PracticePanther pricing 2026: plans and where intake starts

It's a Tuesday at a small firm: two lawyers, one assistant, one shared inbox. A prospect filled out the website form at 9:15 last night. Someone called at 7:50 this morning and hung up when the call went to voicemail. The assistant is printing a fee agreement so a new client can sign it, scan it, and email it back. One of the partners has the PracticePanther pricing page open and wants to know which plan stops the office from doing all of that by hand.

This post covers PracticePanther pricing for that firm: what each plan costs per user, what each tier adds, where intake, texting and eSignature start, and what you still do yourself on any plan. Every price and feature below comes from PracticePanther's pricing page, which I checked on October 31, 2026. Vendors change plans often, so check the page again before you buy.

PracticePanther pricing at a glance

All four plans include contact and matter management, billable time and expense tracking, a secure client portal, unlimited data storage, the iPhone, iPad and Android apps, and support. The page labels Business "popular" and Business Pro "full suite."

The page also lists the terms. The free trial is 7 days, and you don't need a credit card. The annual toggle says "Save $120/user/year," which fits the $10 per user per month difference on every tier. The page doesn't spell out how annual billing is charged, so ask whether you pay the year up front.

What a small firm actually pays

PracticePanther prices per user, so headcount sets the bill. Here's the math from the annual rates on the page:

If you pay monthly, add $10 per user per month to any cell. I left Solo out of the multi-user rows on purpose. The page prices it per user, but the name points to a single lawyer, and the page doesn't say whether it caps users. Ask before you put three people on it.

For the firm in the opening scene, going from Essential to Business on the annual rate adds $20 per user per month. With three users that's $60 a month, or $720 a year. Whether Business is worth that $720 depends mostly on how your new clients find you.

Where intake, texting and eSignature start

For a small firm, this is the part of the PracticePanther pricing page to read twice. Three features that touch new clients first show up on Business:

• Intake forms. On Solo and Essential, a web inquiry lands wherever your website sends it, and someone retypes it into a contact and a matter.
• Two-way business texting. Below Business, texting a prospect back means using a personal cell or paying for a separate tool.
• eSignature. Below Business, fee agreements go out as attachments and come back as scans, unless you pay for a separate signing service.

So the lower plans cover the work after someone becomes a client: matters, time, invoices, payments, the portal. Business covers the part where people decide whether to hire you. If most of your clients come by referral and a phone call, Essential may be enough. If you get web inquiries every week and lose some to slow replies, Business is the tier that brings those tools into the same system as the matter. I wrote about that trade-off in law firm intake form vs intake call.

Trust accounting: ask before you pick a tier

Trust accounting is the line I'd confirm first. The page lists it among the items Business Pro adds, next to PantherAccounting Plus, operating accounting and the general ledger. It doesn't say what, if anything, the lower plans include for tracking retainers and trust balances. That could mean trust accounting is only on Business Pro. It could also mean basic trust tracking sits on every plan and Business Pro adds full accounting on top. Ask sales directly, and get the answer in writing, because it's the difference between $89 and $114 per user per month.

Whatever the answer, check your state bar's trust account rules before you change how retainers are tracked. The software keeps the records, but the firm is still the one responsible for them.

Questions to ask PracticePanther before you sign

Copy this list into your notes for the sales call or the last day of the trial:

1. Is Solo limited to one user?
2. Which plans include trust accounting, and what does Business Pro add beyond lower-tier trust tracking?
3. What are the PantherPayments processing rates for card and eCheck?
4. Is the annual price charged up front, and what happens if we add or remove users mid-year?
5. Can intake forms create the contact and the matter automatically, or only the contact?
6. Does two-way texting use our existing office number, or a new one?
7. What does data migration from our current system include, and is there a fee?
8. Which integrations and which API access come with each plan?

Questions 3 and 7 are the ones the pricing page doesn't answer, and they're the ones that move the real cost. If your clients pay most fees by card, processing can cost more each month than the subscription.

If you're comparing products, I broke down another legal practice tool the same way in MyCase pricing. Compare the tier where intake starts in each product, not the entry prices.

What stays by hand even on Business Pro

Business Pro has every tool on the page, and none of them decide how your office works. On any tier, someone still has to:

• Write the intake questions for each practice area, so an estate planning inquiry and a family law inquiry don't get the same blank form.
• Decide who owns a new lead and how fast they reply.
• Notice that a prospect who called Monday still hasn't heard back by Wednesday.
• Catch the 7:50 call that came in before anyone was at a desk.
• Chase invoices past due on a schedule the firm agrees on. I wrote out the wording for that in payment reminder message templates.

If nobody sets those rules, a firm can pay for Business and still lose the person who called at 7:50.

Automating around PracticePanther without moving up a tier

You don't have to upgrade to fix the front end. These pieces can run outside PracticePanther and hand off to it:

1. Missed-call text back. When a call goes unanswered, the caller gets a text from the firm's number within a minute, asking what they need and offering a consult time.
2. A website form that branches by practice area. It asks the right questions for each one and sends one readable summary to whoever owns intake, not a pile of raw fields.
3. A follow-up that stops itself. If a prospect doesn't book within a day, they get one reminder. The sequence ends the moment they reply.
4. A morning summary. The partners get one short note: new inquiries, who owns each one, and which ones are still waiting on a reply.

I built this kind of intake for a freight forwarder. Quote, import, export and general inquiries each arrive sorted to the right person, so nobody has to pick through a shared inbox. A law firm has more rules about what can be collected and stored, but the structure is the same. Builds start at $500 one-time, then a flat monthly from $99 after an included run-in period, cancellable. More on how this works for firms is on the law firm automation page.

What stays with a person

Some of this should never be automated. Conflict checks need a lawyer's judgment, even when software runs the search. Deciding whether to take a matter is a conversation. A fee agreement should be explained by a person before anyone signs it, eSignature or not. A client who calls upset about a bill should reach someone in the office, not a menu. Keep client details out of any tool you haven't vetted. What I automate is the handoffs and the reminders, so the people in the office spend their time on the conversations above.

Get a second opinion before you pick a tier

If you're deciding between Essential and Business, or you already use PracticePanther and intake still leaks, book a free 20 minute process audit. We'll look at where new matters stall in your week and whether the fix is a plan change, a setup change, or a small build around what you already have. Book it here.