What the hours cost. What Paqt returns.

Hours and dollars, side by side

Start with one deal — a Standard MSA at an illustrative $400 an hour — then change the rate, the hours, the allocated Paqt cost, or switch to a year's mix. Mix chips (startup, in-house, procurement) are starting volumes, not measured customer mixes. Copy the link to send the estimate. Operator hours are the person who starts the room, reviews gated clauses and sends for signature.

Default lawyer rate $400 an hour.

This deal. One Standard MSA, once. Counsel at $400 an hour versus running that paper in Paqt. Change the rate, the hours, or pick a different matter.

A 40-paper year. Your mix: 20× Standard NDA, 8× Standard MSA, 8× Vendor renewal, 4× Employment offer letter. Same $400 rate and allocated Paqt costs as the rows below.

First-draft estimates, not measured results. Figures start in USD; the CAD chip converts totals at a labelled, dated rate — not a live market feed. The $400 rate is a setting, not a survey — drag it to your blended outside-counsel number. On a year's mix, hours and allocated Paqt cost are editable on each row. Copy link writes those settings into the URL; Reset restores the published defaults. A shared link's social preview is this page's published defaults, not the query. Paqt is not a law firm and this page is not legal advice. Novel, disputed or high-stakes work still belongs with counsel.

• One deal — Hours returned: 6.5 hrs (8 hrs counsel minus 1.5 hrs operator)
• One deal — Cost not invoiced: $3,155 ($3,200 counsel minus $45 allocated to Paqt)
• One deal — Operator time that remains: 1.5 hrs (Intake, gated review and sending for signature on this deal)
• Year's mix — Hours returned: 121.6 hrs (146 hrs counsel minus 24.4 hrs operator)
• Year's mix — Cost not invoiced: $57,648 ($58,400 counsel minus $752 allocated to Paqt)
• Year's mix — Operator time that remains: 24.4 hrs (Intake, gated review and sending for signature)
• Standard NDA: Hiring a lawyer 2.5 hours / $1,000; Running it in Paqt 0.4 hours / $12; time saved 2.1 hours; cost saved $988
• Standard MSA: Hiring a lawyer 8 hours / $3,200; Running it in Paqt 1.5 hours / $45; time saved 6.5 hours; cost saved $3,155
• Vendor renewal: Hiring a lawyer 3 hours / $1,200; Running it in Paqt 0.3 hours / $10; time saved 2.7 hours; cost saved $1,190
• Employment offer letter: Hiring a lawyer 2 hours / $800; Running it in Paqt 0.5 hours / $18; time saved 1.5 hours; cost saved $782

Counsel time is not the same as operator time

The chart only pays off if you are honest about which hours you are comparing. A lawyer reading novel risk is not interchangeable with a person starting a room.

• The invoice you already recognise — Outside counsel on standard paper: read the draft, mark it up, email it back, wait, mark it up again, send an engagement letter for the signature pack. Billed in six-minute increments at a rate this page defaults, illustratively, to $400 an hour — a setting you can drag to yours.
• The hours Paqt still needs from you — Someone writes or picks the mandate, starts the room, answers the clauses you gated, and sends for signature. That is not zero. It is a fraction of the counsel loop, and it is the number in the Paqt hours column — which you can also move.
• The work the assistant takes — Drafting from the library, the clause-level turns, chasing the counterparty, routing the review, assembling the signature pack and keeping the record. That is the gap the chart is trying to price.

Use Paqt for settled paper. Keep counsel for the rest.

A value chart that pretends every matter is an NDA is a marketing page. This one is not trying to be that.

• Still hire a lawyer: Novel risk, a dispute, or a deal that will be read in court
• Still hire a lawyer: A first-of-its-kind structure your library does not cover
• Still hire a lawyer: Employment, regulatory or healthcare paper that needs an opinion, not a draft
• Still hire a lawyer: Anything your mandate would have to invent rather than apply
• Run it in Paqt: NDAs, renewals and standard MSAs against a playbook you already have
• Run it in Paqt: Offer letters and amendments on an approved template
• Run it in Paqt: High-volume paper where the positions are known and the waiting is the cost
• Run it in Paqt: The follow-up, the routing and the record around a review a lawyer still owns

These numbers are a first draft

The site’s other pages are forbidden from inventing performance statistics. This page is the exception, and the exception is labelled. Treat every figure as a placeholder for a number you will replace.

If a figure on this page survives into a later draft, it should be because someone here can defend it, not because it looked large.

