How much should it cost to sign a new personal injury case? How many of your inquiries should turn into clients? How quickly do other firms respond to potential clients? See how your firm compares across 67 metrics every personal injury firm should track.
Explore the benchmarksThe average amount spent on marketing to sign one new case. Where your firm is located is the single biggest factor in how much you pay.
Explore budget & costs Cost per lead · all channels$290Average$199Top 25%The average marketing cost of generating one inquiry, before lead qualification.
Explore budget & costs Inquiries that become clients10.6%Average21.7%Top 25%The average firm signs about one client for every ten inquiries. Top-performing firms sign roughly one in five.
Explore intake & conversion Time to reply to a web form15.7 minAverageUnder 2 minTop 25%How long it takes a firm to respond after someone submits an online inquiry. One firm in four never replies at all.
Explore intake & conversion New Google reviews a month0.94Average8.9+Top 25%The average firm gets about one new Google review per month. Top-performing firms get around nine to fourteen.
Explore reviews Signed cases from referrals37.4%Average55.6%+Top 25%Referrals account for more than a third of signed cases on average. Yet only one in four firms has a process for asking for them.
Explore referrals
Personal injury law firms need reliable data to understand how their marketing compares with other firms. That data is hard to find. We’re publishing our findings to give firms a clearer picture of where they stand. As you explore the benchmarks, I’d love to hear from you about how your firm’s results compare.
| Benchmark | Average | Top 25% |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing spend as a share of revenue | 10.7% | 22.0% The biggest TV advertisers run 21.4% to 32.1% |
| Marketing spend per attorney, per yearEstimate | $75,402 | $157,419 |
| Cost per lead, all channels | $290 | $199 |
| Cost per qualified lead | $841 | $377 |
| Cost per signed case | $2,956 | $1,631 |
| What a signed case costs, by city size. Small market $958 to $2,397. Mid-size city $1,772 to $4,533. One of the twenty biggest metros $3,756 to $6,995. | ||
| Acquisition cost as a share of the first fee | 18.5% | 8.1% |
| Fees earned for every $1 spent on marketing | $4.78 | $9.30 |
How marketing budgets are split
In this comparison, the top quartile allocates more of its budget to broadcast and outdoor media. Use the mix as context: a larger share of spending does not mean a channel will work better for your firm.
TV, radio, streaming, billboards
Google Ads
SEO + AI Search
Local Services Ads
Social and video
Referrals and networking
Directory listings
Each share was measured separately, so the two columns are not one budget broken up.
Lower lead costs only help if those leads become suitable cases. Compare acquisition cost with the fees those cases generate.
| Benchmark | Average | Top 25% |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per click | $126 In a mid-size city | $43 to $85 Small market. Big city $141 to $426. Truck and motorcycle terms $515 to $908. |
| Ad click-through rate | 6.3% | 7.7% |
| Clicks that turn into a lead | 5.9% | 11.9% |
| Cost per lead | $337 | $199 |
| What a lead costs, by city size. Small $115 to $221. Mid-size $172 to $301. Biggest metros $352 to $976. | ||
| Leads that qualify as potential cases | 39.1% | 50.0% |
| Cost per signed case | $3,123 | $1,693 |
The low click-cost range describes a small market, not a top-performing firm. It is not a like-for-like performance target.
| Benchmark | Average | Top 25% |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per lead | $238 | $188 |
| What a lead costs, by city size. Small $125 to $201. Mid-size $218 to $319. Big city $298 to $511 and up. | ||
| Leads retained after disputes | 61.4% | 68.7% |
| Leads that become signed clients | 13.5% | 21.5% |
| Cost per signed case | $1,657 | $884 |
| Firms using Local Services Ads | 66.4% | 87.0% Or more |
Read cost per lead and cost per signed case together. A lower lead price alone does not show whether a campaign is effective.
| Benchmark | Average | Top 25% |
|---|---|---|
| Share of leads from organic search | 25.7% Includes the Maps listing | 41.5% |
| Cost per organic search lead | $329 | $194 |
| Monthly SEO agency fee | $8,488 Per month | $14,603 Per month |
| Months to reach page one for "personal injury lawyer [city]" | 12.8 Mid-size city. 15.5 to 24.4 in a top-10 metro. | 9.1 Mid-size city. 10.2 in a big city. |
| Months to appear in the Google Maps top three | 3.4 to 6.4 | 2.0 to 2.8 |
| Monthly calls from Google MapsEstimate | 17.1 | 88.4 |
| Monthly website clicks from Google MapsEstimate | 28.9 | 114.3 |
| Firms in the Maps top three, mid-size city | 140 reviews Rated 4.54 | 394 reviews Rated 4.84 |
| Firms in the Maps top three, big city | 550 reviews Rated 4.18 | 1,046 and up Rated 4.51 |
| AI visibility: firms named and share of answers | 5.3% The average firm is named in under 1.1% of answers | 20.3% to 33.5% Of answers about its own city |
| What AI assistants quote when someone asks for a lawyer. Super Lawyers 29.9%, Justia 22.9%, Google Search and Maps 11.9%, Reddit 7.0%, Avvo 4.3%, YouTube 4.3%. Across all legal answers, 78.2% point at a directory before anything else. | ||
| Share of visits from AI assistants | 1.0% Reported annual growth of 1.9× to 2.8× | 2.2% Reported annual growth of 4.3× or more |
| Share of leads from AI assistants | 1.5% | 3.6% |
AI visibility is still based on limited evidence. The figures mix the share of firms named with the share of answers mentioning a firm; those are different measures.
