Law Firm Marketing Cost UK: How to Set Your Budget

How much does law firm marketing cost in the UK?

There is no single reliable answer, and any guide that gives one should show its source. Prices vary because the work varies. A conveyancing firm in a small town and a personal injury firm bidding for national searches face very different competition. Google Ads is sold by auction, so the price of a click is not fixed. Google explains that you set a maximum cost per click, that the amount you pay is often lower, and that you are charged only when someone clicks. That means two firms can spend the same sum and get very different numbers of enquiries. SEO and website work are usually priced by the supplier, and scope differs widely between quotes. Because of this, the useful question is not "what is the going rate?" but "what do I need to spend to win the instructions I want, and can I prove it is working?" The rest of this guide helps you answer that.

What are you actually paying for?

Law firm marketing spend falls into four buckets: media, provider fees, software and your own team's time. Media is the money paid to platforms such as Google for clicks. Provider fees pay for strategy, building, content, account management and reporting. Software covers tools such as a CRM, call tracking, hosting and review requests. Your own time is the hours that partners, fee earners and reception spend answering and following up enquiries. Most firms count the first two and forget the last two. That gives a cost that looks lower than it really is, and it hides the weak points. A budget that ignores the time needed to answer enquiries quickly can fail even when the adverts and website are excellent. Put each bucket in a simple spreadsheet, even if some figures are estimates. You can tighten them after the first quarter.

The table below shows what each bucket covers and where firms most often miss it.

The fourth bucket matters more than most firms expect. If marketing brings in more enquiries but nobody answers them quickly, the money is wasted. Our guides on speed to lead and call handling cover that side of the cost.

Some work builds up and keeps paying. A well-built website and a set of strong practice area pages keep working for years. Paid clicks stop the day you stop paying. Both can be right; they are different kinds of spend.

How do you set a law firm marketing budget?

Start from the result you want and work back. Use your own figures, not an industry average. This approach keeps the budget tied to fee income and gives you a test you can check later. First, decide how many new instructions you want in the next twelve months. Second, find out how many enquiries you currently need to get one instruction. You can count this from your last three to six months of records. Third, estimate the fee income an average matter brings in, after the work is done and paid for. Fourth, divide the spend you are considering by the signed cases you expect. If the cost per signed case is well below the fee income per matter, the plan has room to work. If it is close to or above it, the plan needs to change. We explain this metric in cost per signed case versus cost per lead. Check the maths again after one quarter, using real results.

A worked example

These numbers are invented to show the sum. They are not benchmarks.

Suppose a firm spends £6,000 in a quarter across ads, fees and software. It receives 120 enquiries and signs 15 cases. Its cost per enquiry is £50 and its cost per signed case is £400. If an average matter brings in £2,000 of fees, the plan has room. If the firm signed only 3 cases, the cost per signed case would be £2,000, and the plan would need changing. The spend was the same. The result depended on what happened to the enquiries.

Why do quotes look so different?

When two quotes for "SEO" or "a new website" differ widely, the scope usually differs too. One may include content writing, technical fixes and monthly reports; another may only cover set-up. Google's own SEO guide says that changes can take anywhere from hours to several months to show in results, and that it is reasonable to wait a few weeks before judging them. Any supplier who promises fast, fixed outcomes is not describing how search works. Local results add another limit. Google says there is no way to pay for a better local ranking, and that it uses relevance, distance and prominence instead. So a quote that promises a set map pack placement is selling something Google says cannot be bought. When you compare quotes, line them up on the same rows: what is built, what is run each month, what is reported, who owns the accounts, and what the notice period is.

What should a quote include?

A good quote lets you compare suppliers on the same terms and gives you an exit if the work does not deliver. Ask for the scope in writing, and make sure it says what you will receive each month, not just what the supplier will "do". Ask who owns the accounts, because a firm that does not own its website, analytics or ad account can find it hard to leave. Ask how enquiries and calls will be tied to signed cases, because a report that stops at clicks cannot tell you whether the money worked. Ask what the notice period is and what happens to your assets when the contract ends. Finally, ask which regulatory checks the supplier expects you to carry out, since the responsibility for your publicity stays with the firm. Use this list as a minimum:

• What work is included each month, in plain terms
• Who owns the website, ad accounts, analytics and Google Business Profile
• How leads and calls will be tracked to signed cases
• What the report will show, and how often
• How long the contract runs and how to leave
• Any ad spend, and whether it is paid direct to Google or through the supplier

Our guide on how to choose a legal marketing provider goes through more checks.

How do SRA rules affect what you pay for?

Your firm is responsible for its publicity, including material produced by suppliers. The SRA's warning notice on marketing to the public says publicity must be accurate and not misleading, and that unsolicited approaches to the public are not allowed. It also says firms must be able to show that clients passed on by lead generators were not obtained in a way that would breach those rules. For personal injury and related claims, the SRA's guidance on referral fees says that payments made per lead, or that vary with the number of referrals, suggest a payment for referrals rather than marketing. A fixed fee per referred client is likely to include a referral element. So choose a clear marketing fee for a clear service, and talk to your COLP before agreeing anything that looks like payment per client. This is general information, not legal advice. Always check the current SRA rules.

Next step

If you want a second pair of eyes on your numbers, book a free audit. We will look at how enquiries reach you and what happens next, then give you a plain-English view of where spend could be working harder.

You can also read about our approach to law firm marketing, or how we help firms turn enquiries into instructions.