Freelance contract review,
built for UK law
Upload your service agreement and see the risky clauses, what they actually mean, and what to push back on before you sign. Built for UK freelancers, not North American businesses or legal teams.
Free to start. No credit card. From £10 per document.
Most freelance contracts are written for the client, not for you
When a client sends you a service agreement, it has been written to protect them. Buried in it are the few clauses that decide whether the deal is fair: payment terms, IP ownership, liability, post-project restrictions, confidentiality, and termination. The rest is mostly boilerplate.
You can do this yourself in about half an hour once you know which clauses carry the risk, and our guide walks through all six and what fair wording looks like in each. The catch is that a contract usually arrives on a deadline, and half an hour is exactly what you do not have.
Miss one of those six and you can end up handing over your IP, accepting unlimited liability, or agreeing not to work with similar clients for a year. Most freelancers sign anyway, because legal language is built to be read by lawyers, not the person being handed the contract.
Ookulli reads it for you, in minutes, against UK law, and shows you exactly where the risks are.
What you get back
Plain-English summary
A concise summary of what the contract actually commits you to, written for a normal person, not a solicitor. Understand the whole agreement in minutes instead of an evening of dense legal prose.
Expert-designed highlights
Automatic flags on the clauses that matter: risky terms, missing protections, and anything unusual. Each highlight tells you what it is, why it matters, and how UK law treats it, so you know what is standard and what is worth challenging. They are ranked, so the clause that could cost you most is the one you read first.
Interactive contract chat
Ask anything about your contract and get a straight answer. Follow up on a single clause, check what a term means, or ask how to push back, on your schedule and at no extra cost.
Why freelancers use Ookulli
Affordable
A solicitor charges £200 to £400 an hour. Ookulli reviews a contract from £10, with no subscription.
Clear
Legal jargon translated into plain language you can act on, not a generic AI summary that ignores the UK.
On demand
No appointment, no waiting for a callback. Upload a contract the moment it lands in your inbox.
Empowering
Walk into the conversation knowing what is fair, what is not, and exactly what to ask for.
What Ookulli checks in your contract
Six clauses decide whether a freelance contract is fair, and a seventh, scope and change control, is the one that quietly costs freelancers the most unpaid time. Ookulli reads every clause in the document, tells you what is standard, and flags what is worth pushing back on. Here is what it looks for in each, and where fair, borderline and unfair sit on each one if you want to place your own terms on the scale first.
Payment terms and late payment
The number of days is rarely the problem. The trigger is: the event that starts the payment clock. “30 days from invoice” is clean. “30 days from satisfactory completion” is not, because satisfactory is the client’s word and the clock does not start until they say so. Where a contract says nothing at all, the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 makes payment due 30 days after you invoice or deliver, and gives you interest at 8% above base rate on top. Most freelancers never find that out, which is why the trigger condition matters more than the number of days.
What Ookulli flags
- Payment periods longer than 30 days, and terms that are silent on when the clock starts
- No late-payment provision, no interest, and no right to suspend work
- Retention or holdback wording that keeps part of your fee behind an undefined sign-off
What a fair version looks like
30 days from invoice, a stated remedy for late payment, and a deposit or staged payments on anything long enough to hurt if it stalls.
IP ownership
Under UK copyright law you own the work you create as a freelancer by default. An assignment clause takes that away, and the whole question is when. Assignment on delivery means the client owns the files before your invoice clears, and all you have left is a claim for money. Assignment on payment in full keeps the work as leverage until you are paid. One phrase separates the two, and it is usually buried mid-clause.
What Ookulli flags
- Assignment that bites on delivery or on creation rather than on payment in full
- Wording broad enough to sweep in work made in your own time, or the tools and components you built before the project
- No carve-out letting you show the finished work in your portfolio
What a fair version looks like
Ownership transfers when the final invoice is paid, your pre-existing tools stay yours under a licence, and you keep the right to show the work.
