Law firm website cost factors: what sets the number.

The short answer

A law firm website costs what it takes to plan, write, build and look after the pages, intake and proof the practice actually needs. The biggest drivers are how many practice areas get their own page, who writes the content, whether you need original photography, how intake works, what your state’s advertising rules require, and how much search work continues after launch.

A focused solo-practice site and a multi-attorney firm with many practice areas are priced very differently, so the honest number comes from a written scope after one conversation. Everything below is what goes into that scope.

Why there is no single price for a law firm website

When I scope a website I am really estimating hours: planning, writing, design, building, testing and launch, then the care that follows. A law firm site can be very small or very large on every one of those.

At one end is a site like Todd Lewis Law, a solo practice in Louisville whose website does one job well: who, what, where and how to call, with every page leading to the phone number and the contact form. At the other end is a firm with many practice areas, several attorneys, more than one office, a Spanish version, and intake that routes each inquiry to the right person. Both are law firm websites. They are not the same project, and they should not cost the same.

That is why a price list for law firm websites usually means one of two things: a template with your name on it, or a number that has to be renegotiated once the real scope shows up.

Law firm website cost factors, starting with practice areas

People search by problem and by place: a personal injury lawyer in Louisville, a will in Elizabethtown, a DUI attorney in Lexington. The practice areas you want more of each need a page of their own, in plain English, written around the questions those clients actually ask.

That is real writing work, and it scales with the number of pages. Justin Gooch Law, a Louisville practice, gives personal injury, criminal defense, and wills and estates each their own page so the site answers the search instead of making people hunt.

What drives cost is not the raw page count but the number of distinct page types and how much has to be written:

• Practice area pages, each written and reviewed separately.
• Attorney profiles, with education, admissions and a real photograph.
• Location pages, only where the firm genuinely serves a place. A practice area multiplied by twenty cities is thin content that helps nobody and costs more.
• A news or resources section the firm can keep up itself.

Intake: what happens after someone reaches out

For a law firm, the contact path is the product. A stranger in a stressful moment has to be able to reach you from a phone in a parking lot. The more the intake has to do, the more it costs to build and test:

• Phone first. A tap-to-call number in the header and a short form on every page is the floor.
• Questions that sort the case. A form that asks the practice area, the county and how the person prefers to be reached lets the right person call back sooner. Conditional questions take more building than a name-and-message box.
• Routing. Sending each inquiry to a different inbox, or into a practice management or intake system, is integration work.
• Plain notices on the form, such as a reminder not to send confidential details before you have agreed to represent someone. Your words, placed where they will be read.
• Mail that arrives. Form notifications sent through an authenticated mail relay with SPF, DKIM and DMARC set, so they land in the inbox instead of spam.
• Spam protection and tracking. A quiet check such as Cloudflare Turnstile instead of a puzzle, and call and form tracking so you can see which pages produce inquiries.

Advertising rules and review rounds

A law firm website is lawyer advertising, and the rules are set by each state’s highest court. In Kentucky that is the Kentucky Supreme Court, through its Rules of Professional Conduct. The rules shape what the site can say and how: how case results and reviews may be shown, what words like specialist may imply, and what notices a page carries.

That affects cost in three ways:

• Time. Attorney review of every page is part of the schedule. Nothing should go live until you approve it.
• Structure. Results, testimonials and disclaimers have to be placed deliberately, not dropped into a template.
• Process. Some states have filing or review steps for lawyer advertising. In Kentucky, the Attorneys’ Advertising Commission’s FAQ says an advertisement only has to be submitted if the firm wants an advisory opinion, which carries a seventy-five dollar filing fee, and the Kentucky Bar Association notes that this has been the only type of review since January 1, 2016. A firm must also keep its own copies of its advertising, with a record of when and where each was used, for two years after its last use under Rule 7.20(6), and AAC Regulation No. 16 adds detail on that duty. Clean, dated PDFs of every page make both easier, so build them into the launch plan.

