Estimate litigation discovery costs including document review, e-discovery processing, data hosting, and production expenses for legal cases.
This page estimates discovery cost from the main budget drivers in a simple e-discovery model: document review, data processing, hosting, and production. It is meant for litigation planning and case-scope comparison rather than for predicting a vendor invoice down to the dollar.
The output is most useful when you want to test how document volume, hosting duration, or per-document review cost changes the overall budget. Real matters can also include collections, analytics, privilege review, third-party data, and motion practice over discovery disputes.
Discovery budgets tend to balloon when review volume and hosting duration are treated as afterthoughts. Putting those variables into one worksheet makes it easier to compare scope options, settlement timing, and the practical cost of broad versus narrow requests.
Review Cost = Documents × Cost per Document Processing Cost = Data Volume (GB) × Per-GB Rate Hosting Cost = Monthly Rate × Months Total = Review + Processing + Hosting + Production
Result: $89,000 total discovery cost
Review = 50,000 docs × $1.50 = $75,000. Processing = 100 GB × $30 = $3,000. Hosting = $500/mo × 12 = $6,000. Production = $5,000. Total = $89,000.
Document collection involves gathering data from custodians, servers, and cloud services. Processing reduces raw data to reviewable documents through deduplication and filtering. Review is the most expensive phase—attorneys read documents for relevance and privilege. Production formats and delivers responsive documents to the other party.
Use search terms and date ranges to narrow the data set, employ predictive coding to accelerate review, negotiate proportionality limits with opposing counsel, and consider stipulations on non-controversial documents. Early case assessment tools can predict costs before committing to full discovery.
Courts increasingly apply proportionality principles, weighing discovery costs against the amount in controversy and the importance of the issues. If discovery costs would exceed the value of the case, courts may limit or shift costs.
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This page estimates discovery cost by adding four entered components: document review, data processing, hosting, and production. Review cost is calculated as document count multiplied by cost per document, processing cost as data volume multiplied by the per-gigabyte rate, and hosting as the monthly hosting charge multiplied by the number of months.
The result is a planning worksheet rather than a vendor quote or a recoverable-cost determination. Real discovery budgets can also depend on collections, analytics, privilege review, productions for multiple parties, motion practice, and whether review is outsourced or technology-assisted.
E-discovery costs range from $10,000 for small cases to millions for large commercial litigation. The primary cost driver is document review, which accounts for 60–80% of total e-discovery costs. Processing and hosting are comparatively small.
Manual attorney review costs $1–$3 per document or $15–25 per hour per reviewer. Technology-assisted review (TAR) can reduce costs to $0.50–$1.50 per document. Offshore review teams charge $0.50–$1.00 per document.
ESI (electronically stored information) processing involves collecting, deduplicating, filtering, and converting electronic data into a reviewable format. Costs range from $15–$50 per GB of native data. This step reduces the volume that needs human review.
Generally, each party bears its own discovery costs. However, courts can shift discovery costs to the requesting party for disproportionately burdensome requests. Some fee-shifting statutes allow recovery of litigation costs including discovery.
Discovery typically lasts 6–12 months in standard civil cases. Complex cases with large data volumes can extend to 2+ years. Courts set discovery deadlines, and extensions require court approval.
Technology-assisted review (TAR) uses machine learning to classify documents as relevant or not, based on attorney-coded training documents. It significantly reduces the number of documents requiring manual review, cutting costs by 40–70%.