Six platforms Indian advocates actually use, what each one is genuinely good at, and what a year of it costs. Pricing here is described, not quoted — confirm every figure with the vendor before you sign.
There is no single best legal research tool in India — there is a best fit. SCC Online suits headnote-first appellate work. Manupatra is strong on statutes and journals. Indian Kanoon is the best free full text. CaseMine maps citations visually. Lawgger gives pin-cited answers with a good-law verdict, plus court listings, deadlines, drafting and billing, at ₹19,999 a year.
Read from public product pages and published price lists in July 2026. Where a vendor does not publish a figure, the cell says so rather than guessing.
| What you are buying | SCC Online | Manupatra | Indian Kanoon | CaseMine | LexisNexis India | Lawgger |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full-text judgments | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes — 2.07 crore+ |
| Courts covered | Nationwide | Nationwide | Nationwide | Nationwide | Nationwide | Supreme Court + all 25 High Courts |
| Good-law verdict on every authority cited | Partial1 | Partial1 | Cited-by lists to read yourself | Partial1 | Partial1 | Yes, on every authority |
| Answer pin-cited to the paragraph | Partial2 | Partial2 | Not offered | Partial2 | Partial2 | Yes, every answer |
| Cause lists | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Any court, any date |
| Live display boards | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | 527 courts, 426 benches |
| Case tracking by CNR | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Yes, with plain-words digests |
| Limitation clocks | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | 21 statutory clocks |
| Drafting formats | Not in the research plan | Not in the research plan | Not offered | Not offered | Not in the research plan | 3,500+ across 61 categories |
| Billing timer and GST invoices | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Not part of the research plan | Built in, with Razorpay |
| How single-user pricing works | Quoted rather than list-priced; GST normally extra3 | No annual list price we can verify; quoted on request3 | Free full text; paid AI tier priced separately3 | Quote or plan-based3 | Quote on request3 | ₹1,999 / month · ₹19,999 / year |
1. Several platforms carry editorial treatment flags or citation analysis on part of their collection; coverage varies by platform and by judgment, so read each vendor's own description. 2. Most platforms will take you to a judgment; paragraph-level pinning on a generated answer is not offered uniformly across tiers. 3. We do not print rupee figures for other vendors, because they are quoted rather than listed and they move. Quotes vary by seats, institution type, coverage and contract length; firm and institutional research subscriptions in India are typically quoted in the ₹1.5–3 lakh a year range for research alone. Verify with the vendor before you budget — full working on our India legal research cost guide. 4. Rows marked "not part of the research plan" describe the research subscription an individual advocate would normally buy, as we understand it in July 2026. These vendors are established companies with wider catalogues, and any of them may add or bundle a module at any time. Treat this table as a starting point for your own enquiry, not as a statement of what a vendor can or cannot supply — confirm the current offering with the vendor.
Every one of these platforms does something we do not. A comparison that pretends otherwise is a brochure.
Decades of headnote drafting, ratio tagging and parallel citations sit behind SCC Online, and none of that is automatable on a short timescale. If your bench expects the SCC citation, if your seniors read headnote-first, or if you argue appellate matters where parallel citations to older reporters matter, that editorial layer is the product and it is worth paying for. Read the full arithmetic on our SCC Online alternative page.
Manupatra's breadth outside case law is its real strength — central and state legislation, subordinate rules, notifications, and a long shelf of journals and commentary in one place. For regulatory, tax and corporate advisory practices that live in statutory material more than in judgments, that depth is the deciding factor. Our Manupatra alternative page covers what it costs.
It costs nothing, it is quick, it deep-links cleanly, and it has been the working library of Indian practice for years. If you need to read a judgment right now and you know what you are looking for, nothing beats it on speed or price. What it is not built to do — good-law status, paragraph pinning, deadlines — is set out on our Indian Kanoon alternative page.
CaseMine's visual citation mapping is genuinely useful when you are tracing how a proposition travelled — which benches picked it up, where it was distinguished, where a High Court line diverged. If your work is doctrinal, or you are writing rather than filing, that map is a different way of thinking about the same material and worth having open.
