Hire vs DIY
When DIY is fine
When the matter is in between
When you should hire me
Should I hire an attorney for my SaaS contract?
My templates and generators on this site cover most routine SaaS paper. I built them to be useful. They are not a substitute for attorney work on a deal where the numbers, the counterparty, or the carve-outs put real money at risk. This page draws the line. I want the visitor who is sitting on a standard order form to leave with a working draft and zero fee. I want the visitor sitting on a million-dollar MSA, an uncapped IP indemnity, or a renewal dispute already in arbitration to know why the template is the wrong tool and what hiring me actually changes.
Use the templates and free tools on this site when
- You are drafting your own first SaaS subscription terms for a self-serve, low-ticket product. The SaaS Agreement Generator produces a working baseline that covers limitation of liability, IP, auto-renewal, and termination. It is fine for a $29 to $499 a month product with no enterprise customers yet.
- You need a standalone subscription terms page for a B2C app. The Subscription Terms Generator handles California Business and Professions Code section 17602 auto-renewal disclosures at the level a small B2C app needs.
- You need a public-facing terms of service for the website wrapper. The Terms of Service Generator covers the standard ToS surface area, including acceptable use, account termination, and dispute resolution.
- You need a data processing addendum boilerplate for a vendor that has none. The DPA Generator produces a baseline that maps to CCPA service-provider obligations and GDPR Article 28 controller-to-processor terms. Good enough for most early-stage vendor paper.
- You want to read a SaaS contract before paying anyone to look at it. The SaaS Contract Review Tool is a free AI Legal Analyst pass over the document. It flags the obvious asymmetries: one-way indemnity, low cap, "sole and exclusive remedy" stacked with a sole-remedy SLA. Read it before deciding whether to hire.
- You want to understand a single clause before you push back on it. The SaaS liability caps insight and the IP indemnification carve-outs insight walk through the doctrines I rely on in negotiation.
- The deal is signed, the relationship is healthy, the renewal date is months away. Templates and the AI Legal Analyst chatbox cover almost every "what does this clause mean" question that arrives between deals.
Book a 30-minute consultation when
- You have a vendor redline back from a customer and you do not know if the changes are reasonable. A $125 / 30 min consult tells you which redlines are customary enterprise practice and which are aggressive. If the answer is "hire me," I credit the consult against the engagement.
- The deal value is between $25,000 and $100,000 and your gut says the paper is asymmetric. One scoping call is usually enough to tell you whether a full review and redline is justified or whether your in-house instinct is correct and the template covers it.
- You are mid-negotiation and stuck on one clause. An hour of $240 hourly negotiation support, with my one-page memo behind your redline, often moves the counterparty without anyone else seeing my name on the file.
- A SaaS renewal is approaching and you are not sure whether the auto-renewal notice was valid. Thirty minutes against the renewal notice and your email archive is enough to tell you whether section 17602 gives you leverage to renegotiate.
- You are about to sign vendor paper that has a US choice-of-law and forum, and you operate from outside the US. Same posture: one scoping call to confirm whether the forum is enforceable on you and whether the practical leverage justifies pushing back on it.
Hire me for the matter when
- The deal value is six figures and the counterparty has its own legal team. Enterprise SaaS paper is asymmetric by design. A $349 full review or $599 to $999 review and redline on the linked SaaS contracts practice page is the right tool. Templates are not.
- The contract contains an uncapped IP indemnity, an uncapped data-breach indemnity, or a "sole and exclusive remedy" clause paired with a low cap. These are the three patterns that destroy SaaS vendors when a claim arrives. Read the IP indemnification insight and decide whether you want a template or attorney redline.
- You are a customer locked into a multi-year auto-renewal you did not realize had triggered. If the missed window cost you over roughly $10,000, the $575 demand letter is the right tool. See the SaaS account termination demand letter guide for the analytical pattern.
- A SaaS deal has gone sideways and one side has stopped performing. Disputes over feature delivery, refund, or wrongful termination need a sequencing analysis (who breached first), not a template. The practice page describes the dispute workflow.
- The contract requires AAA Commercial or JAMS arbitration and a claim is realistic. The $1,200 demand letter plus draft arbitration demand signals you are prepared to file. A bluff template letter does the opposite.
- You are signing a DPA that has to flow through to your downstream customers, and the breach-notification window does not match. This is the recurring DPA failure mode that surfaces only after a breach. Attorney work, not template work.
- You are an integration partner facing broad IP-assignment language from a platform. The "co-developed integration" assignment clause is the recurring trap. A redline that converts assignment to license-back is the work.
The honest decision rubric
- What is the realistic downside? If the worst case is "you ended up with a slightly worse template," the template is fine. If the worst case is uncapped indemnity exposure or a forced multi-year renewal, the template is not fine.
- Is the counterparty represented by legal? If yes, your unrepresented redline reads as unrepresented. Asymmetry of representation shows on the page.
- How much is contested or at risk? Under $10,000 of realistic exposure, the template plus a single consult is usually correct. Over $25,000, attorney work usually pays for itself in the redline.
- Has the deal already gone sideways? If yes, this is dispute work, not template work. The template is the wrong tool once a party has stopped performing.
This page is informational and does not constitute legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Engagement begins only after written conflict check and a signed scope agreement. Sergei Tokmakov is licensed in California (Bar #279869).
If your situation lines up with the hire column
Send me the agreement and one paragraph on your role, the deal value, and the deadline. I respond personally, usually within one business day. If the right answer is a template or a consult instead of a full engagement, I will tell you.
See the SaaS contracts practice page Email the intake