Introducing Spellbook's 2026 State of Contracts Report

Today, Spellbook is releasing 2026 State of Contracts, our inaugural analysis of legal contract trends and benchmarks based on anonymous, aggregate statistics from hundreds of thousands of agreements.

Inside the report, you'll find:

• A catalog of 270+ clause benchmarks across 13 agreement types that you can reference directly in negotiation
• Five data-backed insights on how AI adoption and regulatory shifts are reshaping contract terms
• The “Moneyball Moment for Contracts” essay, a forward-looking piece on the future of contract negotiation

Read the trends and essay to see where contracts are heading next. Return to the benchmarks when you need hard numbers to back up your next negotiation. 

Below are select findings from the report. The full set of trends and benchmarks is available to download here.

Three Findings From the Report

1 in 5 SaaS Service Agreements now address AI

AI Usage Policy did not exist as a standalone clause type two years ago. It now appears in 18% of SaaS Service Agreements. Around 8% of independent contractor agreements also include AI provisions, addressing tool usage and ownership of AI-generated output.

The MSA indemnification split favors clients

Contract teams negotiating indemnification in MSAs cannot rely on market precedent to settle the question. No single approach dominates: mutual indemnification accounts for 38%, one-way vendor indemnification for 26%, one-way client indemnification for 8%, and 27% include no indemnification clause at all. When one-way indemnification does appear, it favors clients at a rate roughly three times higher than it favors vendors.

Contract type drives dispute resolution strategy

There's no one-size-fits-all dispute resolution strategy. IP Agreements and MSAs follow similar patterns: litigation as the default (80% and 68% respectively), arbitration secondary, mediation sometimes required first. SaaS contracts operate by different logic entirely. Litigation appears in only 39%, mediation leads at 43%, and 46% specify no binding dispute resolution method at all.

For more findings, download the complete report here. 

Building the Most Data-Grounded Contract Review Platform Available

This report is more than an annual snapshot. It represents a preview of what Spellbook will soon deliver directly in product.

The same technology that generated these insights will power Compare to Market, a feature that lets users check any clause against Spellbook's corpus of real market data in seconds, allowing them to see exactly where their terms stand relative to comparable agreements. 

Instead of negotiating from memory or intuition, lawyers will be able to advise clients with quantifiable evidence on whether a position is aggressive, market, or conservative. 

This is foundational work in our commitment to build the most data-grounded AI contract review available.

Download the Report

Get the complete analysis with five data stories, the Moneyball Moment for Contracts piece, and more than 250 clause benchmarks to support your negotiations throughout the year.

Download 2026 State of Contracts