Three things decide it, and none of them is price.
Every answer is pin-cited to the page. Not a list of results to read through. A proposition, then the judgment and the paragraph it came from, openable in one click so you can read it and decide for yourself whether it says what the answer claims. That is the only form of AI research an advocate can safely sign under.
Every authority carries a good-law verdict. Still good law, or overruled. Checked at the time you ask, not at the time some editor last touched the file. Paste an opponent's brief into Authority Check and you get back a Table of Authorities with a verdict against each citation — the job that otherwise costs a junior an afternoon.
No research subscription sells the rest of the practice. Cause lists for any court on any date, live display boards across 527 courts and 426 benches, case tracking by CNR with plain-words digests, 21 statutory limitation clocks that roll past weekends, holidays and court vacations, 3,500+ drafting formats, a billing timer and GST invoices. Those are not add-ons on the incumbents' price list. They are simply not on it. See how research works and what the practice side covers.
Everything above was read from each vendor's own public product pages and published price lists in July 2026. Where a vendor publishes a number, we quote the number and date it. Where a vendor does not publish one, the cell says no list price published rather than carrying a figure we could not stand behind.
Three cautions before you use this to budget:
Feature reads are qualitative and made in good faith from public material. If a figure here is out of date, or a feature read is wrong, write to anubhav@lawgger.com and we will correct the page and re-date it. Lawgger's own price — ₹1,999 a month or ₹19,999 a year — is published in full on our pricing page and does not change by seat.
There is no single winner for every practice. SCC Online remains the strongest choice where editorial headnotes and familiar reporter citations matter most. Manupatra is strong on statutes, rules and journals. Indian Kanoon is the best free full-text library. Lawgger is built for advocates who want a pin-cited answer with a good-law verdict attached, plus cause lists, deadlines, drafting and billing in the same subscription.
Indian Kanoon is free for full-text search and is the cheapest option outright. Among paid platforms, published single-user pricing is unusual: Lawgger publishes ₹1,999 a month or ₹19,999 a year with a GST invoice, while several incumbents quote only on request. Always ask each vendor for a current written quote before you budget — our cost guide shows the working.
For finding and reading a judgment, often yes. It stops short of telling you whether an authority still stands, of pinning an answer to the paragraph it came from, and of anything outside research: cause lists, case tracking, limitation dates, drafting or billing. Most advocates use it alongside something that closes those gaps.
Several offer editorial treatment flags or citation analysis on part of their collection, and coverage varies by platform and by judgment. Lawgger checks every authority it cites and returns a plain verdict — still good law, or overruled — and Authority Check runs the same test across every citation in a brief you paste in.
If your practice is appellate, headnote-led, and you cite to the reporter benches expect, the editorial work behind SCC Online is real value and hard to replace. If you are mainly doing trial and district work and want deadlines, listings and billing covered too, the same money spread across one subscription usually goes further.
Manupatra does not publish a standard annual subscription price. Publicly visible options include a short-duration pass, a pre-paid search card and annual plans quoted on request, with the figure depending on seats and institution type. Ask for a written quote — our Manupatra alternative page lists what to ask about.
It depends entirely on where the answer comes from. A general chatbot writes text that looks like a citation. A legal research platform should show you the judgment, the paragraph, and whether that authority still stands. Trust the ones that make the source openable, and read the paragraph before you cite it — the signing advocate carries the verification duty either way. More on this in why AI invents case citations.
Lawgger carries full-text judgments from the Supreme Court and all 25 High Courts — 2.07 crore and counting. The larger incumbents also carry nationwide High Court coverage, though some sell single-High-Court modules at a lower price, so check what courts and what years a quoted figure actually includes before you compare it with anything. See our courts coverage.
Yes. Indian Kanoon gives free full-text search across a very large collection of Indian judgments. Lawgger is a paid product, but every plan starts with a 14-day free trial of the full product and no card is required to begin.
Fourteen days free, no card. Take three questions you already know the answer to and check the pin-cites yourself.