How do I choose between several legal marketing proposals? Normalise first — convert every proposal to the same twelve-month total including media spend, then compare on four axes: what is actually delivered, who holds the assets, what happens if you leave, and who does the work. Price last.
Three proposals at $2,000, $3,500 and 'custom' are not three prices. Until you normalise them they are not information at all.
- Published pricing — $2,500, $3,500 and $4,500 a month, on the site.
- Month to month. No contract is holding you anywhere.
- A former attorney of 17 years who filed 5,000+ cases works your account.
- You see your rankings move for 14 days before you are billed a dollar.
- Law firms only — no other industries, ever.
| Attorney Pro Marketing | Scorpion | FindLaw | Typical legal agency | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing published on the website | Yes — $2,500 / $3,500 / $4,500 per month | Not published | Not published | Rarely published |
| Contract term | Month to month, 30 days’ notice | Not published | Not published | Commonly 12 months |
| Who works on your account | A former attorney of 17 years, in every account | Assigned account team | Assigned account team | Account manager, often across industries |
| Your website is built on | Standard, portable code | Proprietary platform | FirmSite platform | Varies — ask before signing |
| See results before you are billed | Yes — 14 days, then you decide | No | No | No |
| Ad spend billed by Google directly to you | Yes, no markup | Ask | Ask | Often passes through the agency |
“Not published” means the figure does not appear on that company’s own website as of October 2026 — check for yourself before you sign anything, with them or with us.
Why They Do Not Compare
Put three legal marketing proposals side by side and you will find they differ in almost every dimension that matters, which makes the one number everyone looks at — the monthly fee — close to meaningless.
The usual sources of distortion:
- Media spend in or out. One proposal's $3,500 includes $1,500 of ad spend. Another's $2,000 is management only and the spend is on top. The second is more expensive.
- Setup fees. A $1,500 or $5,000 one-time charge that does not appear in the monthly comparison.
- Term length. Twelve months against month to month is not a price difference, it is a risk difference.
- Percentage-of-spend management. Scales with your budget and is invisible until the budget grows.
- Deliverables stated in adjectives. "Ongoing content" against "four pages a month." Only one of those can be checked.
- What is excluded. Hosting, call tracking, landing pages, reporting tools — sometimes billed separately.
None of this is necessarily dishonest. Agencies package differently. But it means the comparison has to be rebuilt before it can be made.
Step One: Normalise the Number
For each proposal, work out one figure: total cost of the first twelve months, everything included.
Setup fees, plus twelve months of management fee, plus twelve months of media spend at the level the proposal assumes, plus anything billed separately — hosting, call tracking, software, landing pages, reporting. One number per proposal.
Where a proposal takes a percentage of spend, calculate it at the spend level you actually intend to run, and then again at double that, so you can see how the cost behaves if the programme succeeds.
This exercise alone reorders most shortlists. The cheapest monthly fee is frequently not the cheapest year, and the proposal that looked expensive often turns out to be the one that included things the others billed separately.
Step Two: Score Four Axes
With cost equalised, the comparison becomes about substance. Four axes carry almost all of the signal.
- Deliverables, as countable items. How many pages a month? Which specific channels? How many hours, or how many campaigns? Rewrite each proposal's scope as a list of things that can be counted at the end of a month. Anything that cannot be rewritten that way is not a deliverable — it is a mood.
- Ownership of assets and accounts. Whose name is the domain registered in, whose Google Ads account is it, where does the site live, and what happens to the content if the engagement ends. This is the axis with the longest tail of consequences and the one proposals are quietest about.
- Exit terms. Notice period, what you keep, whether there is an early-termination charge, how the handover works. A short notice period is a form of accountability — it means the agency has to earn the next month.
- Who does the work. The person in the pitch, or someone else? Is any of it subcontracted or white-labelled? Who specifically writes the legal content, and have they written for law firms before?
Score each one to four, multiply nothing, and look at the shape of the result rather than the total.
A Scoring Sheet That Works
A simple version that takes about an hour and consistently produces a defensible decision:
| Axis | What a 4 looks like | What a 1 looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Normalised 12-month cost | Fully itemised, nothing billed separately, no percentage-of-spend | Monthly figure only, exclusions discovered on asking |
| Deliverables | Countable: "four pages a month, named channels" | Adjectival: "ongoing optimisation" |
| Ownership | Domain, hosting, ad account and content assigned to the firm in writing | Proprietary platform, agency-held accounts, vague assurance |
| Exit | 30 days' notice, documented handover, nothing withheld | 12-month term, early-termination fee, site goes dark |
| Who does the work | Named person, legal experience, in the account monthly | Unnamed team, subcontracted content, salesperson disappears |
A proposal scoring 4 on cost and 1 on ownership is a cheap way to lose your website. A proposal scoring 1 on cost and 4 everywhere else is usually worth the money.
Breaking a Tie
When two proposals come out close, three questions separate them reliably — and all three are asked rather than read, because the answers are not in the document.
"Show me a baseline report you produced for a client in month one." Redacted is fine. An agency that measures before it starts will have one immediately. One that does not will explain why it is not necessary.
"What would make you tell me to stop spending money with you?" A real answer — capacity problems, intake failure, a practice area that does not search — indicates someone who has had that conversation. No answer indicates someone who has not.
"Who will be in my account in month seven?" Not month one. Month seven, after the onboarding attention ends. This is where account quality usually degrades, and the answer tells you whether anyone has thought about it.
Attorney Pro Marketing is deliberately easy to normalise, which is most of the point of publishing pricing. $2,500, $3,500 and $4,500 a month, no setup fee, no percentage of ad spend, hosting and call tracking inside the tier rather than billed alongside. Multiply by twelve and add your intended media spend; that is the whole figure.
On the other three axes: assets and accounts are set up in the firm's name, the engagement is month to month with 30 days' notice, and the person in the account in month seven is Alon Darvish — 17 years in practice, over 5,000 cases filed, who is also the person you speak to in month one.
See it before you pay for it.
We snapshot your rankings on day 0, build and launch your site within three days, and show you the movement on day 14. If it has not moved enough to be worth continuing, you owe nothing for that period and you keep the Google Business Profile work.
Related Questions
Normalise first: calculate each proposal's total twelve-month cost with everything included — setup fees, twelve months of management, twelve months of media spend at the level assumed, plus anything billed separately like hosting, call tracking or landing pages. This single exercise reorders most shortlists.
Four axes: deliverables rewritten as countable items rather than adjectives; ownership of the domain, hosting, ad account and content; exit terms including notice period and what you keep; and who personally does the work, including whether content is subcontracted or white-labelled.
Ask to see a redacted baseline report from a client's first month, since an agency that measures before starting will have one immediately. Ask what would make them tell you to stop spending money with them. And ask who will be in your account in month seven, after onboarding attention ends.
Because they differ in whether media spend is included, whether setup fees exist, term length, whether management is a percentage of spend, whether deliverables are countable or adjectival, and what is excluded and billed separately. The headline monthly fee is rarely the comparable figure.