Storage-Based Billing

Most Lexbe eDiscovery Platform (LEP) account billing is based on storage.  There are no user fees, case set-up or similar fees for using LEP.  Most LEP accounts are billed on a monthly basis, in arrears. For example, usage in the month of February would be reflected in an invoice dated the last day of February and sent out early the following month.

What is Included in Storage

Billing is based on all ESI in an account, rounded up to the next largest GB.  Storage includes uploaded and processed native, image, and other files, OCR text, system-created PDFs, briefcases, productions, archives, search index, and related database usage, for the highest GB usage in a calendar month. 

What Does Increase Case Size?

Case size does include the following:

• The GB size of document ESI uploaded.

• The GB size of PDFs created from document ESI (generally about the same as the originals, but can be larger in some instances or smaller if a higher percentage of Placeholder files are created).

• The GB size of the search index, including text extracted from ESI and from the PDFs after OCR and included in the search index (capped at 35% of document ESI for billing purposes).  Discussed below.  

• The GB size of the SQL database allocated to the case.

• The GB size of Productions, Briefcases and Archives created.

What Does Not Increase Case Size?

Case size does not include the following:

• TIFF Images originating from an incoming production (i.e. a production uploaded into the case).

  • • LEP creates multipage PDFs from those TIFF images, and those PDFs do count towards monthly GB usage.

• PST, MBOX, and OST files.

• Other top-level container files of documents uploaded to LEP such as ZIP, RAR, 7z, etc. These top-level files are often not part of original ESI as maintained by document custodians, and instead are created as part of the collection, transfer, and/or upload/ingestion processes.

Highest Usage Calculated

Billing is based on all ESI in an account (as calculated above), for the highest GB usage in the month. Deletions of ESI from an account during a month will not decrease that month’s usage (billed generally early the next month), but will reduce the subsequent month’s usage and resulting charges.

Ways of Reducing Storage Costs

There are many ways of reducing storage costs in an LEP account.

• Unneeded briefcases, productions, archives, and ESI should be deleted by Customer to avoid unnecessary account charges. Deletions of ESI from an account during a month will not decrease that month’s usage (billed generally early the next month), but will reduce the subsequent month’s usage and resulting charges.

• If a Flex Billing account, converting to a Subscription Plan (one year or greater commitments for a specific capacity) can greatly reduce storage costs.

• After uploading/ingestion of native files, complete deNISTing and deduplication.  

• If a Lexbe Account is used for culling, completing the ingestion and culling within a calendar month can reduce the time that the account has larger ESI charges.

• If a larger case should become inactive for a period of time we offer case or account hibernation services.  See Account Hibernation for more information.

Billing

As discussed above, we bill at the end of a month for the highest usage during the current month. An account's current and highest usage is available on the Manage Billing page for viewing and export.

Processing and PDF versions of Files Uploaded

As part of processing, LEP expands supported container files, including Outlook PSTs, Outlook MSGs,  ZIP files, and RAR files. That expansion increases the storage used for a case.

LEP automatically creates a Normalized PDF version of all uploaded supported file to allow for better document viewing, increased searchability, Bates stamping at the page level, redaction, document splitting, and other functions.  If the software cannot create a Normalized PDF, a placeholder page will be created, which can be Bates-stamped if produced. See Placeholders for more information. Please note that this process includes OCR of PDFs and other supported images when available.

The original file will be available under the Original tab of the Document Viewer and the Normalized PDF (a Text-Under-Image PDF or Text-Based PDF) will be available under the PDF and Page tabs.  The extracted or OCRed text will be available under the Text and Hits tabs.  

If the original PDF is already a text-based PDF, then no OCR will be done and the original uploaded PDF will be used for the Original, Text, and PDF tabs.

LEP uses whichever PDF viewer the user has installed and associated for inline viewing of PDFs. For many users this is Adobe Acrobat viewer.

Search Index

LEP's search index is generally about 35% of the size of the documents stored.  This can vary substantially, depending on the document type, and can approach 100% of the original document size in some cases.  The search index is compressed from extracted or OCRed text and allows fast search results. Document coding is generally a very small amount of storage.  In general, cases with documents originating from natives, particularly ones with lots of text, will have a higher percentage than documents originating as scanned or TIFF load files, from photos.  

For billing purposes, the maximum billable size of the search index in an account is capped at 35% of the document size stored. The index size on the bill may be lower than what is reflected in the account if there is a particularly large index relative to document size.

Cases Billed Separately

To request special billing arrangements (separate bills, direct client billing) or for questions regarding account plan and current usage, contact your sales consultant.