What is a realistic return on investment from a law firm marketing company? Two to five times total marketing spend in collected fees, within twelve months, for a competently run small-firm programme — and the headline multiples in agency marketing are almost always calculated on billed fees rather than collected.
A 10x claim and a 3x claim can describe the same engagement. The difference is which numerator and denominator were chosen.
- 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.
What a Realistic Multiple Looks Like
Return on marketing is best stated as collected fees divided by total marketing cost, over a defined window. On that definition:
- Below 1x. Losing money. Common in the first quarter, when build costs are heavy and organic work has not matured. A problem only if it persists past six months.
- 1x to 2x. Covering itself, not funding growth. Often a practice-area economics problem rather than an execution one.
- 2x to 5x. A solid, normal, well-run programme for a small firm. This is the band to plan around.
- 5x to 10x. Strong. Usually a high-value practice area, an efficient intake process, or organic work that has been compounding for a year or more.
- Above 10x. Possible, and worth auditing before celebrating. Check whether referrals have been counted as marketing-attributed.
Four Ways the Numbers Get Inflated
Every one of these appears in legitimate-looking agency material, and each one is a choice about the formula rather than a performance difference.
- Billed rather than collected fees. The single biggest distortion. A firm that bills $200,000 and collects $140,000 has a real multiple roughly 30 percent lower than the one in the case study.
- Ad spend left out of the denominator. Dividing revenue by the agency fee alone, ignoring the money paid to Google, can double the apparent return.
- All new clients attributed to marketing. Referrals, repeat clients and walk-ins get swept in because nobody tracked the source. This is the most common error and it is usually accidental.
- Lifetime value used without basis. Multiplying each client by an assumed number of future matters produces an impressive figure resting entirely on the assumption.
ROI Is Not Flat Over Time
A single twelve-month multiple hides the shape, and the shape is the useful part.
Months 1–3 are usually negative or near break-even. Build costs land, organic has not matured, and paid campaigns are still gathering the data that makes them efficient.
Months 4–6 typically cross into positive. Paid search has shed its waste, local work is producing, and the first content is ranking.
Months 7–12 are where the multiple grows, because the organic portion costs the same each month and produces more. This is the compounding that distinguishes marketing that builds assets from marketing that rents attention.
Year two is where a well-run organic programme does its best work, since content written in year one is still producing without further cost.
Which has a practical implication: a firm that judges ROI at month three and cancels will conclude marketing does not work, having tested only the expensive part of the curve.
Calculating Your Own, Properly
- Numerator: fees collected in the period from clients you can attribute to marketing. Not billed, not estimated lifetime value.
- Denominator: every marketing cost. Agency fee, ad spend, subscriptions, photography, the lot.
- Attribution: tracking numbers per channel, plus asking every new client how they found you. The two together catch most of it.
- Window: twelve months, with the monthly curve shown separately so the shape is visible.
Our structure is built so this calculation is possible rather than estimated. Advertising is billed to your firm directly by Google, so the denominator is exact and not buried in a bundled invoice. Call tracking with recordings and lead attribution from the Growth tier identifies the channel behind each contact. Pricing is published — $2,500, $3,500 and $4,500 a month — so the fee side of the denominator is known before you start. And the day 0 baseline plus day 14 report means the measurement begins before the first invoice.
No multiple is promised here, for the reason set out in our page on marketing guarantees: nobody controls Google's results or your intake. What is offered is a structure where the real number is calculable and a month-to-month term that lets you act on it.
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
Two to five times total marketing spend in collected fees over twelve months is a solid, normal result for a well-run small-firm programme. Five to ten times is strong and usually reflects a high-value practice area or organic work that has been compounding. Above ten times is worth auditing for referrals counted as marketing-attributed.
Four reasons: using billed rather than collected fees, which can overstate by 30 percent or more; excluding ad spend from the denominator and dividing revenue by the agency fee alone; attributing all new clients to marketing including referrals and repeat work; and multiplying by an assumed lifetime value with no basis.
Months one to three are usually negative or near break-even because build costs land early and organic work has not matured. Months four to six typically cross into positive, and months seven to twelve are where the multiple grows as organic content keeps producing at no additional cost.
Divide fees actually collected from attributable clients by every marketing cost including agency fee, ad spend, subscriptions and photography. Attribute using tracking numbers per channel plus asking every new client how they found you. Use a twelve-month window but show the monthly curve, since the shape matters more than the single figure.