How Much Does a Personal Injury Lead Cost in the US? (And What a Signed Case Should Cost)

Ask ten marketers what an injury lead costs and you will get ten answers, from $100 to $1,000. None of them help much, because "lead" means something different to everyone.

A form from someone who bumped another car is a lead. So is a call from someone hit by a semi truck. They are not worth the same.

So instead of one number, this guide shows where the cost comes from. We pulled Google's own click prices for injury searches, across the US and in ten big cities. Then we worked out what those clicks turn into.

How much does an injury click cost on Google?

Google shows what advertisers pay for each search in a tool called Keyword Planner. Here is what it shows across the US.

The pattern is simple. The bigger the case, the more firms pay for the click. Truck, motorcycle and rideshare crashes often mean serious injuries and bigger insurance policies. Workers' comp fees are capped by state law, so those clicks cost less.

Which cities have the most expensive injury clicks?

It changes a lot from city to city. Here is the same search, "car accident lawyer near me," in ten big cities.

Two lessons:

• The same city can be cheap on one search and pricey on another. In Philadelphia, "accident lawyer" costs about $503 a click, but "personal injury attorney" is cheap. Firms that bid on the good-value searches in their city pay far less per case.
• Texas, Arizona and Nevada are tough for car accident searches. If you are there, you need a big Google budget, or a hard look at other channels.

What does an injury lead cost from Google ads?

A click is not a lead. The cost of a lead depends on how many clicks it takes to get one.

WordStream's 2026 study of more than 13,000 ad campaigns found that about 5.55% of legal clicks turn into a lead. Injury leads cost more than most legal leads, because the clicks cost more.

Here is how click price and your page's sign-up rate work together:

Look at the $250 row. If 5% of visitors fill in your form, each lead costs $5,000. If 15% do, each lead costs $1,667. Same clicks. Three times the leads.

That is why your page matters so much. The firms paying the least are usually not the ones with clever bidding. They send each search to a page built for that case type, with one clear button and a short form. And they call every lead within minutes. Our guide to Google ads for injury lawyers shows how to set that up.

Why is cost per lead the wrong number to watch?

Because a cheap lead that never signs costs more than a pricey one that does. The number that matters is cost per signed case.

To get from one to the other, you need two numbers:

So a $150 lead where only 15% are good cases costs about the same per case as a $400 lead where 40% are good. Google leads usually cost more and are better. Facebook leads usually cost less and are weaker. You only know which is cheaper once you track both all the way to signed cases.

The good news is that a lot of this is in your hands. Raise your good-case rate from 15% to 25%, mostly by calling faster and screening better, and your cost per case drops by 40%. You do not have to spend a cent more on ads.

What does an injury lead cost on Facebook?

Much less per lead than Google, but fewer of them turn into good cases.

We do not have enough US data yet to publish dollar figures we would stand behind. But here is what we see in our injury accounts in Australia:

• Leads cost much less. Often around a tenth of a Google lead for the same case type.
• Fewer are good cases. The person was scrolling, not searching for a lawyer. Facebook leads usually sit at the low end of the 10% to 40% range.
• Speed decides everything. People forget they filled in a form within hours. Leads called within five minutes do far better than leads called the next day.
• The ad does the screening. An ad that names the situation, like "Hurt in a crash that wasn't your fault?", gets fewer but better leads.

Our review of what America's biggest injury firms run on Facebook shows the ads they use. Done well, Facebook often gives the lowest cost per signed case of any paid channel, but only if your intake can keep up.

What should a signed injury case cost?

It depends on what a case is worth to your firm. Here is a simple way to set your own target.

The average car accident injury claim in 2024 was $28,278, according to the Insurance Information Institute. With a one-third fee, that is about $9,400 for the firm. I like the profit from a case to be at least three times what it cost to get it.

Now compare that to the click prices above. A small car accident case bought through Google at Dallas prices can cost more than it earns. That is why so many firms there lean on TV, Local Services Ads, SEO and referrals for car crashes. They save Google ads for truck and serious injury cases. Our guide to scaling an injury firm shows how to set a target for each case type.

How do you lower your cost per signed case?

In order of what helps most:

1. Call every lead within five minutes, and text too. This is the biggest lever, and it costs nothing in ad spend.
2. Track every lead to a signed case. You cannot fix what you cannot see. Our guide to tracking which ad signed the case shows how.
3. Give each ad its own page. A page built for one case type gets more forms filled in than your homepage.
4. Only pay for Google searches that make money. Cut the broad, pricey searches that bring the wrong cases.
5. Screen in the ad and the form. Name the situation in the ad. Ask the questions intake would ask.
6. Test new Facebook ads every month. Videos of a real attorney talking about one situation work best.

The firms paying the least per case are not always spending the least. They know their numbers, call fast, and spend on the case types that pay. If you want help building that, it is what our US personal injury marketing is built for.