Costs
What Drives the Cost of a Law Firm Website
A law firm website costs more or less depending on how many practice areas and attorneys it covers, who writes the content and how much attorney review it needs, what the intake form has to connect to, and whether you are paying once for a site you own or every month for one you rent. Any number quoted before those are settled is a guess.
Scope: Pages, Practice Areas and Attorneys
The biggest driver of cost is how many distinct pages the site needs, and on a law firm site that is set by practice areas and attorneys.
A solo practice with one focus area may need a home page, one practice area page, an attorney profile, a consultation page and contact details. A firm with six practice areas, sub-pages for the main ones, eight attorneys and two offices may need forty pages, each with its own content. Those are different projects and should be quoted as such.
Practice area pages are also the pages that do the most work, so cutting them to save money is usually the wrong economy. It is better to launch with fewer areas done properly and add the others later.
| Element | Smaller project | Larger project |
|---|---|---|
| Practice areas | One or two focus areas | Many areas, with sub-pages for the main ones |
| Attorneys | One profile | A profile for every attorney and key staff |
| Offices | One location | Several offices, each with its own page |
| Languages | English only | A second language, written and reviewed separately |
| Existing content | None to move | Years of articles and pages to migrate or redirect |
Content: Who Writes It, and Who Reviews It
Content often costs more than design. Whether the firm supplies finished text or the website provider writes it, and how much attorney review it needs, changes the scope a lot.
Legal content has to be accurate and has to pass the firm's own review against its state's advertising rules. If a provider writes it, they need time with an attorney to get the substance right, and the firm needs time to review every page. If the firm writes it, the provider's cost drops, but the firm's time goes up and launch often waits for the last page to arrive.
Ask every provider the same question: who writes the practice area pages and attorney profiles, how many rounds of attorney review are included, and what happens if the firm's review takes longer than planned.
- Practice area copy written from interviews with an attorney
- Attorney profiles drafted from CVs and confirmed by each attorney
- Review rounds by the firm, including a bar rules check
- Photography of attorneys and offices, if new photos are needed
Intake Forms and Integrations
A consultation request that emails the intake team is simple. A form that feeds case management software, schedules consultations or collects documents is a different scope.
Many firms already use intake or case management software that offers its own web form. Embedding or linking that form can be straightforward, or it can need custom work, depending on the software. Anything that collects documents or sensitive details belongs in the firm's own secure systems rather than in a website form, and should be scoped with that in mind.
Live chat, call tracking and scheduling tools add both setup work and ongoing subscription costs from their own vendors. Include them only where the firm will actually staff and use them.
Usually a small part of the scope
A short form with contact details, the practice area and a brief description, sent to an inbox, with a notice not to include confidential details.
Usually a larger part of the scope
Integration with case management or CRM software, online scheduling of consultations, multi-step intake questionnaires, and anything that handles documents.
Platform Fees Versus Owning the Site
A site built on a legal marketing platform often costs less to start and more over time. A site you own costs more at the start and nothing to the builder each month.
Platform arrangements usually bundle the website with hosting, updates and sometimes marketing for a monthly fee, under a contract with a minimum term. That can suit a firm that wants everything handled. The questions to ask are who owns the domain, whether the content and design can leave with you, and what it costs to cancel.
An owned site is built once, hosted on an account the firm controls, and can be updated by anyone the firm chooses. The firm pays its own domain and hosting, plus any support it decides to buy. Compare the two over three years, not over the first month.
| Question | Platform | Owned site |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns the domain? | Check the contract | The firm |
| Can the content move? | Often limited | Yes |
| Ongoing cost to the builder | A monthly fee for the term | Only support the firm chooses |
| Leaving | Notice period, sometimes fees | Move hosting or provider at any time |
How to Compare Two Quotes
Put both quotes on the same scope before comparing totals. Most of the gap between two law firm website quotes is a difference in what they include.
- Write a page list: practice areas, sub-pages, attorneys, offices and other pages.
- Ask each provider to quote against that list and to say who writes each page.
- Ask how many rounds of attorney review are included and what extra rounds cost.
- List the intake form, integrations and any third-party subscriptions, with who pays for each.
- Confirm who owns the domain, the hosting account, the design files and the content.
- Ask what happens after launch: support, updates and the cost of changes.
- Add every cost for three years and compare those totals.
If one quote is much lower, check the page count and the content line first. That is where the difference usually is.
Frequently asked questions
Do legal website platforms own my content?
It depends on the contract, so read the clauses on ownership, the domain and termination before signing.
Some platforms license the design and keep it when you leave; some also control the domain. Ask in writing whether the domain, the text you supplied and the pages written for you can move with the firm.
Is a template site enough for a solo attorney?
It can be, if the attorney writes clear practice area pages and keeps the site current.
What a template does not supply is the content and the structure built around your practice areas. Those matter more to clients and search engines than the design itself.
Why do law firm website quotes differ so much?
Because they usually describe different scopes: number of pages, who writes them, how much review is included and whether integrations are part of the job.
Normalize both quotes against the same page list and responsibilities, then compare the three-year totals.
Does a law firm website need ongoing costs?
It needs a domain and hosting, paid to those providers. Anything beyond that depends on the arrangement.
Some firms buy ongoing support or content work; with an owned site that is a choice, not a condition of keeping the site online.
Ask for a scoped quote.
Tell us your practice areas, attorneys and offices, and we will send a written proposal with the pages, timeline and price before anything starts. The site is built on a domain and hosting the firm owns.
