How Much Should Small Law Firms Spend On Marketing?

To compete effectively, you should plan to spend between 5% and 10% of your gross fee income on marketing if you run a small firm of one to five fee earners, rising toward 15% for a defined growth push such as a new practice area or location. This applies across England and Wales. The Law Society’s Financial Benchmarking Survey 2026 recorded median fee income growth of 11.2% across firms in 2025, the fastest rate the survey has measured, so a budget held flat against that growth has shrunk as a share of revenue without anyone deciding it should. Spending below the 5% floor rarely builds enough visibility to compete for new instructions.

Last reviewed – 29th July 2026

Key Points:

• Budget 5% to 10% of gross fee income on marketing if you are maintaining your current position, and closer to 15% for a defined 12 to 18 month growth push.
• Split spend across your website and SEO, paid acquisition, reputation and reviews, and a small test allocation, weighted to where your enquiries already come from.
• The SRA’s rules restrict unsolicited approaches to named individuals, not general advertising, so keep budget in search, content, and broad-reach channels.
• Track cost per enquiry and conversion rate separately for each channel monthly for the first two quarters, then quarterly once a channel settles.
• Doing nothing costs you rankings and referral share that a competitor spending steadily will pick up within a single financial year.

Ask any managing partners of one to five fee earner firms what they spend on marketing and you will get ten different answers, most delivered with a shrug rather than a number they actually calculated. It is one of the questions I hear most often from managing partners, usually asked at the point a partner has just seen a competitor’s paid search ad for the third time that week and wants to know whether their own firm is falling behind.

This forms part of our wider guide to Law Firm Marketing in 2026.

How much should small law firms spend on marketing?

Best practice is to budget 5% to 10% of your gross fee income for marketing, rising toward 15% for a defined growth push into a new area or location.

A firm generating £600,000 in fee income should expect to spend between £30,000 and £60,000 a year on marketing activity, covering your website, SEO, digital PR, and content production. Where you land within that range depends on your current position, not on a generic benchmark. If your enquiries already come reliably from referrals and repeat instructions, sit toward the lower end and use the budget mainly to protect your existing search visibility. If you are opening a new department or entering a competitive area such as personal injury or family law, you need the higher end to build visibility fast enough to matter.

What should my law firm’s marketing budget cover?

Your budget should be split across your website, SEO, and GEO, paid search and social media, reputation and reviews, and a test allocation for new channels.

A workable starting split for a one to five fee earner firm is roughly 50% to SEO and content, 25% to paid search or directories, 15% to reviews and local visibility, and 10% held back to test anything new. Weight the split by where your enquiries actually come from now, not from where you assume they come from.

A firm with two fee earners doing conveyancing has different priorities from a firm with five fee earners doing family and employment work, so resist copying a percentage split from a firm whose practice areas differ from yours.

Do I need to spend more to grow?

Yes, growth requires spending meaningfully above maintenance level, because the visibility you need does not exist yet and has to be built from nothing.

A firm launching a new practice area or a second location should run closer to 15% of fee income for the first 12 to 18 months, then step back down once that area generates steady enquiries of its own. Maintenance spend keeps your current rankings, AI visibility, reviews, and referral relationships from decaying. Growth spend has to overcome a competitor’s head start in a market you do not yet occupy, which almost always costs more per enquiry in year one than it will by year three.

How do SRA rules limit what I can spend on?

The SRA’s rules do not cap how much you spend, but they restrict how you spend it, and getting this wrong risks your authorisation, not just your budget.

Paragraph 8.9 of the SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors states: “You do not make unsolicited approaches to members of the public, with the exception of current or former clients, in order to advertise legal services provided by you, or your business or employer.” For you, that means cold calling, door-knocking, or targeted approaches to named individuals who have not contacted you sit outside acceptable marketing spend, whatever your budget.

General advertising to the public through search, social media, or broad-reach print remains permitted, provided you are not targeting specific individuals using personal information you hold about them. Direct approaches to other businesses fall outside this restriction, so B2B marketing to referrers is not affected. Every pound in your budget should go toward channels that let people find you when they are already looking, or that reach a general audience without singling anyone out.

How do I know if my budget is working?

You know your budget is working when the cost of acquiring a new instructed client falls below the fee income that client generates, tracked by channel.

Calculate cost per enquiry and enquiry-to-instruction conversion rate for search, referrals, and paid channels separately, because a channel that looks expensive on cost per enquiry can still be your most profitable channel if its conversion rate is high enough. Review this monthly for the first two quarters of any new spend, then quarterly once a channel settles into a predictable pattern. If a channel has run for six months without producing a single instructed client, that is a decision point, not a reason to keep waiting.

Track how many enquiries arrive through AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, or Google’s AI Overviews asking who to instruct for a specific matter, since a growing share of the search behaviour that used to run entirely through Google now runs through these systems first.

Talk to Lawtelligence

If you want help setting a marketing budget that matches your fee income and your growth plans, our team can build that plan with you channel by channel, starting with where your enquiries come from now. Call us on 01691839661 for a no-obligation free conversation.

Last reviewed: July 2026

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