Legal · head to head
Tabs3 vs Westlaw
Tabs3
Legal
Billing, trust and general ledger accounting for small and mid-sized US law firms
- From
- $69/month
- Rated
- -
Westlaw
Legal
Thomson Reuters legal research platform, priced per seat with tiers from Edge to Advantage and negotiated enterprise contracts above 10 attorneys
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Tabs3 the interface follows Windows desktop conventions from an earlier era, so new fee earners and staff take longer to train than they would on a browser-based competitor.; Westlaw firms of 11 or more attorneys, which is most firms actually spending serious money on Westlaw, get no published price at all and negotiate blind against a sales team that sees every prior deal.
- They diverge on capability: Tabs3 covers Tabs3 Billing, Westlaw covers Case law and statute database.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Tabs3 and Westlaw actually diverge.
Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Legal).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Tabs3
- Tabs3 Billing
- Trust accounting
- General ledger and accounts payable
- PracticeMaster
- On-premises or cloud subscription
Only in Westlaw
- Case law and statute database
- KeyCite
- Practical Law
- CoCounsel Legal
- Litigation analytics
- West Key Number System
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Tabs3
- Small firms billing hourly that want billing and the firm general ledger in one system rather than reconciling twonot Westlaw
- Practices that must run three-way trust reconciliation without a separate bookkeeping packagenot Westlaw
- Firms that need an on-premises deployment because of client or insurer restrictions on cloud-hosted matter datanot Westlaw
- Long-established practices replacing a decades-old billing system while keeping accounting in housenot Westlaw
Westlaw
- A solo attorney or small firm wanting published, self-service pricing rather than a sales negotiationnot Tabs3
- A firm evaluating whether Practical Law and secondary sources justify moving from Edge to Advantagenot Tabs3
- A litigation team wanting KeyCite and litigation analytics in the same research platformnot Tabs3
- A firm that previously used Casetext and needs to understand that it must now buy CoCounsel Legal inside Westlaw insteadnot Tabs3
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Tabs3
- The interface follows Windows desktop conventions from an earlier era, so new fee earners and staff take longer to train than they would on a browser-based competitor.
- On-premises deployment puts backup, disaster recovery, server upgrades and patching on the firm, which small practices without IT support routinely underestimate.
- It is built around hourly and flat fee billing, so a contingency practice tracking case costs and settlement disbursements will find the case financial model a poor fit.
- PracticeMaster case management is priced separately from billing, so the advertised per-user rate is not what a firm wanting matter management actually pays.
- Choosing the on-premises option no longer avoids a subscription, because it is billed per user per month like the hosted version.
Westlaw
- Firms of 11 or more attorneys, which is most firms actually spending serious money on Westlaw, get no published price at all and negotiate blind against a sales team that sees every prior deal.
- Casetext no longer exists as an independent, cheaper self-serve product; anyone who liked its pricing and simplicity now has to buy into the Westlaw ecosystem, typically at a higher, seat-based cost.
- Multi-year contracts are structurally rewarded with the biggest discounts, which pressures firms into 2 or 3 year commitments before they know if usage will justify the tier chosen.
- Content and features vary meaningfully between Edge and Advantage, so an apparently small monthly price difference can hide the absence of Practical Law, which many firms end up needing anyway.
- Switching away from Westlaw means retraining staff on Lexis search syntax and the Key Number System has no direct Lexis equivalent, which is a genuine cost that suppresses competitive shopping at renewal.
Pricing, plan by plan
Tabs3
$69/month- OnSite Subscription$69/month
- Deployed on the firm server
- Billing, trust accounting and general ledger
- PracticeMaster add-on at 32 USD per user per month
- Tabs3 Cloud$89/month
- Hosted by the vendor
- Billing, trust accounting and general ledger
- PracticeMaster add-on at 35 USD per user per month
Westlaw
On request- Westlaw Edge (solo and small firm, up to 10 attorneys)$undefined/month
- Single-circuit coverage from roughly $107 to $155 a month
- All-states-plus-federal coverage roughly $266 a month
- 2-year contracts around 12% off list, 3-year around 18% off
- Westlaw Advantage (firms of 11+ attorneys)$undefined/year
- Bundles Practical Law and secondary sources
- No published price, quote via sales representative
- CoCounsel Legal available as a seat add-on, reported around $639 per seat per month
Which should you pick?
Choose Tabs3 if
- You need tabs3 billing.
- You work on Windows, Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want trust accounting.
Choose Westlaw if
- You need case law and statute database.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want keycite.
Questions people ask
- Is Tabs3 or Westlaw better?
- Neither clearly leads. Tabs3 starts at $69/month and Westlaw at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Tabs3 or Westlaw?
- Tabs3 starts at $69/month and Westlaw at On request.
- Does Tabs3 or Westlaw run on more platforms?
- Tabs3 runs on Windows, Web, iOS, Android. Westlaw runs on Web, iOS, Android.
- What is Tabs3 best used for?
- Tabs3 is most often used for small firms billing hourly that want billing and the firm general ledger in one system rather than reconciling two, practices that must run three-way trust reconciliation without a separate bookkeeping package, firms that need an on-premises deployment because of client or insurer restrictions on cloud-hosted matter data, long-established practices replacing a decades-old billing system while keeping accounting in house. Of those, small firms billing hourly that want billing and the firm general ledger in one system rather than reconciling two and practices that must run three-way trust reconciliation without a separate bookkeeping package are not what Westlaw is typically brought in for.
- What can Tabs3 do that Westlaw cannot?
- Tabs3 covers Tabs3 Billing, Trust accounting, General ledger and accounts payable, PracticeMaster. Westlaw covers Case law and statute database, KeyCite, Practical Law, CoCounsel Legal.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Tabs3: Is Tabs3 right for a personal injury firm working on contingency?
No. It is built for hourly and flat fee billing with a firm general ledger. A contingency practice needs case cost tracking and settlement disbursement handling, which is what CASEpeer and Filevine are built around.
Westlaw: Can I still buy Casetext?
No. Casetext was retired on 1 April 2025. Its AI functionality continues as CoCounsel Legal, sold only as part of the Westlaw ecosystem.
Tabs3: Can I still buy Tabs3 as a perpetual licence?
No published perpetual price exists. The on-premises option, called OnSite Subscription, starts at 69 USD per user per month, with the hosted Tabs3 Cloud starting at 89 USD per user per month.
Westlaw: Why does Westlaw publish some prices but not others?
Self-service online pricing exists only for solo practitioners and firms up to 10 attorneys; larger firms are routed to a sales representative with no public rate.
Tabs3: Does it replace QuickBooks?
For most firms yes. It includes a double-entry general ledger and accounts payable, which is the usual reason firms choose it over billing-only products.
Westlaw: What does CoCounsel Legal cost on top of Westlaw?
Reported figures put it around $639 per seat per month as an add-on, though this is not an official published rate and varies by contract.
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