Sandstone vs Ironclad: Features, Workflows, and Fit

Two weeks before quarter-end, Sales sends a customer MSA in Slack. Counsel needs the prior redline, the approved liability position, and the person who can approve an exception. In a Sandstone vs Ironclad evaluation, follow that request through review, approval, and the signed record to see which proposed setup keeps the deal moving.

Sandstone emphasizes requests and the business context around them; Ironclad emphasizes the contracting process across legal and business teams. Both offer intake, AI review, and contract-management capabilities. Test the actual configuration against your work. Before you choose between them, decide which system will own your signed agreements. Sandstone may serve as a standalone CLM or work alongside Ironclad, so the purchase can involve replacing a system or connecting two.

GC AI is legal AI software for in-house teams, trusted by 2,100+ legal teams and companies. Its users include legal teams at TIME, Lockheed Martin, Columbia Sportswear, and Viant Technology. Counsel can use its turnkey platform to review against approved positions, investigate cited legal research, and draft revisions. Evaluate which legal work and repository functions GC AI can take over, then identify the intake, approval, and signature processes you will retain.

Where Each Platform Fits

Buying consideration	Sandstone	Ironclad	GC AI
Main focus	Legal requests and the history behind them	The contract lifecycle, from template to renewal	Legal review, research, and advice using company context
Who uses it daily	Lawyers and legal operations	Sales, procurement, finance, and legal	In-house lawyers and legal operations
Rollout stakeholders	Legal and owners of connected systems	Legal, with sales, procurement, and IT	Legal and owners of connected systems
What setup involves	Connecting intake channels and building playbooks	Templates and approval workflows; Services-prepared playbooks for playbook-based AI redlining	Approved review positions; optional repository connection for Team-plan Contract Intelligence

Sandstone's rollout depends on the intake channels and legal context you connect. Ironclad needs business ownership of templates and approval rules. GC AI's Word-based review uses approved positions without requiring a repository integration; connecting stored contracts is a separate Team-plan Contract Intelligence setup.

How Sandstone Works

Sandstone is a legal relationship management platform. Requests come in wherever your team works: whether its messaging apps like Slack, Teams, and email, or productivity systems such as Jira, ServiceNow, Zip, and Coupa. Sandstone triages each one by type, urgency, value, and risk, routes it to the right lawyer, and drafts replies to routine questions for a lawyer to approve. The answer goes back to the thread where the request started.

Its context map links each counterparty to its documents, people, conversations, and prior decisions, so the lawyer sees the history first. In Word, Sandstone redlines from your playbooks and prior positions, and it builds those playbooks from your templates, redlines, and policies.

For a general counsel, the payoff is a queue you can see: what the business is asking for, who has it, and what the team said last time. Sandstone connects to Ironclad and describes keeping it as the contracting system of record. Sandstone can also serve as a standalone CLM, so confirm whether Sandstone or Ironclad will own signed agreements and ongoing contract records in the proposed setup.

How Ironclad Works

Ironclad is a contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform. Sales and procurement can start agreements from approved templates in Ironclad, Salesforce, or Coupa. Workflow Designer routes each contract for approval. After signing through Ironclad eSignature or an integrated signing service, contracts enter a searchable repository that tracks obligations and related amendments. For eligible contracts, Renewal Agent automatically prepares a brief within 90 days of expiration.

Contract Review Agent, formerly Jurist, redlines against your playbook in Ironclad or Word, with an explanation, risk level, and source for each tracked change. English playbooks work on contracts in more than 50 languages.

Playbook-based redlining requires Ironclad Services to prepare a Contract Review Agent-ready playbook. Precedent-based redlining has separate invitation-only Early Access requirements; confirm whether it is enabled for your organization. Playbook Agent, which generates review-ready playbooks, is also in Early Access. Existing Contract Review Agent seat arrangements continue through their current terms during the AI Credits pricing transition; buyers should confirm which package applies.

Sandstone vs Ironclad: Where the Features Overlap

Both platforms can review contracts, store documents, and support signing. Compare how each connects a request, approved positions, contract approval, and the resulting agreement record.

Feature	Sandstone	Ironclad	GC AI
Triage and routing	Triages and assigns requests by type, urgency, and risk	Routes contracts to approvers with Workflow Designer	Reads the request thread and drafts your reply through Agent Connectors
AI contract review	Redlines in Word from playbooks and prior positions	Tracked changes with an explanation, risk level, and source	Redlines a clause or a full agreement in GC AI for Word
Playbooks	Built from your templates, redlines, and policies	Created or optimized by Ironclad Services; Playbook Agent in early access	GC AI's prebuilt Playbooks or your own positions and fallbacks
Research and sources	Review grounded in company documents and prior decisions	Contract Review Agent: real-time legal research with embedded citations	Research: US case law and International Law databases, with sources to check
Signature	DocuSign and SandSign	Ironclad eSignature, DocuSign, Adobe Acrobat Sign, and Dropbox Sign	Prepare reviewed documents for your existing signing process
Repository	Sandstone storage, or SharePoint, Box, and Google Drive	Searchable repository with obligations and renewal briefs	Contract Intelligence: cited answers across your drives or Ironclad
Related contract context	Context map of documents, people, and prior decisions	One profile per counterparty, with contract families	Current Terms across amendments, SOWs, and renewals
Pricing	Contact Sandstone for current pricing and billing basis	Custom quote; AI Credits vary by completed action or annual user access	Individual $500 per month; Team quoted separately, with Contract Intelligence
Model training	Does not train on customer data	AI model training depends on opt-in under its AI Addendum; check your agreement, data location, and AI Training setting	GC AI's model providers do not train on your data (security and privacy details)

Based on each vendor's public product pages and documentation, checked October 2026.