Liability and indemnity
These two clauses pull in opposite directions and most freelancers only read one. A limitation of liability clause caps what a client can recover from you. An indemnity is a fresh promise to pay their losses, and unless the contract says the cap covers it, it sits outside the cap entirely. In a business-to-business contract there is no statutory ceiling on an indemnity you give, so uncapped wording means uncapped exposure, and many professional indemnity policies exclude liability you took on purely by contract.
What Ookulli flags
- No liability cap, or a cap set far above the value of the work
- An indemnity that is not expressly brought inside the cap
- Indemnities covering things outside your control, such as the client’s own use of the deliverables
What a fair version looks like
Liability capped at the contract value or your insured limit, and any indemnity narrow, specific, and stated to sit within that cap.
Restrictive covenants
Non-compete and non-solicitation clauses decide who you can work with after the project ends. In UK law they are void as a restraint of trade unless they protect a real business interest and go no wider than necessary in what they stop, for how long, and over what area. Courts are most comfortable with three to six months. Twelve is reserved for people with genuine access to sensitive information, and likely unenforceable is not the same as safe to ignore, because a weak clause can still be used to threaten you.
What Ookulli flags
- Restrictions covering a whole industry rather than the client’s actual market
- Durations beyond six months, or with no end date at all
- Non-solicitation wording wide enough to catch contacts you brought with you
What a fair version looks like
Three to six months, limited to the client's named competitors or direct market, and silent on the people you already knew.
Confidentiality
A confidentiality clause is reasonable protection until it is not, and the tell is usually breadth rather than length. Check what counts as confidential, how long the obligation runs after the contract ends, and whether it binds both sides or only you. A definition wide enough to cover general industry knowledge complicates your next project without protecting a real secret, which is where many clauses go further than UK law will actually enforce.
What Ookulli flags
- One-way obligations in a contract where both sides are sharing commercially sensitive material
- Indefinite duration over ordinary project information that stops being commercially sensitive within a few years
- Wording that would stop you naming the client at all, including in a portfolio or a case study
What a fair version looks like
A defined category of information, a fixed term of two to five years with indefinite protection reserved for genuine trade secrets, obligations running both ways, and a stated exception for anything already public.
Termination and notice
Termination is often the most consequential clause in a freelance contract and the one read last. The questions are how each side ends the agreement, how much notice they owe, and what happens to work already done. A clause letting the client walk immediately while binding you to 30 days is not a notice period, it is a cancellation right with your name on the risk. Check which obligations survive the end of the contract as well, because confidentiality and post-project restrictions usually do.
What Ookulli flags
- Notice rights that are longer for you than for the client
- Termination for convenience with no payment for work in progress
- No stated position on what happens to IP, deliverables or accrued fees on termination
What a fair version looks like
Symmetrical notice of 14 to 30 days, work completed up to the termination date paid for, and a clear list of what survives.
Scope and change control
This is the one missing from most checklists, and it is the clause that quietly costs freelancers the most unpaid hours. A service agreement committing you to “such other tasks as the Client may reasonably require” sounds modest and works as a mechanism for unlimited additional work, because reasonable is subjective and nothing in the contract prices it. Without a defined process for approving and costing variations, extra requests accumulate and are never formally agreed. It sits alongside the clauses that most often catch UK freelancers out, and it is the easiest of them to fix before signing.
What Ookulli flags
- Open-ended scope wording such as “reasonably require” or “ancillary tasks”
- No written change-control process, and no rate attached to work outside the brief
- Deliverables described so loosely that acceptance becomes a matter of opinion
- Unlimited revision rounds, or revisions with no defined end point
What a fair version looks like
Deliverables listed specifically, any variation agreed in writing before work starts, and additional work charged at a stated day rate.
What a flag actually tells you
Ookulli is not a general model summarising contract text. Each clause is pulled out and read on its own, the UK legislation and legal standards that bear on it are retrieved, the clause is assessed against those specific laws, and only then is the explanation written.
