Clio is the best known practice platform in Canada. It is built for law firms in general, which is exactly why immigration work needs something else beside it.
Checked on 25 October 2026 against their own public pages. Software changes. If we have something wrong, tell us and we will correct it.
Clio is a Canadian company selling legal practice management to firms of every kind, with billing, accounting, a client portal and document management, and it lists immigration as one of many practice areas it serves. Their Canadian pricing page lists EasyStart at $69, Essentials at $129, Advanced at $179 and Expand at $219 CAD per user a month. They also show $79, $139, $199 and $239, probably for monthly billing. E-signature is on all plans, they offer a Canadian server, and their trial is 7 days. All as listed on their site on 25 October 2026.
What it does not do is the immigration specific work. Nothing on the pricing page describes filling IRCC forms, watching IRCC policy or handling the federal portals, because that is not what the product is for.
Source: www.clio.com/ca/pricing/ · help.clio.com
| Meridian | Clio | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Canadian immigration practices only | Law firms of every practice area |
| Published price | $99, $249 and $499 a month in CAD, for the firm | EasyStart $69, Essentials $129, Advanced $179 and Expand $219 CAD per user a month |
| IRCC forms | IRCC PDF forms filled from the case file, the most used checked box by box | Not described. Immigration is listed as a practice area, not as form automation |
| The IRCC portals | A Chrome extension that fills IRCC's online portal pages, page by page as each one is mapped | Not described |
| Policy watching | Intelligence, more than forty sources, Express Entry forecasting | Not described |
| Signing | Signet, built in, no fee per signature | On all plans |
| Billing | Invoicing and case financials | Deep, and a genuine strength |
| Where data is hosted | North America (Cloudflare) | They offer a Canadian server |
| Mobile | Aurora on iOS and Android | Yes |
| Ecosystem | One system, nothing to integrate | Very large integration marketplace |
Clio is a serious product with a long track record, deep billing and accounting, a large integration marketplace and a support organisation far bigger than ours. For a mixed practice doing litigation, real estate and some immigration, it is a reasonable centre of gravity.
It is also Canadian and offers a Canadian server, which matters to firms thinking about where their records live.
If your firm already runs on Clio and only a slice of the work is immigration, the honest answer may be to stay and add what is missing rather than to move everything.
Meridian only does immigration, so the case file is shaped like an immigration matter rather than a generic one. Forms, portals, policy, document requests and deadlines all assume IRCC.
The hours a general platform leaves on your desk, typing IMM forms and retyping the same answers into the portals, are the hours we are built to remove.
Pricing is per firm, with seats included in each plan and extra seats at $25 a month, rather than a full price for every user.
Policy intelligence is included. No general platform will tell you that a program change touches four of your live files.
We could not confirm which of their two price sets is for annual billing and which is for monthly. Ask them for the price that applies to you.
No. It is legal practice management sold to firms of every kind, and it lists immigration among the practice areas it serves. There is no IRCC form filling described on its public pages.
Yes, and some do, keeping billing and general matters in a broad platform while the immigration files live in a system that knows what an IMM form is. Ask both vendors what the handover looks like before you commit to running two.
Clio lists $69 per user a month CAD on EasyStart, up to $219 on Expand, so a firm of four pays for four seats. Meridian is priced per firm when we open: $99 a month for a solo and $249 for three staff, with extra seats at $25. Compare them at your real headcount, not at one user.
Yes, Clio is a Canadian company, and they offer a Canadian server. Ask which server your firm's data would sit on.
A short walkthrough on a sample case file, once we open to new firms.