Most signed clients sign within hours. In the Probative benchmarks, 2025–2026, 55–70% of signed clients had signed within an hour of the inquiry. The benchmarks are free tables of bands, tiers and rounded values on law firm marketing, one table per page and one table per file.
Which tables are out now?
The benchmarks are Probative’s own data. Nine tables are out as free downloads: three from the first release and six added in version 4. Each page shows three figures at most.
- How quickly do inquiries become signed clients? The share of signed clients who signed within an hour, within four hours and by the end of the same day.
- Do longer calls and calls outside business hours sign? How likely a call is to become a signed client, by call length, compared with the average call.
- What do AI answers do to organic clicks? The drop in clicks where rankings held, and how visitors from AI assistants act.
- What do law-firm search-ad clicks cost? Cost per click for injury search ads, the click-through rate and the share of clicks made on a phone.
- What do people type when they search for a lawyer? How many search-ad clicks say “near me”, are written in Spanish or name no case type.
- What happens to calls from ads? How many are missed, how long answered calls last, and missed calls outside business hours.
- What do Local Services Ads leads look like? Phone and message leads, and the share charged and credited back.
- Do inquiries rise and fall with the seasons? Inquiries in each calendar quarter compared with the average quarter.
- What does a signed client cost in ad spend? Ad cost per signed client for search and video ads and for Local Services Ads, as ranges.
This is version 4.0.1 of the benchmarks.
How do I read a band or a tier?
A band is a range, such as the one printed above. A tier is a named range on a fixed ladder, such as above average, always printed with its range in brackets. Both are approximate: treat every tier as plus or minus one step, and do not read a rank from two rows in the same band or tier. The methods page lists every tier and defines every term, including action rate and outside business hours.
How are the benchmarks protected?
Every value is aggregated across many observations. It is shown as a band, a named tier or a rounded value, and a value that rests on too few events or too few months, or rests mostly on a few observations, is suppressed for privacy. Counts, total spend, places and names are never published, and costs appear only as bands or ranges. The methods page explains each step in plain words.
What can I do with the benchmarks?
- See where your own numbers sit. The benchmark scorecard compares what you type with the published band. Nothing you type is stored or sent.
- Print a one-page version. The benchmark one-pager prints on a single page, with a column to write your own number beside each row.
- Use the speed-to-sign checklist. The checklist turns the speed table into steps for your intake desk.
- Check your tracking and your reports. The signal-health check and the agency report decoder are free. So are the after-hours intake kit, the injury negative keywords and the AI answer prompt pack.
- Ask for a free review. If your numbers sit below a band, a free review shows what clients see when they search for your firm.
Download the first release
- How quickly inquiries become signed clients CSVJSON
- Phone calls and signed-client likelihood CSVJSON
- AI answers and organic search clicks CSVJSON
- What law-firm search-ad clicks cost CSVJSON
- What people type when they search for a lawyer CSVJSON
- What happens to calls from ads CSVJSON
- Local Services Ads: what kind of leads arrive and what gets charged CSVJSON
- Seasonality: inquiries by calendar quarter CSVJSON
- What a signed client costs, by ad channel CSVJSON
Each table is its own file. Free, with no email or login, under CC BY 4.0: copy and adapt it with credit to Probative Growth.
Cite this dataset: Probative Growth (2026). Probative benchmarks, 2025–2026 (v4.0.1) [Data set]. CC BY 4.0. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23735849. https://probativegrowth.com/research/benchmarks/
How each figure is made and protected · Probative benchmarks, 2025–2026