Built-in tools let the software work with the systems your team already uses — like your CRM — so it can automatically fill in details when creating new agreements.

Reporting and analytics: Pretrained AI models help produce standard and ad hoc reports that show key metrics, contract statuses, timelines, risk scores, and an overview of contract activities.

Reviewers like Juro, a cloud-based contract automation software, for its ease of use and user-friendly interface when creating contracts or contract templates and managing contracts through approval, while allowing legal teams to maintain insight and control. The platform makes it easy for companies to store and manage all contracts and documents in a central location. Reviewers also positively noted the company's customer support.

How it helps sales teams:

• Contract creation and compliance: Manage the entire contract lifecycle, from initiation to renewal, in a secure system you can use right from your web browser. An AI assistant can help draft, review, summarize, and extract data from contracts to help you move even faster.
• CRM integration: Initiate and manage contracts using existing business tools, including leading CRMs, to ensure widespread adoption and data integrity and accelerate closing times.

Reporting and analytics: Smart fields and a data layer allow you to query anything from your document repository, including contract obligations, renewals, and risks.

Ironclad is an AI-powered contract management platform designed to help business and legal teams streamline the contract lifecycle process. The system provides efficiency by letting users prepare, edit, and send contracts for signature and collaborate with internal teams. Reviewers appreciate its user-friendly interface and strong collaboration features. They also say it's a good transition away from manual processes, especially for small- or medium-sized businesses.

How it helps sales teams:

• Contract creation and compliance: The system moves drafting, editing, negotiation, search, storage, e-signature, and analytics into one platform. The Jurist AI tool helps teams quickly draft contracts and emails while also addressing redlines.
• CRM integration: Ironclad integrates with many leading business solutions for procurement, sales, HR, finance, and marketing. Partner solutions include the largest players in the CRM market.

Reporting and analytics: Contract reporting allows you to extract insights on contract effectiveness; identify risks, opportunities, and trends; and monitor compliance.

PandaDoc offers another user-friendly solution for creating, managing, tracking, and e-signing documents. Reviewers appreciate the e-signature capabilities across different types of documents, including legal sales contracts, along with the automated emails that remind clients to sign.

How it helps sales teams:

• Contract creation and compliance: Create professional sales documents using pre-approved templates and a drag-and-drop content library. Automated approval routing keeps contracts moving through the review process quickly while maintaining compliance standards. Built-in e-signature capabilities eliminate the need for manual handling or additional e-signature tools.
• CRM integration: Native two-way integrations with leading CRMs automatically populate contract data from deal records, reducing manual entry errors. Sales reps can create, send, and track documents directly within their CRM interface, keeping all deal-related activities in one central location.
• Reporting and analytics: Real-time document tracking shows when prospects open, view, and sign contracts, giving sales teams valuable insights into engagement levels. Built-in analytics measure team performance through key metrics like time-to-close and revenue indicators.

Agiloft, a contract lifecycle management platform, earns high reviews for its configurable workflows and AI capabilities for contract analysis. The no-code platform supports purchasing, legal operations, and sales cycles, and it can support businesses that need both rapid deployment and customization capabilities.

How it helps sales teams:

• Contract creation and compliance: No-code workflow customization allows teams to design approval processes that match their unique sales cycle without requiring technical expertise. AI-powered contract drafting and review tools speed up document creation, while automated compliance checks ensure contracts meet regulatory requirements.
• CRM integration: Drag-and-drop integrations connect with more than 1,000 business systems, including all major CRMs, to ensure seamless data flow between sales and contract management processes. Real-time synchronization keeps opportunity data current across platforms, and sales teams can also initiate contracts directly from their CRM without switching systems.
• Reporting and analytics: Data-driven dashboards provide insights into contract performance, approval bottlenecks, and revenue optimization opportunities. Advanced search capabilities help teams quickly locate specific contract terms, obligations, and performance metrics.

Oracle CPQ Cloud can be deployed as a stand-alone solution or integrated with leading CRM, e-commerce, service, and ERP solutions for quote-to-cash management. The platform offers enterprise-grade configuration capabilities and leverages machine learning for real-time pricing capabilities. Reviewers note that the solution may be a good choice for those already in the Oracle ecosystem.

