About Clio
Clio pricing
Clio does not have a free version but does offer a free trial. Clio paid version starts at US$49.00/month.
Alternatives to Clio
Clio Reviews
Feature rating
All Clio Reviews
- Industry: Marketing & Advertising
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Monthly for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Great Software But Hard to Use At First
very helpful but at a cost and may require additional training to get started
Pros
this practice management system is pretty robust overall for tracking and organizing docs
Cons
It isnt the most user friendly and isnt the most cost effective for smaller firms and companies
- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Worlds better than other CRMS and still improving
Clio is a great information hub, but getting the information sorted and in the right place can be tedious. The busier the firm, the greater the need is to have an outlined guide or manual from day one.
Pros
Clio is a fantastic information-gathering tool and is close to being a one-stop-shop for everything we need pertaining to our clients. the upcoming rollout of a new communications tab should help to sort this information further.
Cons
Client intake is a tedious process. Something as simple as being about to mark clients as spouses/life partners and copying over address and other basic information would go a long way to help speed things up. as of now, we make three contacts for every matter (the married couple as well as each spouse).
Alternatives Considered
PracticePanther Legal SoftwareReasons for Choosing Clio
PCLaw was a nightmare that crashed multiple times a day and had no customer support.Switched From
PCLawReasons for Switching to Clio
pricing and crm capabilities; document management, integration possibilities.- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
They believe they are too big to fail....
When building out my initial matters (inputting my offline book of business), I made a typographical error. I deleted the matter and started over. That set off an entire comedy of errors.
As with many case management software programs, Clio uses CLIENT numbers and MATTER numbers. The latter can be revised or overridden once entered by the user, but the former cannot. So, when I deleted the matter to start it over, I was able to revive the matter number, but the system automatically progressed to the next client number. The former client number disappeared into the ether. In the aggregate, this means multiple and inexplicable gaps in client numbers. I spent hours with Support both via chat and telephone, and apparently there is absolutely nothing that can be done--even by the highest powers that be at Clio--to right the client numbers and remove the obnoxious gaps. I proposed resetting the system to give a clean slate. That, too, is apparently beyond the technical capacity of the software developers and engineers at Clio. Thus you are apparently left stuck with your input errors in perpetuity.
In short, the above is somewhat anecdotal, but goes to show that rather simple issues that arise (such as fixing a client number) are either too much for Clio to handle, or too piddly for them to care enough about to fix. If the former, that leads me to believe that the initial software design was itself outsourced and now static (cannot be easily changed in-house). If the latter, that leads me to conclude that Clio believes it is too big to fail that it can blow off its customers.
Pros
Clio is always innovating, but they do not hesitate to pass along the cost for such innovation to the customer. There is a whole suite of "add-ons" to choose from. But it feels like nickel-and-diming users for features and enhancements. Imagine if Google or Microsoft charged a fee every time there was a software update. That is how it seems to work at Clio. Don't believe the advertised price. If you want a fully-functional practice management platform (i.e., Clio Manage + Clio Grow), the price is going to be closer to $200 per month. That does not include Drafting and Duo (AI).
Cons
The machines are in control at Clio, not the humans. Certain functions, once entered and/or executed by the user, cannot be undone--even by the software developers and engineers. So you have to be triply trepidatious when entering data. If you get something wrong, your whole organizational scheme can fall into chaos.
Support is outsourced, largely to India. When you call in, you get that call-center vibe, including and especially the "I'm sorry, sir, but..." mantra (the "I'm sorry routine"). They will not go the extra mile to problem-solve and come up with creative solutions to fix what is a very common issue.
Clio is a captive sales scheme. They want you to invest time and money in a closed subscription-model ecosystem that, over time, will get more and more expensive--yet commensurately more difficult to disinvest from given all the time it takes to build your processes and workflows that will not be cross-compatible to other platforms. The lifetime investment in Clio will be huge.
The company is based in Canada. They have no offices in the United States.
Reasons for Switching to Clio
Clio has a great sales and marketing team. I had no idea the support would be so bad.- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Clio is a Must!
I use it for everything. My phone call notes and client meetings. I print my notes for files to help staff know what I know. We only use Clio for task and case upkeep so all the information and status is in one place.
Pros
Efficient for case management, designed for easy use and the most responsive team I’ve ever seen for management application.
