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MVA Case Budget Calculator: What It Costs to Sign Car Accident Cases in Your City

Pick your metro and a monthly case target. The calculator compares Google Ads, Local Services Ads, exclusive MVA transfers and signed retainers on the number that matters: cost per signed case.

By Tarun Kapoor, Founder · Published 2026-09-25 · Metro data pulled 2026-09-25

Calculator

What will it cost to sign 5 car accident cases a month in Houston, TX?

Metros we serve, priced from September 2026 Google Ads data.

Only count cases your firm can service.

cases

Your number. Form fills and LSA calls you miss are still billed. Warm transfers arrive connected, so this does not apply to them.

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Default 10% — LEXGRO, PI Cost Per Lead: 2026 Benchmarks (Jan 2026).

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Default 12.5% — MVA Leads Cost Report 2026 — our own delivery data.

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Monthly budget for 5 signed cases
Google Ads (PPC)
$25,938

$5,188 per signed case · 63 leads at $415. National PI cost per lead × Houston, TX cost index (0.94). Excludes agency fees and landing-page costs.

Google Local Services Ads
$23,625

$4,725 per signed case · 63 leads at $378. National benchmark; LSA pricing is not published by metro.

Exclusive MVA warm transfers (our price)
$29,920

$5,984 per signed case · 40 leads at $748. Our fixed price for Houston. Live caller on the line, so your contact rate does not apply.

Signed retainers — lowest
$18,250

$3,650 per signed case · 5 retainers at $3,650. Other vendors' published standard-auto prices. No intake step, but no say in case selection either.

In Houston, TX, Google Ads comes in $797 per case under our transfers at these rates. It needs a managed account and a learning period, and volume is capped at roughly 10,260 car-accident searches a month. Transfers buy predictability, not a lower sticker price.

30 minutes. We confirm whether that volume is available in your market and what it costs this month.

Five cases a month in four markets

Default inputs: 80% contact rate, 10% sign rate on ad leads, 12.5% on transfers.

MetroGoogle Ads / moLSA / moExclusive transfers / moSigned retainers / mo
Phoenix, AZ$48,625$23,625$41,600$18,250
Miami, FL$26,813$23,625$23,400$18,250
Los Angeles, CA$28,188$23,625$44,200$18,250
Atlanta, GA$18,813$23,625$41,600$18,250

How the calculator works

  1. Google Ads: the $442 national PI cost per lead (LEXGRO, PI Cost Per Lead: 2026 Benchmarks (Jan 2026)) × your metro’s cost index from the car accident lawyer CPC by city data, ÷ contact rate, ÷ sign rate.
  2. Local Services Ads: the $378 national LSA cost per lead from the same source. Google does not publish LSA prices by metro, so it is not indexed.
  3. Exclusive MVA transfers: our fixed price for your state ÷ transfer sign rate. The caller is on the line when the transfer connects, so contact rate does not apply. This is our own price, labelled as such.
  4. Signed retainers:the midpoint of other vendors’ published standard-auto prices (signed MVA retainers).

Not included: agency management fees, landing-page and call-tracking costs, and your intake payroll. Those land on the ad channels, so treat the Google Ads line as a floor.

The input most firms get wrong: contact rate

Every form fill and LSA call you fail to reach is still billed. A firm that answers 60% of its leads pays 50% more per case than one that answers 90%, at the same click price. Fix intake before you raise the budget; the Tampa intake case study shows what that looks like in practice.

FAQ

Budget calculator questions

What is the minimum Google Ads budget to sign 5 car accident cases a month?
At a 10% sign rate and 80% contact rate, 5 cases takes about 63 paid leads. At the $442 national PI cost per lead that is roughly $27,625 a month in a median-cost metro, and close to double in Dallas or San Diego.
How many leads do I need to sign one car accident case?
Divide 1 by your sign rate, then by the share of leads your intake actually reaches. At a 10% sign rate and 80% contact, that is 12.5 paid leads per signed case. Improving contact from 60% to 90% cuts the leads you pay for by a third.
Is buying MVA leads cheaper than running Google Ads?
It depends on the market, and the calculator shows both. In expensive-click metros exclusive transfers usually win on cost per case. In cheaper metros Google Ads can come in lower, but it needs a managed account, a learning period, and enough search volume to scale.
Where do the calculator's default numbers come from?
Metro CPCs come from our Car Accident Lawyer CPC by City 2026 (Google Ads data via DataForSEO, pulled 2026-09-25). Ad-channel cost per lead and sign rates are from LEXGRO, PI Cost Per Lead: 2026 Benchmarks (Jan 2026). Transfer prices are our published rate card, and retainer prices are other vendors' published figures. Every default can be changed.
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