Legal Templates Review: The Plan You Pick Costs Five Times More

A lease, a bill of sale, a simple contract. Paying a lawyer to draft one can cost more than the thing it covers, which is why template libraries exist.

Legal Templates is one of the larger ones, and by customer rating it is doing well. This Legal Templates review is mostly about the two numbers on its pricing page, because choosing wrongly between them costs almost five hundred dollars a year.

The Pricing, Side by Side

Forty nine ninety five a month against nine ninety nine a month. Same library, five times the price.

Both plans give full access to the same library of more than 450 legal document templates, with unlimited downloads in Word and PDF.

The monthly plan is the one marked most popular, and the annual plan is marked best value, which is the more accurate label of the two. Over a year the gap is $479.52.

There is a sensible case for monthly. If you need one tenancy agreement and nothing else, $49.95 for a month beats $119.88 for a year, and the break even point sits at about 2.4 months, so anything longer than that and the annual plan wins.

Two Records That Look Nothing Alike

Eleven thousand reviews averaging 4.3, alongside 322 complaints at the BBB with a third of them about billing.

Both of these can be true at once, and understanding why is the most useful thing in this article.

Most people who use a template site get what they came for, download a document and never think about it again, and those are the reviews that fill a Trustpilot profile. The people who end up at the BBB are almost always the ones who did not notice a renewal.

Of 322 complaints in three years, 107 concern billing. The pattern described is consistent, with customers reporting a charge of $49.95 after a free trial they believed they had cancelled.

To be fair to the company, it answers. It responded to 220 of those complaints and 102 were resolved, and on Trustpilot it replies to 99% of negative reviews, usually within a day.

The Trial Is Where It Goes Wrong

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The single most effective thing you can do is put the cancellation date in your calendar the moment you sign up.

A free trial that converts into a $49.95 monthly plan is a completely normal business model, and it is also the model that generates the most disputes in every industry that uses it, because the whole thing depends on the customer remembering a date that the company has no incentive to remind them of.

Two minutes of admin saves the whole dispute.

Set a reminder for the day before it ends. Cancel through your account settings rather than by deleting the app or the bookmark, and check your bank statement the day after the trial should have expired.

If a charge does appear, raise it promptly. The company points to a 30 day refund window, and complaints that were escalated do appear to have been refunded.

What the Library Is Actually Good For

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Setting the billing aside, the product itself earns its ratings.

1. More than 450 documents covering business, property and personal matters
2. Questionnaire style building rather than a blank page
3. Downloads in both Word and PDF, so you can edit later
4. Documents adjusted for the state you select

Where these libraries are genuinely useful is the ordinary paperwork that a lawyer would charge a minimum fee to produce, such as a simple rental agreement, a non disclosure agreement between two small businesses, or a bill of sale for a used car.

Where they are not appropriate is anything with real money or real risk attached. A shareholder agreement, an employment dispute, anything involving property you cannot afford to lose, or any document you do not fully understand is worth a lawyer's hour, and a template is a false economy there.

Who Should Subscribe

Subscribe on the annual plan if you run a small business or a rental and expect to need several documents across the year. At $119.88 it is the obvious choice.

Take the monthly plan only if you need one document now, and cancel it the moment you have downloaded what you came for.

Final Verdict

Seven out of ten. The library is broad and easy to use, the annual plan at $119.88 is fair value for anyone who needs legal document templates more than twice a year, and 4.3 from 11,657 reviews with 99% of negative ones answered is a real track record. What costs it points is a monthly plan at five times the annual rate, and 107 billing complaints out of 322 at the BBB describing charges after a free trial. Anyone reading a Legal Templates review should diary the trial end date before doing anything else.

FAQs

How much does Legal Templates cost?

$9.99 a month billed annually, or $49.95 a month on the monthly plan.

Is there a free trial?

Yes, and it converts into a paid plan automatically, which is where most complaints begin.

Which plan is better value?

Annual, unless you need access for less than about 2.4 months.

Are the documents legally valid?

They are drafted as state specific templates, but a template is not legal advice. Complex matters need a lawyer.

Can I cancel?

Yes, through account settings. Do it before the trial ends and check your statement afterwards.

What if I am charged by mistake?

Contact support promptly. The company references a 30 day refund window and does issue refunds.