Solo attorney website design: three routes, one attorney
For one attorney with no budget, the website decision is not about design. There are 3 routes — no site of your own, a hosted platform, or a site you own — and the one that fits is decided by the hours you can spare and what each costs to leave.
Last updated: 5 August 2026
Should you build anything at all?
Often not, and the honest answer is the one with no invoice attached.
If every matter for the last two years arrived by referral and the caseload is full, what a practice needs is somewhere a stranger can confirm it exists: name, practice areas, address, telephone, and how fees are charged. One page. Nothing else on this list will repay itself.
Three questions settle it before any money moves.
- Of the last twenty matters, how many found you by searching? If the answer is none, search is not currently how this practice works, and a site built for search is a bet rather than a fix.
- Can a referred client check you exist before calling? Referrals still look you up. That is a different job from being found, and it is satisfied by one page.
- Is there demand in your city for the areas you take? The section below puts numbers on that, and the range is wider than most people expect.
The damaging admission this page owes you early: the single-page answer is the one we earn least from, and it is right more often than our own price list implies. We would rather say so here than discover it on a call after a build has been quoted.
What are the three routes, and what does each cost to leave?
Three, and the column that decides between them is the last one.
| Route | Money out | What you own | What leaving costs | What it cannot do |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. A profile you did not build — a directory entry, a bar listing, a platform profile | little or nothing | nothing | nothing; you were never in | rank for your own practice areas |
| B. A hosted platform — a site builder or a vendor's hosted product | recurring, monthly or annual | usually your text; not the design, and often not the addresses | copying text out by hand, re-addressing every page, and losing whatever those addresses had earned | be moved without a rebuild |
| C. A site you own — theme or built, on your own domain and host | build once, then domain and hosting | the domain, the content, the code and the addresses | changing hosts in an afternoon | be free |
Route B is the one most often chosen and least often examined, because the monthly fee is small and visible while the exit cost is large and invisible. The fee is not the price of route B. The rebuild is.
One decision makes route B far less expensive to leave, and it costs nothing: register the domain yourself, in the practice's name, and point it at the platform. Then the addresses are yours and leaving is a redirection rather than a restart. A platform that will not allow this is telling you something.
Which route fits which kind of practice?
Four situations, and the fit is not about size.
- Referral-led, caseload full. Route A. One page, correct details, nothing to maintain.
- Referral-led, wants to grow, has no hours. Route B, with your own domain and an exit plan written down at the start.
- A practice area people actually search for, and the intent to compete there. Route C. Anything else is spending on a route that cannot rank for the terms that matter.
- About to change practice areas. Route B, deliberately, because it is reversible and route C's value comes from pages that take months to earn anything.
What does the demand where you are say about the decision?
More than any argument about design does. The spread in the measured data is nearly 39 times.
| City and practice area | Searches a month | Cost per click | 100 of those clicks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boston, real estate | 590 | $3.90 | $390 |
| Charlotte, estate planning | 740 | $6.39 | $639 |
| Columbus, estate planning | 980 | $11.91 | $1,191 |
| Phoenix, criminal defense | 8,100 | $86.12 | $8,612 |
| Philadelphia, personal injury | 6,600 | $151.31 | $15,131 |
All measured 3 August 2026 across 20 US cities. The right-hand column is arithmetic on the two columns beside it, not a forecast of anything anybody will earn.
That range is the decision. At the bottom of it, the traffic a small practice could realistically win is worth a few hundred dollars at Google's own prices, and a build is hard to repay from search alone — route A or B is defensible and nobody should be embarrassed by it. At the top, one month of that city's clicks is worth several times what any build on this page costs, and route C stops being a question.
Find your own row before deciding. A solo in the Boston real estate line and a solo in the Philadelphia injury line are making a different decision with the same job title.
How many hours a month does each route actually take?
Route A takes none. Route C should take almost none. Route B is the one that takes hours you did not agree to.
Route A needs one annual check that the details are still correct. Route C, built properly for one person, needs a quarterly test that the contact form still delivers and an annual check on the domain renewal — the build decisions behind that are on the solo law firm website design page.
Route B's hours are the surprise. The platform changes on its own schedule: layouts move, features appear, prompts arrive, and each change is small enough to seem unreasonable to complain about and large enough to need attention. That is the cost people do not price when comparing a monthly fee against a one-time build.
What do we charge, and who should not buy from us?
Practice Sprint $1,450, build tier $2,900. Fixed, published, no minimum term.
Of the 40 legal-marketing suppliers read in full on 3 August 2026, 12 published a price at all, 5 showed only a range rather than a figure, 8 claimed a guarantee of some kind, and 1 offered work with no minimum term. Four of them are names a solo meets while making this decision.
| Supplier | Published a price when read | Better than us at |
|---|---|---|
| clio.com | yes | practice management, where a solo's hours actually go |
| mycase.com | no | the same, and it is a route B decision rather than a design one |
| practicepanther.com | no | running the practice, not marketing it |
| themodernfirm.com | no | showing a large body of finished legal work in one place |
We do not publish what any of them charge; the figures our tooling collected mixed genuine fees with case values, and a wrong number against a named business is not worth the saving.
Three kinds of reader should not buy from us: anyone route A fits, anyone with neither hours nor content to put into a build, and anyone whose real problem is that calls go unanswered — that is intake, it sits inside the practice, and a better site sends more people to the same voicemail. We never charge per inquiry, per case or per matter. Lawyer advertising in the United States runs through ABA Model Rule 7.2(b), adopted differently state by state, and we give no advice about any practice's own obligations.
What this is worth where you are
In New York, 14,800 people a month search for personal injury, and Google charges around $73.14 for one of those clicks, measured 3 August 2026. We hold the same figures for 52 cities.
The free report gives you yours, plus which pages are missing from your site, and what 40 suppliers charge.
No call required. Our own prices are on that page.
Where should I read next?
Once the route is decided and it is route C: solo law firm website design covers the build for one person, and website design attorney sets out what a build contains.
If route B is the answer: attorney website design templates tests a vendor's product before purchase.
By practice area: family law attorney website design and immigration attorney website design. On the writing itself: law firm website content writing.
Frequently asked questions
Does a solo attorney need a website?
Not always. A practice whose matters all arrive by referral and whose caseload is full needs one page confirming it exists, with practice areas, contact details and how fees are charged, rather than a build.
What are the three routes for a solo attorney website?
A profile you did not build such as a directory or bar listing, a hosted platform where the vendor owns the stack, or a site on your own domain and host. They differ mainly in what leaving costs.
What is the real cost of a hosted website platform?
Not the monthly fee but the exit: copying text out by hand, re-addressing every page, and losing whatever those addresses had earned. Registering the domain yourself makes that exit far cheaper.
Should a solo attorney register their own domain name?
Yes, in the practice's name, even on a hosted platform. It costs almost nothing, keeps the addresses yours, and turns leaving into a redirection rather than a restart.
How do I know whether search is worth building for?
Look at the demand for your practice area in your city. A hundred clicks are worth $390 in the Boston real estate line and $15,131 in the Philadelphia personal injury line, both measured 3 August 2026, and the decision follows the number.
Which route takes the most of a solo's time?
The hosted platform, because it changes on its own schedule and each change is small enough to seem unreasonable to object to and large enough to need attention.
Who should not buy a website build from WaaTech?
Anyone a single profile page fits, anyone with neither hours nor content to put into a build, and anyone whose real problem is unanswered calls, which is intake and sits inside the practice.