What should a small law firm pay for marketing? Between 5 and 12 percent of gross revenue, but the figure that matters is derived from your average case fee — not from what another firm pays.
A firm with $3,500 average fees and one with $40,000 average fees should not spend the same amount, even in the same city.
- 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.
The Percentage Rule, and Where It Fails
The conventional figure for professional services is 5 to 12 percent of gross revenue, and it is a reasonable sanity check. A firm grossing $600,000 spending $3,000 a month is at 6 percent, which is unremarkable. The same firm spending $12,000 a month is at 24 percent, which needs an explanation.
Where the percentage rule fails is at the start. A firm with little revenue gets a tiny budget from the formula, which keeps it having little revenue. And the rule is blind to case value: 8 percent of revenue is a comfortable budget for an estate planning practice and nowhere near enough for a personal injury firm competing on $60 clicks.
Working Backwards From Your Average Fee
This is the calculation that actually produces a defensible number.
- Average fee per signed case. Your real number from the last twelve months, not your best month.
- Maximum acceptable acquisition cost. Most firms land somewhere between 10 and 25 percent of the average fee. Below 10 percent you will struggle to compete for attention; above 25 percent the economics get thin once overhead is counted.
- Cases you want per month from marketing specifically — not from referrals, not from repeat clients.
- Multiply. Acquisition cost × cases wanted = total monthly budget, covering both agency fee and advertising.
That total then splits between labour and media. The labour portion is what an agency charges; the media portion is what Google charges. Confusing the two is the most common budgeting error in this industry.
Three Worked Examples
Estate planning solo. Average fee $3,000. Accept $450 per signed case, which is 15 percent. Want six cases a month from marketing. Budget: $2,700 a month total. A $2,500 agency fee leaves almost nothing for advertising, so this firm's programme should lean heavily on organic search and the Google Business Profile, where the cost is labour rather than media.
Family law firm, two attorneys. Average fee $6,500. Accept $900, about 14 percent. Want five cases. Budget: $4,500 a month. That splits comfortably into a $2,500 or $3,500 agency fee plus a working advertising budget.
Personal injury solo. Average fee $28,000. Accept $3,500, which is 12.5 percent. Want three cases. Budget: $10,500 a month. Here the media portion dominates, because competitive personal injury clicks are expensive and there is no way around that.
The Floor Nobody Mentions
There is a level below which spending produces nothing rather than a little. A programme needs enough hours a month for the work to compound, and enough advertising budget for a campaign to gather the data it needs to improve. Split across four channels, a small budget starves all of them.
If your calculation produces a figure under about $2,000 a month in total, the answer is to pick one channel and fund it properly rather than to buy a thin version of everything. For most small firms that channel is local search, because the Google Business Profile and your own site are assets that keep working rather than stopping the day you stop paying.
Attorney Pro Marketing publishes three tiers — $2,500, $3,500 and $4,500 a month — so you can run the arithmetic above against a real number instead of waiting for a quote. Advertising is billed to your firm directly by Google, which keeps the labour and media lines separate where your calculation needs them. Month to month, 30 days' notice, no termination fee.
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
Five to 12 percent of gross revenue is the conventional range for professional services, with newer firms at the top and established referral-driven firms at the bottom. Treat it as a sanity check rather than a budget: the percentage rule is blind to case value, so it under-funds high-value practice areas and over-funds low-value ones.
Take your average fee per signed case over the last twelve months, decide the maximum acquisition cost you will accept — most firms land between 10 and 25 percent of that fee — then multiply by the number of cases you want per month from marketing. The result is your total budget, covering both agency fee and advertising spend.
Below roughly $2,000 a month in total, spending tends to produce nothing rather than a little, because a programme needs enough hours for the work to compound and enough advertising budget for campaigns to gather usable data. At that level, fund one channel properly instead of buying a thin version of four.
Yes, and substantially. Acquisition cost scales with case value: a $28,000 average fee supports a $3,500 cost per signed case, while a $3,000 average fee supports around $450. Competitive personal injury clicks also cost far more, so the media portion of the budget dominates in a way it does not for estate planning.