• Not claimed: These are not measured customer results
• Not claimed: The $400 rate is not a survey of the market
• Not claimed: Allocated Paqt cost is not the published seat price
• Not claimed: Paqt does not replace a lawyer, a law firm, or legal advice
• What you can do with them: Drag the hourly-rate slider to your blended outside-counsel number
• What you can do with them: Price one deal — one NDA, one MSA — and set the allocated Paqt cost on it
• What you can do with them: Switch to a year's mix, pick a starting mix, and edit volume, hours and allocated cost on each row
• What you can do with them: Copy the link so the estimate survives a refresh and a forward

Four inputs, then a subtraction

Change any of these and the chart moves. That is the point of publishing the working rather than a single round number.

• Counsel cost: Rate × hours per matter type
• Counsel cost: Default rate on this page: $400 / hour — a setting, not a constant
• Counsel cost: Hours include review, turns, and the signature pack
• Paqt cost: Allocated seat plus estimated AI credits for that matter
• Paqt cost: On one deal, a setting you can drag — not copied from Pricing
• Paqt cost: Counterparties do not need a paid seat to negotiate or sign
• Time: Counsel hours minus operator hours = hours returned
• Time: Operator hours are intake, gated review and sending for signature
• Time: Waiting on the other side is excluded from both columns
• What stays human: Named clause gates still stop the run
• What stays human: A person still decides the positions the mandate encodes
• What stays human: High-stakes work is out of scope for the chart

Questions about the estimates

• Are these measured results? No. They are first-draft illustrative estimates so a buyer can see the shape of the comparison. Replace the rate, the hours and the mix with figures from your own invoices before you use any of them in a budget.
• Does using Paqt replace our lawyer? No. Paqt is an agreement workspace with an AI assistant. It is not a law firm and it does not give legal advice. Counsel still owns novel, disputed and high-stakes work, and owns the playbook the assistant runs on settled paper.
• I only have one deal. Do I have to invent a year's volume? No. The calculator opens on one deal — a Standard MSA, once. Pick the matter you actually have, set the hours counsel would spend on that paper, and read the gap. Switch to a year's mix only when you want 20 NDAs and 8 MSAs in the same picture.
• Can I send this estimate to a cofounder? Yes. Copy link writes the rate, the matter, the hours, the allocated Paqt cost and the mix into the address bar. Opening that URL paints the same estimate. Reset restores the published defaults and clears the query so the URL is /value again.
• What are the Startup, In-house and Procurement chips? Starting volumes for a year's mix, not measured customer mixes. Startup is a handful of deals; In-house is the 40-paper mix this page starts from; Procurement leans on vendors and renewals. Move the sliders off them until they match last year.
• Can I put our actual Paqt spend on the deal? Yes. On one deal, Allocated Paqt cost is a setting from $0 to $250. It is not the published seat price. Drag it to what you actually spend on that matter. The live plan grid still lives on Pricing.
• Why is the Paqt cost so much lower than the counsel invoice? Because the comparison is standard paper against a billed hour, not a partner’s judgement on a new structure. Most of a counsel invoice on an NDA is rereading, redlining and chasing. That is the work the assistant takes. If the matter is not that shape, do not put it in this chart.
• Where do the published prices live? On the Pricing page, rendered from the same plan catalog as Settings → Subscription. This page’s allocated Paqt costs are estimates of seat-plus-credits per matter, written here so they can be edited without silently drifting from the prices you are actually charged.
• What happens if our rate is not $400 an hour? Move the slider. Presets sit at $250, $400, $550 and $700; the range runs from $150 to $800. The hours do not change unless you move those too. The honest version of this page is the one where those two numbers came from your last year of invoices, not from this draft.
• Are these Canadian dollars? Figures are stored in USD. The USD/CAD chip converts the totals at 1.37 CAD per 1 USD, labelled as illustrative as of 15 October 2026 — not a live market feed. The rate and allocated-cost inputs stay in USD because that is the invoice most buyers are comparing against. Change the chip, not a hidden multiplier.
• Why doesn't the preview in Slack show my numbers? The social card is generated at build time from the published defaults. Query strings cannot change it. Open the link to see the estimate you actually sent; the card is only a label that this is an estimate.

Price the mix you actually run

Start free, put one NDA through the room, and compare the operator time with the last invoice you paid for the same paper. The chart is a sketch; that comparison is the real one.

• No card to start
• Counterparties do not need a seat
• Counsel still reviews what you gate