Revenue Intelligence ROI Calculator: What a PI Firm Can Recover in Year One

You've heard the number: 15–20% marketing ROI lift inside 90 days. What you haven't seen is the math behind it — applied to a firm that looks like yours. This post does that. Three worked examples across firm sizes, one formula you can run on paper, and a breakdown of exactly where the recovered spend comes from.

This is not a pitch. It's a calculator. Run the numbers against your firm's actual spend. If the payback doesn't hold up, Revenue Intelligence probably isn't the right tool for your stage yet. If it does, the case makes itself.

The Formula

Year-one recoverable spend from Revenue Intelligence is a function of three inputs:

• Monthly marketing spend— what the firm currently commits to paid lead generation across all channels and vendors.
• Cost-per-case variance across vendors— the gap between the best-performing vendor and the worst. At most PI firms running 5+ sources, this spread is 2–3x.
• Percentage of spend allocated to underperformers — typically 15–25% of the total budget is sitting on vendors producing cases at 2x+ the cost of the top performers.

The recoverable figure is (monthly spend) × (underperformer allocation %) × (cost reduction from reallocation). For most firms, that works out to 10–20% of total marketing spend in year one.

Worked Example 1: Small Firm

Five-attorney PI firm. $45,000/month across four lead vendors and Google Ads. The Marketing Director suspects one vendor is underperforming but the spreadsheet can't prove it.

Revenue Intelligence surfaces the truth: one vendor is producing cases at $4,200 — nearly double the firm's best source at $2,100. That vendor is consuming $12,000/month (27% of the budget). Cut it, redirect 70% of the savings to the top performer, and the firm recovers roughly $5,000/month — $60,000 in year one. That's an 11% ROI lift on a $45K/month budget, with payback measured in weeks.

Worked Example 2: Mid-Sized Firm

Twenty-five-attorney PI firm. $240,000/month across eight vendors, Google Ads, LSAs, and a pay-per-call network. The Marketing Director has a vendor scorecard, but it's built on cost per lead — not cost per case — and it gets rebuilt manually every month.

Revenue Intelligence flags three underperformers inside 60 days. One is producing cases at $3,800 vs. the firm's $1,500 best source. One has a conversion rate declining quarter over quarter — caught too late on spreadsheets. One looks fine on volume, but cases from that vendor settle 30% below target. Together those three represent $72,000/month (30% of budget). Cut or renegotiate two, reallocate the savings, and the firm recovers roughly $15,000/month — $180,000 in year one. The initial lift is 6.25%; it compounds to 15%+ as additional optimizations stack.

Worked Example 3: Large Firm

Fifty-attorney multi-location PI firm. $480,000/month across twelve vendors, multiple paid channels, and two regional LSA setups. The Marketing Director runs a dashboard; the Managing Partner still gets a monthly spreadsheet rollup and has never seen a true cost-per-case number across the portfolio.

Revenue Intelligence surfaces four underperformers totaling $135,000/month (28% of budget). The move: cut two, renegotiate one, and scale the two top performers. That produces a blended cost-per-case reduction of $620 across the whole portfolio. At 180 signed cases a month, that's $111,600/month in effective savings — $1.34M in year one. A 23% ROI lift, and the first time the Managing Partner has ever seen the number in writing.

Where the Savings Actually Come From

Three sources, in order of contribution:

• Underperformer identification (60% of the savings). Every PI firm running 5+ vendors has at least one producing cases at 2x+ the cost of the best source. Without Revenue Intelligence, nobody catches it — because the vendor's self-reported cost-per-lead looks clean. Revenue Intelligence flags it inside 60 days.
• Budget reallocation (25% of the savings). Cutting a bad vendor recovers spend. Redirecting that spend to the best performer compounds the gain. Firms that cut without reallocating leave roughly half the ROI on the table.
• Time savings (15% of the savings).The Marketing Director recovers 10–15 hours a week from manual reporting. That time typically moves into deeper vendor management and intake quality analysis — producing additional second-order gains in the back half of year one.

Run Your Own Calculation

Five minutes. No spreadsheet required.

Step 1:Write down your total monthly marketing spend. Include vendors, ad platforms, LSAs, pay-per-call, and any referral fee arrangements. Exclude salary overhead — external spend only.

Step 2:Estimate what percentage of that spend is going to vendors or channels you suspect are underperforming. If you genuinely don't know, start with 20% — that's conservative for most firms.

Step 3:Multiply: monthly spend × underperformer % × 0.7. The 0.7 accounts for the fact that some savings get reinvested in better sources rather than recovered as pure savings.

Step 4: Multiply by 12 for year-one recovery.

Example: $150K/month × 0.20 × 0.70 × 12 = $252,000in year-one recoverable spend. Against a Revenue Intelligence subscription of $40K–$60K/year, payback is measured in weeks — not quarters.

When the Math Doesn't Work

Revenue Intelligence isn't for every firm. If you're spending under $30K/month with 1–2 vendors, a disciplined spreadsheet will do the job. The platform math works best at $75K+/month with 5+ vendors. Below that threshold, the complexity isn't there yet. Come back when you cross it.

The math also breaks if nobody in the firm has the authority to act on the data. Revenue Intelligence surfaces decisions — it doesn't make them. If the vendor-cut decision loop is broken, the ROI case is too.