SCC Online is a good product. This page is not about pretending otherwise — it is about what the renewal invoice buys, and what it does not.
SCC Online is sold by quote rather than at a single list price, and GST is normally extra. Firm and institutional research subscriptions in India are typically quoted in the ₹1.5–3 lakh a year range for research alone — a range, not a price, so ask for a written quote. Lawgger publishes one price, ₹19,999 a year, with court listings, deadlines, drafting and billing included alongside research.
We do not publish rupee figures for another vendor's plans, because those figures move and are usually quoted rather than listed. What this table gives you is the shape of the pricing and the questions to ask.
| Plan | How it is priced | GST | What to ask |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single-user research plan | Quoted; no single published figure we can verify | GST normally extra | Ask for a written quote |
| Higher research tiers | Figure varies with the plan and what it covers | GST normally extra | Ask for a written quote |
| Firm and institutional plans | Quoted by seats and institution type | GST normally extra | Ask for a written quote |
| Junior or student schemes | Entry schemes are offered from time to time — ask directly | GST normally extra | Availability varies |
| Single-court or limited-coverage plans | Where offered, these cover less than a nationwide plan and are priced accordingly | GST normally extra | Confirm which courts and which years |
| Print reports | Priced separately from the online plans | As applicable | Confirm with the vendor |
| Lawgger | ₹1,999 a month, or ₹19,999 a year — everything included | GST invoice issued | List price, no seat negotiation |
Quotes vary by number of seats, institution type, coverage and contract length, and are typically given on request rather than published. Nothing here is a quotation for your chamber — get current pricing in writing from SCC Online before you budget. Full working, with every other vendor, on our India legal research cost guide.
Editorial headnotes. A headnote drafted by a trained editor, with the ratio separated from the obiter and the propositions numbered, is a piece of legal work. It is what lets a senior read forty judgments before a conference instead of four. Nothing generated at speed substitutes for it, and we do not claim to.
Decades of ratio tagging. The SCC editorial apparatus has been built continuously for a very long time. When you are working through a line of authority from the 1960s forward, the accumulated tagging and cross-referencing is doing work that simply is not available anywhere else.
Parallel citations to older reporters. Appellate practice still runs on parallel citations. If your list of dates has to carry AIR and SCC references side by side, the parallel citation tables matter more than any feature comparison.
The citation benches expect. This is the practical one. In many courts, in many matters, the SCC citation is the citation. That is a fact about the profession, not about software, and it is a perfectly good reason to keep a subscription.
Not a criticism — a scope. SCC Online sells research. The rest of an advocate's day is somebody else's product, and usually somebody else's invoice.
| Part of the working day | SCC Online | Lawgger |
|---|---|---|
| Cause list for any court, any date | Not part of the research plan | Yes — 700 district courts, 722 districts |
| Live display boards during court hours | Not part of the research plan | 527 courts, 426 benches |
| Case tracking by CNR with plain-words digests | Not part of the research plan | Yes |
| Limitation dates that roll past holidays and vacations | Not part of the research plan | 21 statutory clocks, s.5 flags |
| Drafting formats | Not in the research plan | 3,500+ across 61 categories |
| Matters, clients, tasks | Not part of the research plan | Yes |
| Billing timer and GST invoices | Not part of the research plan | Yes, with Razorpay |
| Good-law verdict on every authority in an answer | Partial — editorial treatment flags | Yes, on every authority |
Feature reads from public product material, July 2026. Rows marked "not part of the research plan" describe the research subscription an individual advocate would normally buy — SCC Online is an established publisher with a wider catalogue and may bundle or add a module at any time, so confirm the current position with the vendor rather than relying on this table. If SCC Online has added any of these since, write to anubhav@lawgger.com and we will correct the row.
Judged only on research, here is what Lawgger actually offers.
Supreme Court and all 25 High Courts, in every subscription, with no single-court module and no per-search charge. Alongside that: 1,607 central and state acts across 37 jurisdictions, 1.28 crore case-to-section links and 18 lakh citation links, in 10 Indian languages.
