What is a reasonable marketing budget for a solo attorney? $2,000 to $4,500 a month for most solos — but size it against six months of runway, not against one good month, because the programme has to survive a slow quarter.
A solo who cannot fund six months should not start a twelve-month programme. Stopping at month four wastes the first three.
- 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.
Size It Against Runway, Not Revenue
The usual advice is to spend a percentage of revenue. For a solo that advice is unstable, because solo revenue is lumpy — a good month and a dead month can differ by a factor of four, and a percentage rule tells you to spend heavily in March and nothing in August.
The more useful test is runway. Commit only what you can fund for six consecutive months, including a bad one, without touching money you need for rent and malpractice coverage.
That test exists because of how the work behaves. Local and organic programmes build slowly and then compound. A firm that funds three months, panics, and stops has not bought three months of results; it has bought three months of construction and then abandoned the building. The money is genuinely gone. A firm that funds a smaller programme for eight months is in a materially better position than one that funded a larger programme for three.
The Cost Nobody Counts
For a solo, the real resource is your time, and the arithmetic here is uncomfortable.
If your billable rate is $300 an hour, and keeping a profile maintained, writing pages and managing campaigns takes fifteen hours a month, doing it yourself costs $4,500 in forgone billable work — more than the top published tier of a done-for-you programme. And that assumes the work gets done, which for most solos it does not, because marketing is the thing that loses to a filing deadline every single time.
- It gets done in bursts. Four posts in one week, then nothing for two months. Local signals reward consistency and punish abandonment.
- The phone goes unanswered. You are in a hearing, the call goes to voicemail, and the caller phones the next firm on the list. A programme that works makes this worse, not better.
- Nothing is measured. Without a baseline and a tracking number, you cannot tell which half of the effort is working, so you keep funding both.
A Workable Range
- Under $1,500 a month all in. Realistically a maintenance posture. Keep the Google Business Profile current, keep the site accurate, and accept that the practice grows through referrals rather than search.
- $2,000 to $2,500. One channel properly funded. For most solos this means local search plus modest content, and it is enough to move Map Pack position in a normal market.
- $3,000 to $4,500. Two channels running at once, more content, and room for an advertising budget alongside the fee. The range where most growing solos end up.
- Above $5,000. Appropriate in competitive personal injury or mass-tort adjacent work, where the media costs dominate. Unusual elsewhere for a one-attorney practice.
What to Fund First
Order matters more than total at solo scale, because a small budget can only do one thing at a time.
Fund the Google Business Profile and local search first, because the Map Pack carries a large share of local legal searches and the asset is yours permanently. Fund the website second, since every other channel sends traffic to it and a site that does not convert wastes every dollar spent upstream. Fund content third, because it compounds. Fund paid search last, because it stops the day you stop paying — valuable for speed, poor as a foundation.
Attorney Pro Marketing's tiers are published at $2,500, $3,500 and $4,500 a month, which covers the range most solos actually need and lets you run your own runway arithmetic before any conversation. There is no setup fee and no twelve-month term — month to month with 30 days' notice — so a slow quarter is a decision rather than a default. The work is done by Alon Darvish, who practised for 17 years and filed over 5,000 cases, which for a solo matters: you are not explaining your practice area to an account manager. And we show you the day 14 movement before billing you for that period.
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
Most solos land between $2,000 and $4,500 a month all in. Below roughly $1,500 the realistic posture is maintenance rather than growth. Above $5,000 is unusual for a one-attorney practice except in competitive personal injury work where media costs dominate the budget.
Runway. Solo revenue is lumpy enough that a percentage-of-revenue rule tells you to spend heavily in a good month and nothing in a slow one. Commit only what you can fund for six consecutive months including a bad one, because local and organic work abandoned at month four wastes months one through three.
Usually not, once time is counted. Fifteen hours a month at a $300 billable rate is $4,500 in forgone work — more than a done-for-you programme at the top published tier. And the work tends to happen in bursts and then stop during a trial, which undoes much of what the earlier months built.
Local search and the Google Business Profile, because the Map Pack carries a large share of local legal searches and the asset is permanently yours. Then the website, since every channel sends traffic to it. Then content, which compounds. Paid search last — fast, but it stops producing the day you stop paying.