Cons
I would like to have more options for my calendar (more like a daytimer feel) with a calendar view that supports tasks management and notes.
Reasons for Choosing Clio
Efficiency and reliability. Ease of use and consistency.Switched From
Amicus AttorneyReasons for Switching to Clio
Because Clio does so much more. Everything is all in one application.- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Very Happy
My overall experience has been very positive. Compared to our last platform Clio is much more user friendly. Our attorneys have little to no problem using the system. The customer service has been quick and helpful. I think as Clio continues to develop the better it will be.
Pros
Very easy to navigate. The resource center gives lots of information when you don't know how to do something. Very happy with how user friendly it is. The document management and use of docusign has been excellent
Cons
Not being able to mark invoices as sent via USPS. Not all of our clients use email. Not being able to pay multiple invoices via the matter, and having to navigate to the billing page. On the billing page, not being able to search via the client/matter number. Only can search by name. Not being able to search clients by balance when someone other than the client pays the invoice with no identifiable reference. Less third party crossovers would be nice as well. I would like to see a more developed Clio for clients desktop app/website/portal. I think our clients would really utilize communicating with the attorney more through a portal then an app on the phone.
- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Great to use
Very good easy to use and great support services
Pros
Ease of use and so many options
Document storage client connecting trust and more
Cons
The cost per user is high and is based and billed in Us funds.
Alternatives Considered
PCLawReasons for Choosing Clio
Cosmolex poor accounting feature for Canadian users. Switched to clio with QB.Switched From
CosmoLexReasons for Switching to Clio
Integrates into QB Document storage Support services Backup system- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Great but needs some improvements
We have been using Clio extensively since
Pros
The user interface is very intuitive and easy to use.
Cons
The Tasks and Messaging could be more robust in Clio Manage and the phone app needs to better resemble the desktop version.
Alternatives Considered
Rocket MatterReasons for Choosing Clio
Needed something more integrated and will more features.Reasons for Switching to Clio
The user interface was more intuitive and our bar association had a discount on Clio- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Superb law firm specific client service system
Very good overall cloud base service for law firms
Pros
Clio gets the job done. Document uploading, e-signing documents, and a client communication portal, you name it.
Cons
Pricey service as you add more licenses within the firm.
- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Helpful Product
Pros
Being able to manage time, billing, documents, and client communication in one platform.
Cons
The price -- it's really expensive, and it just keeps going up.
- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Monthly for 1+ year
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Review Source
A Solid Start
My overall experience is satisfactory. Nothing to bad to complain about or too great to be excited.
Pros
What I like most is how versatile the program is and that you can customize and build it out to your needs
Cons
What I like least is that some of the features are not as intuitive as the competitors.
- Industry: Legal Services
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Clio Exceeds Our Expectations Every Time
Switching over to Clio was one of the best decisions our law firm ever made.
Pros
Clio is very user friendly. The company is extremely responsive to client input with regards to product enhancements.
Cons
I honestly cannot think of anything I don’t like.
- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Ease of running a law practice
So far, my overall experience has been great. Customer service is always willing to assist.
Pros
The ease of use and the integrations with third party software
Cons
The cost per user compared to other legal case management software.
Reasons for Switching to Clio
I was more familiar with using Clio; the ease of use. The ability to integrate with third party software- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Clio is Rock Solid
A very intuitive platform. Well-funded and increasingly improving.
Pros
Very accurate and reliable software. Customer service is very responsive. they appear to take suggestions well for enhancements.
Cons
Minor complaints about user access/authorizations. However, software roadmap contemplates fixes.
Alternatives Considered
LEAPReasons for Choosing Clio
PC Law was being twilighted. Not a stable platform.Switched From
PCLawReasons for Switching to Clio
Better platform. Heavy outside investment- Industry: Legal Services
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Solo Practitioner Recommends Clio
My experience with Clio has been excellent. Although Clio was not intuitive at first, it became so after a few months. The support has been excellent. Also, I have found Clio responsive to suggestions for improvement.
Pros
For a reasonable price, Clio includes a number of useful features in one package: DocuSign capacity, billing, trust accounting, document creation, hourly billing tracking, and of course management of cases and case loads.
Cons
Clio's method of running credit card or ACH fees and then tracking them is a bit frustrating. I do appreciate the fact that the fees are not taken from the trust fund.
- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Clio is a great tool
Overall Clio is a good tool that helps to keep you focused on earnings. It does glitch from time to time but my experience is that most legal software does that. I appreciate the fact that Clio seems to be constantly improving and they are open to user feedback. The support is also excellent.
Pros
I like the interface and I like that Clio focuses on profitability and showing you your earnings. I love the ease of billing and the preset feature for reports.
Cons
Clio tends to have latency issues. I would also like it if Clio would automatically add time entries for completed tasks with estimated times on them.
- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Clio Is the Most Useful Database We have Used
Overall Clio was a vast improvement to our previous programs (Tabs 3 and Abacus). The change in customer service however has dampened my enthusiasm..
Pros
Integration of payment, invoicing and CRM
I used to love the customer service but now....NO
Cons
Difficult to customize. Customer Service has gone from knowledgeable Canadian staff to foreign people not familiar with the program. You are often on your own to try to resolve questions - or make multiple queries.
Response from Clio
Hi Erica. Thanks for sharing this valuable feedback. I can assure you that we take into account this information to continuously improve our products and services.
I’m sorry you had an unsatisfactory experience with our customer success team. I can assure you that all of our customer service staff are trained in-house and have in-depth knowledge of all our products. While it may on occasion take more than one call to answer a question, please know that we are committed to resolving your queries as quickly as possible—and our team is available 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, via in-app chat, email, or phone should you need further assistance.
- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
I love Clio - it's already helping my practice grow
Really a great experience - great product! Sales was never too pushy, and also happy to answer my questions.
Pros
Clio is so easy to use, and definitely a great value. I love that Clio can grow with my practice - and help my practice grow! I'm looking forward to getting other products I use to interface with Clio (like QuickBooks, etc). I'm also thrilled that I have the ability to quickly and easily get clients signed up directly through Clio, rather than having to use a third party electronic signature system.
Cons
The self-help isn't fabulous, but fortunately I've been able to get help through online chat.
Alternatives Considered
MyCaseReasons for Choosing Clio
I used it at my prior firm, and swore I'd never use it again. Choosing Clio was the best decision I ever made.Reasons for Switching to Clio
Clio has great pricing, and I don't feel nickel-dimed - it's straightforward, easy to use, and no one in the sales process made me feel like I was buying a used car.- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Great Product and even better customer support
Overall, Clio has been great. Customer support has been amazing and quick to respond and provide assistance in resolutions.
Pros
Clio has been great to track billable time and expenses, and sharing documents (including LARGE attachments like videos.). Calendaring is great as you can link the event to a matter and invite users, including clients and other parties. Setting reminders is also great to help you take on task and meet your deadlines. Customer support is very responsive, and helpful. Clio Grow has also been great to use, wish the editing of the documents and forms was more user friendly--it has already gotten better since we started using Clio (there is now the ability to add a table!)
Cons
There have been bugs that have taken some time to correct. Timer issues (starting and stopping, you need to really pay attention that it is properly recorded this); additionally, the Clio calendar becomes un-synced with out Outlook calendar(s) and that is a huge issue (currently) as we have to double record.
- Industry: Legal Services
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Great Comprehensive CRM Platform Geared towards Legal Work
Overally, I've been using it for a few years now with my own firm. I used it at a few previous firms and I don't ever really see myself changing.
Pros
I like that it is a comprehensive CRM system that is geared towards legal. I can invoice with it, add new clients, retain documents, generate documents, you name it.
Cons
I think some features could be a little more user-friendly, but I think they are constantly working on that. It takes time to get all the bugs out of any technology.
- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Fallen far from grace
Awful. They look great at first glance given the supposed breadth of features they have, but when they start removing features without notice or you experience any problem with their software at all, it is all but guaranteed that they will be completely unable to assist and you will be left paying full price for a program that, at best, half works.
Pros
Clio used to have responsive and helpful customer support, but that was years ago! It was once easy to track and link payments to client matters, run useful reports, and handle cloud-based documents, but recently the software has seen nothing but bugs.
Cons
Clio is plagued with bugs and its cloud-based document system stops working entirely every few weeks or so, requiring a complete reinstallation of the desktop launcher. Clio also, without any notice at all, removed certain features that allowed for the linking of card payments from Clio Scheduler (a sister program), retroactively recharacterizing ALL prior card payments in a completely different manner and ruining my firm's entire accounting system overnight. Clio tech support is worthless and is never aware of any issues brought up to them about the software, no matter how debilitating the issue may be, and they endlessly put you on hold to "talk ton their team" while stalling and asking for more screenshots of the issue, only to tell you a week later that they can't help you. The software has fallen far from grace and serves only to be a very expensive patchwork of buggy integrations, paired with tech support that doesn't understand any of the details of their own program.
- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Finn Law Group
Overall, we love Clio and have it completely automated and integrated with other programs that we use. However, we had to use Zapier to automate the majority of it.
Pros
We like the integrations and ease of use.
Cons
Automation with the custom fields is lacking and we have to use secondary programming that still does not meet our needs. The reporting mechanisms could be better as well. We would also prefer some better integrations with Clio Grow and the inbox with the Quick Intake form.
- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Clio was the best investment I made in the early days of my law firm
My overall experience has been great. I was in an incubator program with other attorneys starting their own practice and, because I have Clio, I didn't have the struggles with tracking and billing that my peers had. I am glad I started using Clio when I only had a few clients because I have been able to learn as my firm has gown.
Pros
Clio makes it so easy to track of all the things that are important to me: potential clients, active clients, attorney time, billing, firm financial goals, etc. Even when my solo practice was just a side-hustle, Clio Manage more than paid for itself in time-savings and ease of use. Clio customer service has been excellent - the live help is really easily accessible for setup and problem-solving; the online articles and videos are great for on-demand help.
Cons
There is a lot of functionality in Clio that I don't use yet - there is so much that I could be doing with it, but it is hard to make time for the next new thing when I am also running a law firm. There are some add-ons that are marketed as having connectivity to/ compatibility with Clio that are redundant and don't make sense for my practice: for, example, QuickBooks will talk to Clio but the billing and tracking were redundant with what was already happening in Clio (I already billed through clio and I didn't need to do it through QB; and I can categorize spending through my actual bank accounts, so I didn't need it to do that, either). The only thing QB did that Clio didn't *already do* was deal with (part of) payroll for my one assistant (then I found out QB was incorrectly calculating my state worker comp amounts and I dumped QB and got a bookkeeper to help with my employee needs).
- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Couldn't Practice Without It
I've used Clio for years and couldn't operate my practice without it. As a solo it allows me to manage my firm without needing much extra admin assistance.
Pros
I love how easy Clio makes it to do nearly all of my day-to-day practice management from invoicing to trust accounting. The calendaring / court rules and document automation is also great.
Cons
I didn't love that they increased the processing fee for Clio Payments not very long after I signed up for it. They did agree to freeze the rate for a few months until it goes up, but I was disappointed they increased it in the first place.
- Industry: Legal Services
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
It Doesn't Get Better Than Clio!
My experience with CLIO (both the product and the company) has been phenomenal. I have zero complaints. Clio is the foundation of our client management system and is therefore essential to running my organization. Beyond the product itself, Clio's customer service is next level. The staff are friendly, competent, and client-focused. In the several years I have been interacting with Clio staff (in-person and virtually) I have NEVER been treated like a number, dismissed, or ignored. If the representative I am working with cannot address the issue, they hand me off to someone who can. This speaks volumes to the character of the staff and the quality of the company itself.
Pros
What is not to LOVE about Clio? The platform itself is intuitive, efficient, and has become essential to effectively running my organization. Even features that have not been particularly relevant to my practice (non-profit sector) have either already been updated to be more relevant (Clio for Legal Aid) or are in the process of being updated.
Beyond the practicalness of the product itself, Clio is a company that is visably devoted to their staff, clients, and mission. Passion for the practice of law is one thing, passion for the humans who choose to practice law is another. Clio's client-centered approach sets them apart from their competition in this regard.
Cons
We have been using an ACCESS Database to process our claims (non-profit sector) for more than two decades. I would love to use the billing/invoice features offered through Clio but, they are not yet granular enough to fully transition us out of ACCESS.
- Industry: Law Practice
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Clio for Law Practice Management
Excellent. I have no real issues with the product, which is actually a great compliment. If you are thinking about your practice management tools, it probably means they are not working as well as they should.
Pros
Ease of use and reliability. Entering time is the bane of every lawyers existence. This makes it about as easy as it’s going to get.
Cons
No real downsides. The only area I can think of which might be improved is the ease of entering contact information for multiple clients on the same matter.