How Does Your Cost Per Case Compare to Other PI Firms Your Size?

This is one of the questions PI marketing directors ask most often — and get the least useful answers to. Industry benchmarks for cost per case are either too broad to be useful (“PI firms typically spend $1,000 to $8,000 per case”) or too specific to a case type that doesn't apply to your firm.

This article gives you the most useful framing available: cost per case benchmarks segmented by firm size, with the context that makes those numbers actually actionable.

Why Cost Per Case Is Hard to Benchmark Across Firms

Before the numbers, a necessary qualification: cost per case comparisons between firms are less useful than they might appear, because cost per case is not a standalone metric. Its meaning depends entirely on case type and average settlement value.

A firm with a $5,000 cost per case and an average attorney fee of $18,000 per resolved case has a different business than a firm with a $3,500 cost per case and an average fee of $9,000. The first firm has a better case acquisition ROI despite higher cost per case.

That said, cost per case by firm size provides useful orientation for understanding whether you're in a plausible range — and identifying the source of problems when you're not.

Cost Per Case Benchmarks by Firm Size

These ranges reflect direct marketing spend (lead generation costs only — no overhead) divided by signed cases from that spend, across auto accident and general personal injury cases. Firms focused exclusively on catastrophic injury, mass tort, or complex liability cases will see meaningfully different numbers.

Small Firms (5–15 Attorneys, Under $8M Revenue)

Typical range: $800 to $2,800 per signed case

Firms at this size that have strong referral networks from medical providers and prior clients can produce cases at the lower end — referrals cost very little per unit on a marketing spend basis. Firms that are primarily dependent on paid lead generation tend to land in the $1,500 to $2,800 range.

If your firm is at this size and running above $3,000 per case on paid lead sources, either your intake conversion is low (screened leads not signing at expected rates) or your lead sources are poorly calibrated to your case type criteria.

Mid-Size Firms (15–35 Attorneys, $8M to $30M Revenue)

Typical range: $1,500 to $4,500 per signed case

This is the widest range across any firm size category — because mid-size firms have the most variation in lead source mix, intake sophistication, and market competitiveness. A well-run firm in a mid-size market with optimized Google Ads and exclusive vendor relationships can produce cases at $1,800 to $2,500. A firm in a major metro with heavy reliance on aggregators may run $3,500 to $4,500.

If you're in this revenue band and running above $4,500 per case, the most common causes are: reliance on shared leads with low conversion rates, high intake rejection rate due to poor lead quality, or a marketing mix that hasn't been optimized based on source-level performance data.

Larger Firms (35–75 Attorneys, $30M to $80M Revenue)

Typical range: $2,500 to $6,000 per signed case

Larger firms tend to see higher cost per case for several structural reasons: they operate in more competitive markets, maintain more complex lead portfolios, and often pursue higher-quality cases with stricter intake criteria that push rejection rates (and effective cost per screened case) higher.

But larger firms also have the highest ROI from attribution optimization. At $350,000 to $600,000+ per month in marketing spend, a 15% efficiency improvement translates to $50,000 to $90,000 per month in recaptured ROI — that's the difference between a firm that's ahead of plan and one that's managing budget pressure.

If your firm is in this size range and running above $6,000 per case consistently, the first analysis to run is cost per case by source. Almost always, two or three underperforming vendors are pulling the blended number up significantly.

The Distribution Within Your Size Tier

Within any firm size category, there is significant spread between firms at the top and bottom of the cost per case distribution. Best-in-class performers consistently produce cases at 30% to 50% lower cost than firms at the bottom of their peer group — despite comparable market conditions and firm sizes.

What differentiates the top performers:

• Source-level attribution. They know their cost per case by vendor and shift budget accordingly — which progressively lowers their blended average over time.
• Intake conversion optimization. A 1% to 2% improvement in conversion rate at the same lead volume reduces cost per case without changing marketing spend at all.
• Rejection rate management by source.They don't pay for leads that consistently fail intake. They use rejection rate data to renegotiate or replace underperforming vendors.
• Rapid response to performance changes.When a vendor's cost per case starts climbing, they notice it within 30 days — not after six months of overspending.

The More Useful Comparison: Your Sources vs. Each Other

Comparing your cost per case to other firms is useful for orientation. Comparing your cost per case across your own lead sources is useful for action.

Almost every PI firm, once it has source-level data, finds significant variation in cost per case across its vendor portfolio. Ratios of 2:1 or 3:1 between best and worst-performing sources at the same firm are common. That variation represents real budget that could be reallocated to better sources — without adding a dollar of new marketing spend.

If your best source produces cases at $1,800 and your worst produces cases at $5,400, you are essentially choosing to pay three times as much per case from one source as you could get from another. The peer benchmark comparison is interesting. The internal source comparison is where the money is.

What to Do If You're Above Benchmark

If your cost per case is running above the ranges for your firm size, a structured diagnostic helps identify the cause:

• Step 1:Break down cost per case by lead source. If you don't have this data, start there.
• Step 2: Check intake rejection rate by source. A rejection rate above 35% from any single paid source is often a significant cost per case driver.
• Step 3: Check intake conversion rate on accepted leads. Conversion below 5% on exclusive leads or below 4% overall often points to an intake process problem.
• Step 4: Identify your two highest-cost-per-case sources and develop a 60-day improvement plan for each.

Most firms that run this analysis find meaningful budget optimization opportunities in the first 60 days — without adding new spend or new vendors.

RevenueScale's vendor comparison dashboard shows your cost per case by source automatically — so you can see how each vendor stacks up against the others within your own portfolio.