An answer names the judgment and the paragraph, and one click puts you on that paragraph. You read it yourself and decide whether it says what the answer claims. See how research works.
Still good law, or overruled — checked when you ask, on every authority cited. Paste an opponent's brief into Authority Check and you get a Table of Authorities with a verdict against each citation.
The trial needs no card, so running both platforms side by side for a fortnight costs you nothing but attention.
Not hard ones. Questions from a matter you argued last year. Open every pin-cite and check the paragraph actually says it. This tells you more about a research platform than any demonstration will.
Take a written submission you received recently and run it through. You get a Table of Authorities with a good-law verdict against each citation. Compare that against the hour a junior would spend.
These are not research tasks, which is the point. Pull the list for your court and let a limitation clock roll a date past the next set of holidays. See cause lists and the limitation calculator.
If your practice needs headnotes and parallel citations, keep SCC Online — this page will not talk you out of it. If it does not, you now have an evidenced answer rather than a habit, before you sign the renewal.
For everyone else — trial and district practice, solo advocates, small chambers, anyone whose day is half research and half deadlines — the arithmetic at the top of this page is worth doing once a year. Our page for solo advocates works through the same numbers from the other direction.
Lawgger covers 2.07 crore full-text judgments in-app — more than 20.7 million — from the Supreme Court and all 25 High Courts, in every subscription with no per-court module. Beyond the archive, Lawgger reads live case records from 700+ district courts, consumer commissions, the CAT, NGT, NCLAT and ITAT through direct integrations with official court systems. SCC Online does not publish a directly comparable total, so check current figures with the vendor.
SCC Online is sold by quote rather than at one published list price, and the figure moves with seats, institution type, the courts and years covered, and contract length. GST is normally extra. Firm and institutional research subscriptions in India are typically quoted in the ₹1.5–3 lakh a year range for research alone. Ask the vendor for a written quote before you budget.
Yes. Indian Kanoon is free for full-text search. Lawgger is ₹1,999 a month or ₹19,999 a year with a GST invoice, and includes cause lists, display boards, case tracking, limitation clocks, drafting formats and billing that a research subscription does not sell. Whether cheaper is better depends on whether you need editorial headnotes — and on the quote you are actually given.
No — it is a paid subscription. Many bar associations, law schools and court libraries provide access to their members and students, and student or junior schemes are offered from time to time. If you have institutional access through your bar association or library, use it before you buy a personal seat.
It is the AI-assisted research tier layered on SCC Online's case law and editorial material. It is priced on quotation rather than at a figure we can verify as published, and what a specific plan covers by way of courts, years and journals varies — so ask for the coverage schedule and the price in writing together.
You cite the judgment, not the platform. What matters is that the citation is accurate, the text is the court's own, and the authority still stands. Where a bench or a practice direction expects a particular reporter citation, give that citation. Many advocates research on one platform and add the expected reporter reference when settling the list of dates.
No, and we will not pretend otherwise. Lawgger gives you the full text of the judgment, an answer pin-cited to the paragraph it came from, and a good-law verdict on every authority. That is a different thing from a human-drafted headnote with tagged ratio, which is exactly what SCC Online sells and does well.
Lawgger carries full text from the Supreme Court and all 25 High Courts in every subscription, with no single-court module. SCC Online also offers nationwide coverage, but a quote can be written against a narrower set of courts or years than you assume. Ask what the quote includes, and see our courts coverage.
Many chambers do, and it is a sensible arrangement. Use SCC Online for headnotes and the reporter citation your bench expects; use Lawgger for pin-cited answers with good-law verdicts, Authority Check on an opponent's brief, cause lists, limitation dates, drafting and billing. The 14-day trial needs no card, so running both for a fortnight costs nothing.
Fourteen days free, no card. Then ₹1,999 a month or ₹19,999 a year, cancel anytime, GST invoice included.