How it helps sales teams:

• Contract creation and compliance: Automated contract generation pulls data directly from configured quotes, ensuring accuracy and reducing document creation time. Built-in approval workflows route contracts to appropriate stakeholders while maintaining version control and audit trails. Integration with Oracle Enterprise Contracts enables advanced contract lifecycle management, including redlining and electronic signature capabilities.
• CRM integration: Native embedding within CRM solutions allows sales reps to access customer order histories and create quotes from a single interface. Bidirectional data synchronization between Oracle CPQ and leading CRMs ensures pricing, product configurations, and customer information remain consistent across systems.
• Reporting and analytics: Machine learning algorithms analyze pricing patterns and win rates to optimize quote strategies and improve deal probability assessments. Real-time dashboards provide visibility into sales performance, quote approval status, and revenue forecasting.

Understanding how contract management software applies to your daily sales activities can give you confidence in the investment and ensure successful adoption. Here are some areas where this software can add value for your sales team:

• New customer acquisition: Automated contract generation from CRM opportunity data can significantly accelerate new customer onboarding. Templates ensure consistency while approval workflows maintain legal compliance.
• Renewal management: Automated alerts ensure you never miss a renewal opportunity. Advanced platforms can also predict renewal likelihood and suggest optimal timing for expansion conversations, taking into account other factors, such as whether there might be open support tickets.
• Vendor and partner agreements: Manage channel partner agreements, vendor contracts, and other business relationships that support your sales efforts. Centralized storage ensures easy access to terms and conditions.
• Compliance and risk management: Maintain audit trails, ensure regulatory compliance, and manage contract risks that could affect customer relationships or deal closure.
• Multiparty negotiations: Streamline complex deals involving multiple stakeholders with collaborative review tools and version control that keep everyone on the same page.

When evaluating contract management platforms, sales teams should prioritize features that directly impact deal velocity and protect revenue. These include:

Seamless integration with your CRM is a must-have. This eliminates the need to manually transfer data between systems and ensures contract information automatically syncs with your opportunity records. Some solutions, like Salesforce automation software, enable sales teams to create contracts directly within their CRM, without needing to switch tools.

Pre-approved templates enable quick contract creation, and automated document generation capabilities reduce manual work and ensure consistency across contracts and legal compliance. Dynamic templates can automatically populate customer information, pricing, and terms based on your CRM data — this functionality alone can reduce contract creation time from hours to minutes.

Configurable approval workflows automatically route contracts to the right stakeholders and provide visibility into approval status and potential bottlenecks. Workflows should be flexible enough to handle different approval paths based on contract value, terms, or customer type. Advanced systems can also send automated reminders to approvers and escalate to proxy approvers when deadlines approach.

Native e-signature functionality leads to faster contract execution and removes the need to switch between tools. Modern e-signature features should support multiple signature types, include audit trails for compliance, and work seamlessly across desktop and mobile devices.

It's crucial to be able to easily search for contracts and access the latest version as well as the version history. Robust search capabilities and intuitive organization features enable you to quickly locate specific contracts, clauses, or terms as needed. AI-powered search goes beyond keywords and can help find contracts based on natural language queries.

Look for tools that enable real-time collaboration among sales, legal, and other stakeholders within the platform, eliminating the need for outside documents or email. Platforms should keep all stakeholders informed about progress and make version control easy. Comprehensive sales dashboards and sales reporting capabilities help track contract performance and identify bottlenecks.

Enterprise-grade security features and compliance certifications protect sensitive contract data and ensure regulatory adherence. Your chosen platform should offer role-based access controls, encryption both in transit and at rest, and compliance with standards like SOC 2, GDPR, and industry-specific regulations. Regular security audits and certifications demonstrate a vendor's commitment to protecting your data.

Choosing the right contract management software depends on your team's needs, budget, and existing tech stack. There are many strong solutions on the market, but the best contract management software for you will grow with your organization, keep your teams aligned, and streamline contract management so it's an easy, built-in part of your workflow.

It's also important to start with the right sales software. Salesforce can help, along with powerful AI support from Agentforce.