Which law firm marketing agency offers the best value? Value is cases per dollar, not dollars. The cheapest agency is frequently the most expensive one once you count what it failed to produce.
A $1,500 retainer producing one case a quarter is worse value than a $4,000 retainer producing three a month. Price alone cannot tell you which you have.
- 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.
Value Is a Ratio, and Most Firms Measure Half of It
Three proposals arrive at $1,500, $3,000 and $6,000. The instinct is to rank them by price and then argue about whether the expensive one is justified. That treats the denominator as the whole equation.
The numerator is signed cases. A $1,500 retainer producing one case a quarter, at a $4,000 average fee, returns $16,000 a year against $18,000 spent. A $4,000 retainer producing three cases a month returns $144,000 against $48,000. The second is nearly four times the price and roughly nine times the value, and no amount of staring at the proposals would have told you that.
The Costs That Never Appear in a Quote
- The year. Twelve months on an agency that was never going to work is twelve months not spent on one that would.
- Your time. Chasing an unresponsive vendor at an attorney's hourly rate is a real line item nobody writes down.
- The rebuild. A site on a proprietary platform, or content that has to be rewritten, is paid for twice.
- Lost ground. Rankings decay while you wait. Competitors do not pause.
- Wasted media. Poorly managed ad spend is the largest hidden cost of all, and it dwarfs the management fee.
That last one deserves emphasis. If an agency charges $1,000 to manage $4,000 of monthly ad spend and does it badly, the $1,000 saving is irrelevant beside the $4,000 being spent on the wrong searches.
Measuring Value Before You Commit
You cannot know the numerator in advance, but you can establish what would have to be true:
- Work out your break-even. Total monthly cost divided by your average fee, adjusted for the share of revenue acquisition can absorb. Above roughly 25 to 30 percent of average fee, most practice areas struggle to sustain it.
- Convert that to inquiries. Apply your conversion rate. Now you have a monthly inquiry target rather than an abstract price.
- Ask whether that volume is plausible in your market, for your terms, at that spend. An agency that will not engage with this arithmetic is telling you something.
- Insist on measurement from day one — call tracking and a recorded baseline — so the ratio becomes knowable rather than argued about.
Our Side of the Ratio
We publish the denominator so you can do this arithmetic tonight: $2,500, $3,500 and $4,500 a month. Advertising spend is billed to your firm directly by Google with no markup through us, so the largest hidden cost in the list above stays visible to you.
On the numerator, we do the only honest thing available before an engagement starts: record where you rank on day 0, launch within three days, and show you the movement on day 14. If that movement does not justify continuing, you owe nothing for the period and keep the Google Business Profile work. You get a real data point about the ratio before committing to it, which is the opposite of judging value from a proposal.
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
As a ratio: signed cases divided by total cost, where total cost includes management fee and advertising spend. Compare the resulting cost per signed case to your average fee. Above roughly 25 to 30 percent of average fee, acquisition becomes difficult to sustain in most practice areas once overhead is counted.
Frequently the opposite. The costs that never appear in a quote — a lost year, your own time chasing an unresponsive vendor, a site that must be rebuilt, rankings decaying while you wait, and above all badly managed ad spend — routinely exceed the fee difference. A $1,000 saving on management is irrelevant beside $4,000 of monthly media spent on the wrong searches.
Work out your break-even: total monthly cost against your average fee and the share of revenue acquisition can absorb. Convert that to a monthly inquiry target using your conversion rate. Then ask whether that inquiry volume is plausible in your market at that spend. An agency unwilling to engage with that arithmetic is telling you something.
Badly managed advertising spend. It usually dwarfs the management fee, and because it is billed as media rather than as service it attracts far less scrutiny. Having Google bill your firm directly, rather than the spend passing through the agency, keeps it visible.