| Benchmark | Average | Top 25% |
|---|---|---|
| Website visitors who become leads | 3.1% | 6.3% |
| Contact mix: call / form / chat or text | 59.3 / 33.8 / 8.9% | 54.2 / 29.7 / 20.6% |
| Share of visits from mobile devices | 79.3% | 85.2% Or more |
| Mobile page load time | 3.26 s About 37.2% of personal injury sites pass Google's speed test | 2.44 s Reported for the top quartile |
| Firms offering online consultation booking | 21.7% | 50.8% Share of the top quarter that offers it |
The call, form and chat shares were each measured on their own, so they do not add to 100%. Read them as three separate figures rather than one split.
From inquiry to signed case
The largest gap is at the consultation stage: 34.3% of consultations become signed cases at the average firm, compared with 66.0% in the top quartile.
Qualified inquiries
Qualified leads that book a consultation
Booked consultations attended
Consultations that become signed cases
Each stage uses a different sample. Do not multiply these rates to estimate total conversion; the separately reported totals are 10.6% and 21.7%.
| Benchmark | Average | Top 25% |
|---|---|---|
| Time to first response to a web inquiry | 15.7 min In office hours. 12.8 min among firms that reply at all. | Under 2.0 min By phone and text, day or night |
| Firms that do not respond to web inquiries | 26.5% | 0% |
| Firms replying within 5 minutes | 25.5% | 93.6% Or more |
| Firms replying within 1 hour | 55.1% | 95.4% |
| Unanswered calls | 25.6% | Under 4.7% Day or night |
| After-hours inquiries and response coverage | 33.7% Calls come mostly in the day, forms and chats come later. Weekends run 14.3% to 21%.Share of all inquiries received after hours | 96.3% Share of after-hours contacts answered by a person |
| Inquiries that qualify as potential cases | 43.7% | 50.7% |
| Qualified leads that book a consultation | 70.7% | 83.7% |
| Booked consultations attended | 81.4% | 98.6% |
| Consultations that become signed cases | 34.3% | 66.0% |
| Qualified leads that become signed clients | 26.6% | 53.1% |
| All inquiries that become signed clients | 10.6% | 21.7% |
| Follow-up attempts per lead | 1 to 2 | 9 to 14 By call, text and email over 13 to 31 days |
| Time from first contact to a signed agreement | 3.2 days | Same day Signed on the phone, electronically |
After-hours inquiry volume and response coverage are different measures. The table labels both so they are not mistaken for a typical-versus-top comparison.
| Benchmark | Average | Top 25% |
|---|---|---|
| Average Google rating | 4.51 Across all law firms. 4.12 among personal injury firms that rank. | 4.59 With 86.4% and up of reviews at five stars |
| Number of Google reviews | 37 About 16 across all law firms | 281 and up In a mid-size city. 513 to 799 for the top firm in one of the twenty biggest metros. |
| New reviews per month | 0.94 | 8.9 and up Firms in the top quarter typically add nine to fourteen a month |
| Reviews receiving a responseEstimate | 36.2% | 80.8% And up, usually within two days |
| People who read reviews before calling | 69.7% | Consumer benchmark; no top-quartile comparison |
| Lowest star rating people will consider | 4.01 Expectations may be higher in competitive markets | Consumer benchmark; no top-quartile comparison |
Review counts show a difference between groups; they do not prove that reviews alone caused a higher Maps ranking.
| Benchmark | Average | Top 25% |
|---|---|---|
| Share of signed cases from referrals | 37.4% Past clients 15.7%, other lawyers 15.4%, other professionals 5.4% | 55.6% and up Relationship-led firms. Firms relying heavily on advertising sit at 17.7%. |
| People receiving a personal recommendation | 42.8% About 21.1% of hires come straight from one | Consumer benchmark; no top-quartile comparison |
| Firms with a referral programEstimate | 25.7% | 95.4% |
Referral share depends on the firm’s business model. A firm investing heavily in advertising may have a lower share even when referrals are growing.
