Law360 vs Westlaw Pricing and Whether a Law Firm Needs Both

Law360 and Westlaw are not competing for the same job, and they are not priced the same way. Westlaw Advantage publishes a price for small firms: from 256.75 dollars a month for one federal circuit, or 399.75 for all states plus federal. Law360 publishes nothing, but public federal contracts show organizations paying about 1,100 to 3,700 dollars per user per year. A solo who buys both should budget roughly 7,500 dollars a year. Most firms only need one of them, and which one depends on whether your work starts with a headline or with a legal question.

This comparison is for a US litigator or a small firm partner holding a Law360 quote and a Westlaw renewal at the same time and wondering whether both belong in the budget. We read Law360's subscription FAQ on 1 October 2026, its tier table from an October 2025 archive capture, and Law360 award records on USAspending.gov. Westlaw prices come from the Thomson Reuters store, read 27 September 2026. It is informational research, not legal advice. The full Law360 tier and seat breakdown is on our Law360 subscription cost page.

How much does Law360 cost?

Law360 costs whatever its sales team quotes. It has no price page, no card checkout, and takes payment by invoice or over the phone after you fill out a request form that asks for your firm name and how many attorneys you have.

The public record is more useful. Federal agencies publish their purchases, and six recent Law360 awards list both a dollar total and a user count. The Environmental Protection Agency paid 11,004 dollars for a three-user year from April 2026, which is 3,668 per user. The Department of Transportation paid 11,092 for ten users in 2024, or 1,109 each. Accounts in between, with 8 to 10 users, landed near 2,500 per user. Vendr, which tracks private software contracts, reports a median Law360 deal of 6,075 dollars a year.

Law360 sells four tiers. Select covers up to three practice areas or states. Complete covers everything and adds dockets, 3.9 million federal cases, custom alerts and the archive. All Access US adds Law360 Pulse and the Authority products, and All Access International adds the UK and Canada.

How much does Westlaw cost?

Westlaw Advantage costs a firm of 1 to 10 attorneys from 256.75 dollars a month for one federal circuit, or 399.75 a month for all states plus federal, on Thomson Reuters' own store. Over a year that is about 3,081 or 4,797 dollars. A two-year term takes 12 percent off and a three-year term 18 percent.

Those prices are for new customers buying online. Westlaw Edge and Westlaw Classic publish no price, and larger firms negotiate. If you are already on Westlaw and comparing renewal terms, our Westlaw solo practitioner pricing page walks through the plan options and the multi-year math.

Law360 vs Westlaw pricing side by side

The two numbers look similar per lawyer per year, which is why the question comes up. They buy completely different things, though, so the real comparison is not which is cheaper but which one your practice cannot work without.

Is Law360 included with Westlaw?

No. Law360 is owned by LexisNexis, Westlaw's main competitor, and it is not sold inside any Westlaw plan. Thomson Reuters' answer to Law360 is Westlaw Today, a Reuters-powered legal news service that was launched as an add-on for Westlaw subscribers rather than a product you can buy on its own. If you want news inside your Westlaw login, Westlaw Today is the thing to price.

The reverse pairing exists on the LexisNexis side. Law360 news appears inside Lexis for users who hold both a Lexis subscription and an unlimited-seat Law360 subscription, and the LexisNexis store lists Law360 among the content in its Lexis+ Professional plan for firms of 1 to 3 attorneys, at 432 dollars a month on a one-year term. Ask the rep whether that means law360.com with alerts or Law360 stories inside Lexis+ only.

Do you need both Law360 and Westlaw?

Most small firms do not. Here is how it usually breaks down by practice.

• Litigation boutique that wins work from new filings. Law360 Complete earns its price through alerts on competitors, clients and judges. You still need a research tool, but it does not have to be the most expensive one.
• Appellate or motion-heavy practice. Westlaw first. KeyCite on every brief is the reason to pay, and a daily news feed adds little to a practice that already reads the opinions.
• Transactional or regulatory practice. The Law360 sections for your industry are often more useful than a full research seat, and Select may be enough.
• Solo general practice. Neither at full price. Read the free Law360 newsletters, and buy research sized to what you actually file.

A useful test before either call: count how many new matters last year began with a news story, and how many briefs you filed. The first number argues for Law360, the second for Westlaw. If both are small, you are about to overspend.

What does a firm pay for both Law360 and Westlaw?

For one attorney, Westlaw Advantage with all states plus federal is about 4,797 dollars a year, and the smallest Law360 deal in the public record works out near 2,700 dollars per user. Together that is roughly 7,500 dollars a year, before any negotiation.

Two cheaper routes cover most of the same ground. Lexis+ Professional, if its Law360 inclusion turns out to be full access, puts research and news on one invoice at about 5,184 dollars for the first year. Or keep Law360 for the alerts and swap the research seat for focused case law search: Cases costs 49 dollars a month, or 24 a month billed yearly, and finds the US federal and state decisions a headline is about. That pairing lands near 3,000 dollars a year. The honest catch is that we have no citator, so a firm that files often still needs KeyCite or Shepard's somewhere.

What news tools and research tools each do well

Law360 is excellent at speed. It publishes about 200 articles a business day across more than 60 sections, and a partner who reads it at 8 a.m. hears about the new class action before the client calls. Many firms turn those stories into client alerts the same morning, and the ones that do it well repurpose one alert across every channel rather than rewriting it for LinkedIn and the newsletter separately.

Westlaw is excellent at certainty. The opinion, the cases it cites, whether any of them has been reversed, and the statutes underneath. A story tells you what happened; research tells you what it means for your client and whether you can rely on it in a filing.

That gap is where we fit. Ask the legal question in plain English and read the decisions that answer it, with every citation linked to the opinion. If you are weighing research seats generally, our legal research pricing comparison puts Westlaw, Lexis, Bloomberg Law and the AI tools side by side, and the Westlaw free trial guide explains what the seven days include before you commit.

Is Law360 worth it compared with Westlaw?

Law360 is worth it when news drives revenue: when knowing about a filing, a ruling or a lateral move first leads to work. Westlaw is worth it when certainty drives risk: when a bad citation in a brief costs more than the seat. If neither is true for your practice, the cheapest sensible setup is free legal news, focused case law search, and a citator check before anything is filed.