How much should a law firm spend on marketing?
Forget percentage-of-revenue benchmarks. Take what an average case is worth, work out how many consultations it takes to sign one, and you get the most you can afford to pay for a consultation. That single number tells you which channels are making you money and which are losing it.
Every answer you'll find online is a percentage of revenue. Spend 2%, spend 10%, spend whatever the benchmark says. It's a useless answer, because it tells you nothing about whether the money will come back. Here's the version that actually decides the number.
The short answer
Don't start from a percentage. Start from what one case is worth to you. Once you know that, you know what you can afford to pay to win one — and every marketing decision stops being a guess.
It's three numbers and two equations.
The math that actually decides it
Let's walk through it with real numbers. Swap in your own as we go.
Step 1 — What's an average case worth?
Not your biggest case ever. The average fee you collect, across the kind of work you actually want more of.
Step 2 — How many people who meet with you end up hiring you?
Out of everyone who sits down for a consultation, how many actually sign? If one in four hires you, that's 25%.
If you don't know this number, you're not unusual — most firms don't track it. Start a tally this month: a mark for every consultation, a mark for every one that signs. Two months of that is enough to work with.
Step 3 — So what is one consultation worth?
Multiply the two. If every consultation has a one-in-four chance of turning into a $4,000 case, then on average each one is worth a quarter of $4,000.
Every consultation that walks through the door is worth $1,000 to you, on average — whether or not that particular person signs.
Step 4 — What are you willing to pay to win a case?
This one's a judgement call, not a calculation. Plenty of firms land somewhere between a quarter and a third of what the case is worth. Go higher if you have empty capacity and want to grow. Go lower if you're protecting profit. There's no correct answer — but pick a number, because everything below depends on it.
That's 25% of the $4,000 case value.
Step 5 — So what can you pay for one consultation?
It takes four consultations to sign one case, so your budget for a case has to stretch across four of them.
You can pay up to $250 to get one consultation booked and still hit your target.
What that number does for you
$250 is now your scoreboard. Any channel that books consultations for less than that is making you money. Any channel that costs more than that is losing you money, however good the traffic looks.
And "how much should I spend?" answers itself: as much as you can while staying under $250 a consultation, and nothing at all above it.
That's the part firms get backwards. They cap spending at a monthly figure that feels comfortable — three grand, five grand — while a channel that's beating their number sits starved. If the math works, the thing that should stop you is running out of capacity to take the work, not the size of the invoice.
What things actually cost
Rough shape of the market, so your number has something to sit against:
Your website and the system around it. A one-off build from a freelancer, then nothing — no updates, no follow-up, no reviews. Or a monthly system that keeps working. The Refine System is $297/mo for the whole thing, including the site.
Paid search. Legal is among the most expensive categories in Google Ads, because every firm in your city bids on the same handful of phrases. Budget is separate from management — you pay Google, and you pay whoever runs it. Our PPC management add-on is $997/mo on top of ad spend.
Local Services Ads. You only pay when a customer gets in touch, not per click. Worth knowing the standalone product is being wound down into Google Ads — we covered that in Local Services Ads for lawyers.
SEO and content. Slow, compounding, and the only channel that stops costing you per lead once it works. Content marketing is $497/mo and off-page SEO $997/mo as add-ons.
The traditional legal agency retainer. Usually quoted per firm rather than published, commonly on a twelve-month term, and commonly with ad spend billed separately on top. Ask for the number in writing before you compare it to anything.
Where most firms should start
Before adding any channel, fix the leak. Most firms don't have a spending problem — they have a conversion problem, and buying more traffic just makes it more expensive.
A site that loads fast and says what you do. Reviews arriving steadily. Something that answers or texts back when a call comes in while you're in court. That last one matters more than most firms think: when researchers secret-shopped 500 law firms in 2024, only 40% answered a prospective client's call. We wrote about it in law firm intake, and it's the cheapest fix on this page.
That baseline is what The Refine System is: $297/mo, no contract, everything included. It's where most firms start, and most stay there — a starting point, not a stepping stone you're expected to outgrow.
Add a channel once the baseline works and you know your number. Then add one at a time, and judge each against that $250 rather than against how busy it makes you feel.
When the standard system isn't the right fit
Some firms don't fit the ladder. Multiple offices with different practice mixes. A partner-level rebrand. A practice area with an unusual buying cycle, or a market where everyone has already run the standard playbook.
For those we build custom marketing directly around the firm instead of fitting the firm to the product. It's scoped on the demo call against your actual situation, because a real number needs a real look — anyone quoting bespoke work off a webpage is guessing.
Worth saying plainly, though: most businesses start at $297 and stay there, and that's how it's meant to work. The published price is the real product. Custom exists because a few firms genuinely need it, not because the standard system is a trial run.
The honest version
Some firms should spend nothing on marketing right now.
If you're at capacity and turning work away, more leads make your life worse. If your referral network fills your calendar and you like the cases it brings, that's a working system — don't break it because a blog told you to build a funnel.
And if you can't answer the phone consistently yet, spending on ads is the worst possible order to do things in. You'll pay for clicks that ring out. Fix the answering first; it costs almost nothing and makes every dollar after it work harder.
The firms that should spend are the ones with room to take on work, a case value that justifies the cost, and something at the other end that actually picks up.
Where our system fits
The baseline at $297/mo: the website, on-page SEO, the review funnel, missed call text back, automated follow-up, and one inbox. No contract, so if the math doesn't work for you it costs you a month.
Channels layer on when your numbers say they should, and custom work is there if your firm is genuinely a special case. The whole picture for legal is on the law firm digital marketing page.
Questions firms ask about marketing budget
How much should a law firm spend on marketing?
Work backwards from one signed case rather than from a percentage of revenue. Take your average case value, multiply it by the share of consultations that turn into clients, and you know what a consultation is worth. Decide what you'll pay to win a case, divide that across the consultations it takes, and you have your ceiling per consultation. Spend as much as you can under that, and nothing above it.
Is 10% of revenue the right marketing budget for a law firm?
It's a benchmark, not an answer. A firm with $15,000 cases and a firm with $1,500 cases can both be at 10%, and one of them is drastically underspending. What you pay to win a case is the number that decides it.
How do I work out what a consultation is worth?
Multiply your average case value by the share of consultations that sign. If the average case is worth $4,000 and one in four people who meet with you hires you, each consultation is worth $1,000 on average — whether or not that particular person signs.
Why is legal PPC so expensive?
Because every firm in your city bids on the same small set of phrases, and one signed case can justify a high click price. That's exactly why cost per signed case matters more than cost per click — a cheap click that never signs is the expensive one.
What's the cheapest way for a law firm to get more clients?
Usually fixing what you already have: answering the phone, following up fast, and collecting reviews steadily. Those cost little and improve the return on every channel you add later. Buying traffic before that is paying twice.
What if my firm needs something more custom?
We build custom marketing around a firm when the standard system doesn't fit — multiple offices, unusual practice mixes, a rebrand. It's scoped on the demo call against your actual situation. Most businesses start at $297 and stay there, which is how it's meant to work.
