Most marketing agencies price their intake-automation implementations the same way they price a website: by hours of work. That is leaving 60% on the table. Law firms are not buying a thing built — they are buying a measurable revenue lift.
Reprice from outcome, not effort.
What the law firm actually buys
A personal-injury firm doing 30 consultations/month is buying: 8-12 recovered missed calls/month ($80-120K/yr), no-show drop from 40% to 10% ($50-110K/yr), better Google review velocity (improved local SEO), automated nurture for the 80% who do not sign on call 1 (~5% lift in eventual signs).
Conservatively, a properly built the intake-automation platform stack moves $150-250K/year for a small PI firm. Charging them $1,500 to set it up is malpractice on your part.
The framework: 5% of year-1 lift
Price the setup at 5% of the conservative year-1 revenue lift you can demonstrably attribute to the system.
For a small PI firm: setup $7,500-12,500, monthly retainer $1,000-2,500.
For smaller practices (estate planning, family law) where lift is more like $40-80K/year: setup $2,000-4,000, retainer $500-1,000/mo.
Two numbers in the proposal: their year-1 lift estimate (with conservative math) and your fee. The fee always looks small relative to the lift.
Why most agencies under-charge
Three reasons: they estimate from cost not value; they benchmark against shitty competitors; they are afraid the firm will say no. Anchor higher and most law firms will pay it.
The retainer math
Monthly job: monitor SMS deliverability (carriers change rules monthly), tune the AI qualifier as patterns emerge, adjust no-show recovery based on data, add 1-2 new automations per quarter, monthly 30-min review call. Total: 3-5 hours/month. At $1,500/mo that is $300-500/hr effective.
What changes if you white-label
If you partner with a white-label provider like scale.law: you bill your client $2,500 setup + $1,000/mo, you pay scale.law $800 setup + $400/mo per active client. You keep $1,700 setup (68% margin) and $600/mo MRR (60%). For an agency running 5 law-firm clients on the platform: $3,000/mo recurring profit + $8,500 setup margin per new sign. No technical hires needed.
More at scalelaw.tech/services.
The proposal that closes
One page. Three sections: current state (real numbers), the lift (conservative math per workflow), the investment (your fee with the lift number 10× larger on the same line).
Attorneys evaluate evidence. Show them the math, anchor at 5%, and they sign.