How to Choose a Privately Deployed Contract Management System: Deployment, Integration, and AI Review

Private deployment exists to keep contract data and processing inside an environment you control. Evaluations often confirm only that the system installs on-premises, and miss where the AI model runs and what it costs over time.

What to ask the vendor

• Are the system and data deployed entirely on our servers? Where does AI inference run, and does it call external model services?
• For our user count, how many servers do we need, and with what specs?
• Are seats billed individually or unlimited? Does the cost change when more departments join?
• How are license, support, and value-added services billed? What does first-year support include?

How to verify

• Ask for a written server recommendation based on your user count and check it against IT resource planning.
• If data must stay in-house, run contract upload, review, and approval in a test environment isolated from the internet and confirm each step works.
• Ask for a quote that itemizes license fees, support fees, and usage-based charges so no unexpected costs appear after go-live.

How Zico does it

Zico offers Private Standard and Private Advanced, with the system and data deployed on your own servers. Server specs scale from a standard configuration (8 cores, 16 GB × 2 servers) to an enterprise configuration (32 cores, 64 GB × 5 servers or more). Private plans are a one-time fee with unlimited seats and free first-year support, which covers 24×7 technical support, system upgrades, issue response, and periodic health checks.

Zico OCR, ASR, and Zev quick review run inside the customer environment when GPUs are available, and on FIM compute otherwise, never on third-party model services. For organizations that need every AI capability to run inside their network, Private Advanced offers optional private LLM deployment (rolling out). Where each AI capability runs and where the data boundary sits are confirmed in writing before deployment.

Contract work involves business, legal, finance, and seal teams. If the system adds its own accounts and entry point, business users switch between systems and approvals pile up. The integration check asks whether contract tasks can start and be handled in the tools employees already use.

What to ask the vendor

• Which collaboration platforms are supported? Does the price differ by platform?
• How do sign-in, org-chart sync, approval tasks, and notifications connect to the collaboration platform?
• How does the system connect to OA, ERP, and finance systems? Which parts use standard APIs, which need custom development, and how is custom work billed?
• Which e-signature and seal services are supported, and how are they billed?

How to verify

• Have the vendor demo in your own collaboration-platform test tenant: QR-code sign-in, org-chart sync, and handling an approval task directly from a message.
• List the internal systems and data flows to connect, ask the vendor to explain the method for each, and write them into the implementation scope.
• Talk to existing customers similar to you: which collaboration platform they use and which departments and processes are covered.

How Zico does it

Feishu (single sign-on, org-chart sync, messages, approvals, calendar, and todos) and internal OA systems already run in customer production; DingTalk, WeCom, Weaver, Seeyon, Landray, and others are connected on request, with scope set when requirements are confirmed. Zico provides an open API, supports iframe embedding to connect ERP, CRM, OA, finance, and other systems, and supports Webhook event notifications. Private editions support deeper custom integration, and custom development is billed per person-day. Signing connects to e签宝 and 章管家, with e-signature billed per signature.

AI review shortens first-pass review, while legal remains accountable for the conclusions. The evaluation focuses on whether results can be located, adjusted to your standards, and traced, and whether AI works in a private environment.

What to ask the vendor

• Do review results anchor to the original contract text? Are risks graded?
• Can review checklists follow industry rules or our internal policies?
• Who confirms the conclusions? Are review records kept and traceable?
• Is AI billed separately or by usage? Does AI work fully in a private environment?
• Which capabilities are available now, and which are still in development?

How to verify

• Prepare several redacted historical contracts that include clauses legal has already flagged, upload them during the demo, and compare the AI findings with the original review notes.
• Give the vendor your current review points to configure as a checklist, then run the same contracts again and compare the results.
• Ask the vendor for a written status of each AI capability, and use the available ones as the acceptance scope.

How Zico does it

Contract review in Zico AI is available now. After upload, it scans parties, payment and default, jurisdiction and disputes, confidentiality and IP, and other clauses, grades each risk and anchors it to the original text, and produces a structured risk list and exportable review opinions; a new file with comments or tracked changes is coming soon. Checklists can follow industry rules or internal policies, key conclusions are confirmed by human review, and results are traceable.

Quick review, version compare, contract translation, information extraction, contract summary, and meeting minutes are also available; the Zico AI page describes all seven. Zico AI is billed separately through annual plans that include credits, with published prices on the Plans page; it can be bought with the contract system or connected alone to an existing system.