The À La Carte Contract…. and Lawyer-Free!

I've written a lot about risk being a price point in contracts, but risk is not the only price point.

In fact, there’s a benefit to pricing individual contract items separately. For example:

• A change in payment terms results in a price increase/decrease of X%.

• A change in IPR provisions results in a price increase/decrease of Y%.

• A change in indemnity provisions results in a price increase/decrease of Z%.

• A change in liability provisions results in a price increase/decrease of A%.

And so on.

Taking that approach a bit further, when a client wants to do business on their standard terms rather than yours, a practical approach might be to give them two options.

Option 1. They can do business on your standard terms for price Y.

Option 2. They can do business on their standard terms for price X.

The basic principle behind this approach is saying to your customer: “You can have (almost) any term you want provided you pay a fair price for it”.

The advantages of this approach are:

• It gives customers exactly what they want – price forces them to choose the terms they really value.

• It eliminates wasteful and unfocused negotiation efforts. It moves the discussion away from the often arbitrary world of legal pros and cons (and away from the other side’s lawyers) and turns it into a discussion with a more practical focus.

• It allows the possibility of gaining extra margin if the customer is to pay more for more onerous, but acceptable, terms.

Thanks to Stephen Allott for these points. You can find Stephen here.

5th May 2026.