That order is why every highlight can name its source. You see the exact clause it refers to and the exact law it was checked against, so you can verify the reasoning instead of accepting a conclusion. It also means Ookulli can flag what is not there, which is the part a read-through misses most often. A contract with no liability cap and no late-payment provision reads as clean precisely because nothing is written down.
Here is one flag on a payment clause, in full.
The clause, quoted from your contract
“The Client shall pay all undisputed invoices within 60 days of the Client’s acceptance of the Services as satisfactory.”
What it means in plain English
Two things push the payment date out. The period is 60 days rather than 30, and the clock does not start when you invoice, it starts when the client decides the work is satisfactory. Nothing here puts a deadline on that decision.
Checked against
Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, which treats payment as due 30 days after invoice or delivery where nothing else is agreed, and gives you a statutory right to interest on a late invoice.
What to ask for
A fixed deadline for acceptance, or payment triggered by the invoice rather than by sign-off, so the clock cannot be held open indefinitely.
How it works
Upload your contract
Drop in a service agreement, employment contract, or NDA. It takes seconds.
See the flagged clauses
Ookulli highlights the risky and unusual terms, explains each one in plain English, and links it to the relevant UK law.
Ask follow-up questions
Use the chat to dig into anything, then decide with confidence whether to sign, negotiate, or walk away.
Before you upload
The four things freelancers want settled before they hand a contract to anything, answered plainly.
What it costs
Ookulli is free to start, so you can see how it handles your contract before paying anything. After that it is pay-as-you-go on credits, not a subscription: £10 for 100 credits, which is one document, £25 for 300 at £8.33 a document, and £40 for 500 at £8 a document. Nothing renews, and there is a 30-day money-back guarantee if the analysis is not useful.
How long it takes
Minutes, not days. There is no appointment, no queue and no callback to wait for, so a contract that lands on a Friday afternoon can be read, understood and queried the same afternoon. The chat stays open afterwards at no extra cost, so you can come back to a single clause while you are drafting your reply, and here is the wording to use when you raise each point without straining the relationship.
Whether it covers UK law
UK law is the whole point. Every flag is assessed against the legislation and legal standards that apply here, and the flag names which one. That is the difference from a general chatbot, which will summarise your contract confidently against the legal framework it has seen most of, which is not the UK, and will not tell you which framework it used.
What happens to your document
Your contract is never used to train AI models, and it is not shared with third parties beyond what is strictly required to run the review. Handling follows UK data protection law, the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. This is worth checking wherever you upload, because consumer tiers of general AI tools may use what you send to improve their models, and that can breach the confidentiality clause in the contract you are trying to read. Here is why putting a live contract into a general chatbot is a risk.
Where Ookulli stops, and a solicitor starts
Ookulli gives you legal information and analysis. It is not formal legal advice, and it is not a substitute for a solicitor when you actually need one. If you are in a live dispute, negotiating something high value or genuinely bespoke, or deciding whether to test a restriction in court, that judgement belongs to a qualified solicitor who can carry the risk of being wrong.
What Ookulli replaces is the £300 you would otherwise spend having someone read a standard eight-page service agreement and confirm it is standard. For understanding what you are signing, seeing which clauses are unusual, and knowing what to query before you commit, it does the job. You can also run the same checks by hand without a solicitor, and knowing what a fair clause looks like is the part that makes either route work.
Your contract stays private
Your documents are confidential, and we treat them that way.
And every flag shows its source. You see the exact clause it refers to and the exact UK law it is assessed against, so you are never asked to trust a black box.
Never used to train AI models. Full stop.
No third-party sharing or access beyond what is strictly required to run the review.
Compliant with UK data protection law (UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018).
Built for sensitive documents like employment contracts and NDAs.
Infrastructure is AWS Well-Architected and independently reviewed by StormIT, so you can trust it is built right.
