How to Choose Your Ediscovery Billing Method

Are you being charged for each user you have regardless of whether or not they log in to your ediscovery software? Perhaps you are paying for each user on a particular case. Or you may not be paying by the user at all and instead be billing by the gigabyte. Most of the industry uses one of two models for pricing, either user-based or per gigabyte. Charging per gigabyte of stored data is the most common method of billing in today’s ediscovery world. Monthly fees tend to vary widely based on the size of the data, which could be influenced by factors such as data expansion, production and image creation. Because the amount billed is based on a moving target, however, predictability can be compromised. 

Despite the varying number of users, whether there are new hires or a large case, user fees can be more predictable. If you are only charged for those users who log in and if your users can access multiple cases, the total number of users you have at any given time isn’t as relevant. The most successful approach within the user fee model might be to pick a baseline of the average number of users you expect to use and pay for extra users only when you need them. You can just pick the month when you had the most users.