| Benchmark | Average | Top 25% |
|---|---|---|
| Email open rate | 40.7% | 53.6% |
| Email click rate | 3.1% 10.0% of people who open the email | 5.2% 15.1% and up of people who open the email |
| Leads from social media | 4.6% | 15.6% Includes Facebook lead ads, YouTube and TikTok |
| Firms signing a client through social media this year | 38.8% 26.9% across all law firms | 92.0% |
| Visitors landing on blog posts and guides | 65.6% Service and city pages take 38.6%. The leads flip the other way: 27.2% and 74.6%. | 71.4% Service and city pages take 33.1%. Blog posts bring 31.1% of free-traffic leads. |
Traffic and lead shares come from separate measurements and may not sum to 100%. Compare each metric on its own.
| Benchmark | Value | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost of a click on "car accident lawyer" | $71 to $159 What firms actually pay in mid-size cities. $291 and up in the big metros. Google's own planner quotes $307 to $432 for a top spot. | |
| High-cost personal injury keywords | $528 to $1,027 Truck accident $539 to $1,027. Oilfield injury $689. Motorcycle $528 to $683. Bus accident $686. These are top-of-page bid estimates. | |
| Share of the budget going to TV, radio and billboards | 16.4% For the average firm. 34.2% and up for the biggest brands. | |
| Average fee per case | $16,538 | $26,665Varies with case mix. |
Cost per lead by channel
SEO produces the cheapest lead in this study and Google Ads the most expensive. Lead quality, and how many of those leads become clients, still differs by channel.
SEO
AI search (GEO)
Display ads
Local Services Ads
YouTube
Google Ads
These are raw inquiries, before anyone checks whether they are real cases, and they come from a different sample than the channel tables above.
The channel chart comes from a different study than the main tables. Its cost-per-lead figures should be compared within that chart.
Grow My Practice is a monthly plan by Pioneerly that builds a complete case acquisition system for your personal injury firm.
ACTION POINTS
Each one takes a week or less and needs nothing you do not already have.
One firm in four never replies to a web form at all, and the average first reply takes 15.7 minutes. Route form submissions to the same alert as a ringing phone, reply by text as well as call, and cover evenings and weekends. The top quarter reach 94% of people inside five minutes.
See the intake numbers ↑Take last year's marketing spend, divide it by cases signed, and you have the one number every other benchmark hangs off. Then judge it against your city rather than the national figure: small markets sign a case for $958 to $2,397, the twenty biggest metros for $3,756 to $6,995.
See the cost numbers ↑The average firm adds about one Google review a month. Firms at the top of Google Maps add nine to fourteen, and they get there by asking on a schedule rather than when someone remembers. Pick one trigger, the settlement check or the closing letter, and put it in the file-closing checklist. If nobody at your firm will own that every week, hand it to our Review Management service: requests go out on schedule, and every review gets an answer.
See the review numbers ↑Referrals bring in 37.4% of signed cases and only one firm in four has any process behind them. Add one required field to your intake form: past client, another lawyer, or another professional. Ninety days of that data tells you which relationships are worth your time.
See the referral numbers ↑Average is the middle of the pack. Half of firms land above it and half below. It covers U.S. personal injury firms from solo practices up to mid-size and across every market size, so read it as a reference point rather than a goal.
Top 25% is what a firm has to hit to sit in the best quarter on that one metric. Each top-quarter figure is set on its own, and a firm in the best quarter on lead cost is rarely also in the best quarter on close rate.
Read each row on its own rather than building one figure out of two others. Every metric is measured on its own sample, so cost per lead multiplied by your signing rate will not reproduce the published cost per signed case. Sometimes it lands within a few percent, sometimes it is out by half.
A few rows describe how injured people search and choose a lawyer, or how big a market is, rather than how a firm performs. Their notes say so.
Every figure is published as a single number or a range.
Rows marked Estimate are reasoned estimates rather than direct measurements. They cover marketing spend per attorney, monthly Maps calls and clicks, review response rates, and how many firms run a formal referral program.
The AI-search figures rest on the thinnest evidence on this page, and sources disagree widely on how many inquiries arrive in the evening and at weekends. Market definitions are broad. Treat every comparison as directional: use it to see roughly where you are.
These are living benchmarks - figures are revised as new data becomes available. Dollar amounts are rounded to whole dollars, and a range is published wherever a range is more telling than a single number.
Every benchmark on this page in one file, with the regional breakdowns, the chart values and a sheet explaining where each figure comes from. Free to use with credit under CC BY 4.0.
Suggested citation: Pioneerly, Personal Injury Marketing Benchmarks 2026.
Marketing for personal injury firms
