Thomson Reuters sells information services and software to legal, tax, accounting, corporate, trade and risk professionals. The products most often met in a software asset inventory are Westlaw and Practical Law (legal research and know-how), CoCounsel (generative AI assistants), UltraTax CS and the rest of the CS Professional Suite (tax and accounting practice software), ONESOURCE (corporate tax and trade compliance) and Checkpoint (tax research). The company’s own profile describes them as services and installed software licensed for the customer’s internal business use under its General Terms and the scope set in each Ordering Document.[1]
Unlike the metric-driven catalogues of infrastructure vendors, Thomson Reuters licensing is mostly a layered contract. A short set of General Terms defines what any customer may do. An Ordering Document, which may be an order form, order confirmation, statement of work, invoice or e-commerce confirmation, then identifies the Services, quantities and charges.[1] Product-specific terms, third-party provider terms and, for AI features, a separate set of generative AI terms sit between the two in the order of precedence. The practical consequence for a software asset manager is that no single price list or metric document covers the vendor: each product has to be read with the order form, the General Terms version in force and the product notes that the order form incorporates.
Contract structure
The US General Terms in force at the time of writing are Version 5.1, last modified on 1 June 2025.[1] They define the “Agreement” as each Ordering Document, the General Terms and any applicable terms incorporated in the order or the General Terms.[1] Where documents conflict, the descending order of precedence is any applicable third-party provider terms, the Ordering Document, any product-specific terms, any additional terms for Services with generative AI skills, the General Terms and then the remaining provisions.[1]
Thomson Reuters may modify the General Terms, product-specific terms and incorporated terms by posting updated terms, sending a notice through the customer account or a renewal notice, or similar means, with changes effective 30 days after notice.[1] An older Version 5.0 (November 2023) of the terms is still published at the EULA address, so a firm must confirm which version its order refers to.[2] Tax & Accounting products are frequently ordered under a separate set of standard terms, published as the Onvio terms, which say that they govern the Thomson Reuters products and services that reference them.[6] The article on the General Terms and Ordering Documents walks through those documents clause by clause.
Licence grant and internal use
Under the General Terms the customer receives a non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, non-transferable right to access, view and use the Services solely for its own internal business purposes.[1] Installed software is licensed on the same basis, may be copied only for backup and archival purposes and may be used only in object code format.[1] The use restrictions prohibit, among other things, allowing third parties to access, use or benefit from the Property, white-labelling it, using it to develop competing products and using it to train artificial intelligence.[1] A customer that is in the business of providing audit, tax or accounting services or legal advice is not precluded from using the Services for its clients in the ordinary course of that business.[1]
Access is credential based. Access to certain Services is password protected, passwords must be kept confidential and sharing passwords is strictly prohibited.[1] For licence counting this means that a “user” is an individual with a credential, even though the General Terms do not define a user count; the number of permitted users or other measures is set elsewhere in the order.
What is measured
The General Terms use one measure of their own: the “scope of use specified in the applicable Ordering Document”.[1] The products then use quite different units.
| Product line | Unit or constraint | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Westlaw Advantage (law firms, online plans) | Jurisdictional coverage (single-circuit or all states and federal), firms of up to 10 attorneys | [7] |
| UltraTax CS | Unlimited licence or a Per-Return Pricing fee for each return not covered by an unlimited licence | [9] |
| SaaS for CS Professional Suite | Monthly profile of use per person, with a $761 per firm minimum | [10] |
| Inflo | Credits per billing event in a Room | [3] |
| Tax Q&A Service | Questions per subscription period (20 or 5) | [3] |
| ONESOURCE Data Hub | Up to 1 terabyte of storage | [3] |
The detailed rows are in the catalogue under Ordering Document scope of use, Authorized user, Return (Per-Return Pricing) and the other Thomson Reuters metrics.
Excess use, compliance review and audit
A customer that exceeds the scope of use in the Ordering Document must pay additional charges, based on the rates on the Ordering Document or current standard pricing, whichever is greater, and charges may change if the customer merges with, acquires or is acquired by another entity that results in additional access.[1] Thomson Reuters or its professional representatives may review compliance with the Agreement throughout the term; if the review shows use beyond what is authorised, the customer pays all unpaid or underpaid charges.[1] The Onvio terms contain the same two clauses.[6]
This is a contractual review, not a prescribed audit procedure. The General Terms do not set a notice period, a frequency or a named auditor, which makes the merger clause the more relevant risk in practice: a firm that is acquired should expect the scope of the Ordering Document to be revisited.
Term, renewal and price changes
Unless the Ordering Document states otherwise, the agreement renews automatically each year unless either party gives at least 30 days’ written notice before the end of the term.[1] Thomson Reuters may increase, or adjust the basis for calculating, charges from the start of each renewal term with at least 60 days’ written notice.[1] The Tax & Accounting terms differ: a one-year initial term renews unless 90 days’ notice is given, and if an annual adjustment alone raises fees by more than the greater of 5% or the consumer price index, the customer may terminate the product within 30 days of the notice.[6] UltraTax CS also renews automatically each year, and its renewal window opens in mid November.[8] A calendar of notice dates is therefore needed per product, not per vendor.
Generative AI and content restrictions
Services with generative AI skills carry an additional layer. The GenAI Terms (Version 3.0, 23 January 2026) apply to AI functionality in the Services, bar Thomson Reuters and its providers from training foundation models on prompts, content or outputs without written agreement, and give the customer ownership of Output subject to retained rights.[5] Third-party AI provider terms, such as supported-country lists, are incorporated by reference.[4] See CoCounsel and generative AI terms.
The restriction on training AI with Thomson Reuters content has been tested in court. In Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH v. ROSS Intelligence Inc., the Third Circuit held on 29 September 2026 that 2,243 Westlaw headnotes were original enough for copyright protection and that copying them to train a competing legal search tool was not fair use.[11] The case is covered in Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence.
Practical points for licence managers
- Keep the Ordering Document for every product; it is the only place the quantity, jurisdictions and term are stated.
- Record which General Terms version, product terms and third-party terms each order incorporates, because the terms can change on 30 days’ notice.
- Track renewal and notice dates per product (30 days under the General Terms, 90 days under the Onvio terms, mid November for UltraTax CS).
- Treat each credential as an individual user; shared logins are prohibited.
- Online prices, such as those for Westlaw Advantage, are described as available to new customers only, so they are not a reliable benchmark for an existing account.[7]
Out of scope
This article does not cover the Refinitiv and LSEG financial data products, Reuters news licensing, or the separate Thomson Reuters Risk (CLEAR) master terms, which are published under their own Master Terms and Schedules. Products sold outside the United States may use different General Terms; this article follows the US versions. Thomson Reuters does not publish a general price list, so the figures that appear in the catalogue are limited to those on its published online plans and price lists.