You know your bar’s rules; I build to them. For the Kentucky specifics, see Kentucky attorney advertising rules for law firm websites. It is not legal advice, but it is a useful map of what to check.

Content and photography: who supplies what

Two line items move a quote more than almost anything else.

Words. If the firm supplies bios, practice descriptions, admissions and the disclaimers it needs, the project moves faster. If I write the practice pages from interviews and notes, that is real work, and every page still needs your sign-off. Legal content cannot be generic; it has to sound like the attorney and be accurate under the rules.

Photographs. Clients hire a person, and a real photograph of that person does more than a stock image of a gavel. Every photograph on the Justin Gooch Law site was shot by me. Original headshots and office photography are part of the scope when the firm needs them, and can be skipped when it already has good ones.

Search: what is included at launch, and what comes after

Every law firm site I build launches with the search foundation in place: a page for each practice area, titles and descriptions written for real searches, legal-practice schema, fast pages, the Google Business Profile linked, Search Console and analytics with call and form tracking, and redirects from every old address if the firm had a site before. That is part of building it right.

Ongoing search work is separate: new pages and posts aimed at the cases you want more of, local visibility, and measurement over time. Legal searches are some of the most competitive in local search, and rankings follow reviews and real links from other sites. Anyone who guarantees page one is guessing. See how I handle SEO for Louisville businesses.

Hosting, care and ownership

A website is not a one-time purchase. WordPress, its plugins and its server need updates, backups and someone watching. Budget for that from the start.

I host law firm sites on my own dedicated server behind Cloudflare, check them from outside every 60 seconds, back up each database daily and the files weekly to offsite cloud storage, and run updates with a snapshot first. When Todd Lewis Law moved onto that server in September 2026, its homepage weight dropped from 4.7 MB to 1.3 MB and response time from as much as 1.95 seconds to 0.16, with all 41 pages verified before the old account was set aside.

One more cost question to ask early: who owns it? A legal directory’s template site can be cheap to start, but you are renting a design every other attorney in that directory also has, and it may not leave with you. The firm should own its domain, its site and its content. Who owns your WordPress website explains what to check.

How to compare law firm website quotes

Quotes from different designers vary because they are quoting different things. Ask each one the same questions:

1. How many practice area pages are included, and who writes them?
2. Are attorney photographs included, or does the firm supply them?
3. What does the contact path do: which questions, where do inquiries go, how is spam stopped?
4. Who places the disclaimers and handles results and reviews under the firm’s state rules?
5. What search setup is included at launch, and what is a separate monthly service?
6. If the firm has an existing site, are redirects from every old address included?
7. Who hosts it, who updates it, and who does the firm call when something breaks?
8. Does the firm own the domain, the site and the content outright, and can it leave with a full copy?

When the answers line up, the totals become comparable. When they do not, the cheaper quote is usually missing something you will pay for later. For timing, see how long it takes to build a website.

Frequently asked questions

Why don’t you list prices for law firm websites?

Because the work varies too much between a solo practice and a multi-attorney firm. I quote from a short written scope after one conversation, so the number matches the pages, intake, content and care the firm actually needs.

Is a legal directory template or website builder cheaper?

Usually cheaper to start. The trade-off is that you rent a design other firms also use, practice pages are harder to make rank, and the site may not leave with you. Many firms outgrow it the first time intake or search matters.

Does a law firm website cost more than other small business websites?

Often a little, because of the extra care: advertising rules, attorney review of every page, intake that has to be both fast and careful, and some of the most competitive local searches there are.

What ongoing costs should a law firm budget for?

Domain renewal, hosting, updates and backups, and any ongoing search or advertising work. Ask every designer to list these separately from the build so nothing is hidden.

Can a firm start small and add practice areas later?

Yes. A well-built site can launch with the practice areas that matter most and add pages as the firm grows, without a redesign.