Ookulli vs the alternatives
Ookulli
Generic AI Tools
High-street solicitor
Built for UK law
Shows the source (clause + law)
Flags risky clauses for you
Keeps your data private
Cost
Turnaround
Pricing
Straightforward and Affordable
Your first contract review is free, because every new account gets a 120-credit welcome bonus. After that, pay only when you need another review. No subscription, no ongoing commitment.
See packagesSTARTING FROM
£10
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analysis
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best tool to review a freelance contract in the UK?
Ookulli is built specifically for UK freelance contract review. It reviews your contract against UK law, flags the clauses that are risky or unusual, and explains each one in plain English, without requiring a legal background to use.
What exactly does Ookulli check in a freelance contract?
Every clause, and in particular the seven that decide whether the deal is fair: payment terms and late payment, IP ownership, liability and indemnity, restrictive covenants, confidentiality, termination and notice, and scope and change control. It also flags what is missing, which is the part a read-through misses most often. A contract with no liability cap and no late-payment provision looks clean precisely because nothing is written down.
Can I use ChatGPT to review my freelance contract?
You can, but there are two problems. ChatGPT is trained mostly on US material, so it will not reliably flag clauses that are unusual under UK law. And consumer tiers may use what you upload to improve their models, which can breach the confidentiality clause in the very contract you are checking.
What should I look for when reviewing a freelance contract?
Start with payment terms, and specifically the trigger that starts the payment clock rather than the number of days. Then IP ownership and whether it transfers on delivery or on payment, liability and whether any indemnity sits outside the cap, restrictive covenants and their scope and duration, confidentiality and how long it runs, termination and whether the notice is symmetrical, and finally scope and whether variations have to be agreed in writing before the work starts.
How long does a contract review take?
Minutes. You upload the document and get a plain-English summary and the flagged clauses ranked by importance, then you can ask follow-up questions in the chat about anything you want to go deeper on.
How much does freelance contract review cost?
Ookulli starts free. Paid reviews are £10 per document on the 100-credit bundle, £8.33 a document on the 300-credit bundle at £25, and £8 a document on the 500-credit bundle at £40. There is no subscription, and there is a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Is it safe to upload my contract to an AI tool?
It depends on the tool. Consumer tiers of general-purpose AI may use what you upload to improve their models, which can breach the confidentiality clause in the contract you are checking. Ookulli never trains on your documents and never sends them to OpenAI, Anthropic or any other model provider's API: your contract is processed inside Ookulli's own cloud environment, and handling follows UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.
How do I know the analysis is right?
Because you can check it. Every highlight names the exact clause it refers to and the exact UK law it was assessed against, so the reasoning is visible rather than something you have to take on trust. Ookulli retrieves the law that applies to your specific clause and cross-references the clause against it, which is why the source can be shown at all.
Does Ookulli review service agreements as well as employment contracts?
Yes. Ookulli reviews employment contracts, service agreements, which is what most freelance contracts are, and NDAs. Those cover the documents UK freelancers and contractors are asked to sign most often.
Do I still need a solicitor?
For a live dispute, a high-value negotiation, or a genuinely bespoke agreement, yes. Ookulli gives you legal information and analysis, not formal legal advice. For understanding what a standard freelance contract says, seeing which clauses are unusual, and knowing what to query before you sign, it gives you what you need at a fraction of the cost.
What if the review is not useful?
There is a 30-day money-back guarantee. If the analysis does not give you what you needed, you get a full refund.
Read this before you sign
The UK freelancer's guide to reviewing any contract
The long version of everything on this page, clause by clause, with the wording that counts as fair in each.
Is my freelance contract legal?
What makes an agreement binding in the UK, and the difference between a term you dislike and one that will not hold.
Non-solicitation clauses, and whether they hold
The quieter half of a restrictive covenant: who you are barred from approaching once the project ends.
The clause library
One page per clause: what it means, the UK law behind it, and what a fair version looks like.
Ready to see through the legal fog?
Try Ookulli now for free if you have an NDA or a service contract
Upload your contract