Example: Reviewing a Customer Master Services Agreement

Consider a software sale two weeks before quarter-end. The customer sends its master services agreement (MSA) with uncapped liability. Your approved position is a negotiated cap with defined exceptions, and Sales needs to know which change counsel proposes and whether an exception will delay signature. This is a proposed comparison exercise, not an observed test of the three products.

In Sandstone:

1. The sales director posts the request in Slack.
2. Sandstone pulls last year's agreement and its redlines.
3. Sandstone routes the request to the counsel who handled the account.
4. Counsel redlines in Word and replies in the same Slack thread.

In Ironclad:

1. The sales director launches the contract workflow from Salesforce.
2. Intake Agent helps fill in fields from the customer MSA.
3. The configured workflow routes the contract to counsel and the required approvers.
4. Contract Review Agent applies the approved playbook and flags the uncapped liability term.
5. Counsel reviews the proposed change, and the authorized approvers sign off.
6. The executed agreement enters the Ironclad repository.

In GC AI:

1. Counsel opens the MSA in Word and applies the team's approved Playbook.
2. GC AI flags the uncapped liability term and proposes fallback language.
3. If the governing law raises a legal question, counsel checks the cited Research sources.
4. Counsel confirms the team's risk tolerance and who has approval authority.
5. Counsel sends sales a note with the proposed revision, the remaining exposure, and the person who must approve an exception.

Test the handoffs as well as the redline. The request should retain the commercial context, the approval should identify the agreed exception, and the signed record should match what counsel approved. Use the same MSA and company positions for each candidate. Record who corrects a missed issue, who returns the approved document to Sales, and which system keeps the final record.

Where GC AI Fits: More Time for the Judgment Calls

An intake queue can tell you who owns the MSA. An approval workflow can tell you who may accept an exception. Counsel still has to decide whether the proposed liability language fits the transaction, how it compares with prior concessions, and what to recommend to Sales. Evaluate GC AI on that legal work alongside the systems your team uses to move the agreement.

GC AI's Playbooks apply your approved positions and fallbacks in GC AI for Word. You can inspect the proposed changes, revise the language, and decide which exceptions need approval.

A general counsel at a private-equity-backed software company used GC AI to compare five similar contracts and assess whether negotiations were pushing beyond the company's intended risk position:

I just did five contracts of the same ilk, putting them all in and saying, okay, where did we land?

The five-contract comparison gives counsel a way to check whether separate negotiated exceptions are becoming a broader departure from the company's risk position. Review the relevant clauses and deal context before changing the default fallback. A customer account of that exercise supports the use case; it does not establish how GC AI performs against Sandstone or Ironclad.

When a question turns on law, GC AI's Research provides cited answers using supported legal sources. Counsel checks the authorities and how they apply to the matter before relying on the answer.

For questions across signed agreements, GC AI's Contract Intelligence connects to supported repositories, including Ironclad, and returns answers with source citations. Its Current Terms feature rolls up linked amendments, statements of work, and renewals so you can check the terms that apply. GC AI's Agent Connectors can bring relevant business conversations into the task and take supported actions with your approval.

For the illustrative MSA, the note to Sales should identify the uncapped provision, the proposed cap and exceptions, and any departure requiring approval. Link the reviewed draft and name the approver. Sales should be able to distinguish language counsel can send now from a business concession that still needs a decision.

Sandstone vs Ironclad vs GC AI: Which Is Right for You?

The better buy is the one that removes the bottleneck your team hits every week. If requests disappear into Slack threads and inboxes, start with Sandstone. If agreements stall between sales, procurement, and approvers, start with Ironclad. If both run well enough and the slower step is the legal analysis itself, another system of record will not fix it; better support for counsel will.

Is Sandstone Right for You?

Sandstone is right for you if requests reach legal faster than your team can sort them, and you want each counterparty's history in view. Ask before you sign:

1. Does the CLM connector write back to Ironclad, or only read from it?
2. Who builds and approves playbook updates?
3. What determines the price, and how will the cost change as intake grows?

If requests reach the right lawyer but legal analysis is the slower step, consider GC AI alongside Sandstone. For the specific workflow differences, see GC AI vs Sandstone.

Is Ironclad Right for You?

Ironclad is right for you if the business needs one system to create, approve, sign, and track contracts, and sales and procurement will use it daily. Ask before you sign:

1. Which agents are included, and which consume AI Credits?
2. How long will Ironclad Services take to build your review playbook?
3. What will migration from your current repository involve?

If your contracting workflow is established but counsel needs more support with contract review and legal research, consider GC AI alongside Ironclad. See GC AI vs Ironclad.

Is GC AI Right for You?

GC AI is worth evaluating if counsel needs support applying approved positions in Word, checking legal sources, and preparing recommendations without replacing the intake or contracting system. Test a representative agreement and compare the redline, citations, and note to sales against your current review process.