10/16/2026
I’m tired of hearing law firm owners complain about paying for practice management software while having no idea how much money they lose to unbilled time, unpaid invoices, and disorganized files.
You’re running a business. It has overhead. Let’s do the math before we decide $160 a month is the problem.
Annual software cost
$160 per user × 12 months = $1,920 per user
$1,920 × 5 users = $9,600 per year
Annual billable hours per person
25 hours per week × 46 working weeks = 1,150 hours
For this example, I’m deliberately lowballing billable hours and allowing plenty of room for nonbillable work. In a well-run hourly firm, I expect each person in a billing role to bill at least 30 hours per week for 46 weeks a year.
Using 46 weeks also leaves six weeks for vacation, holidays, sick time, and other absences.
Annual billings from just three of those five users
|Person |Hourly rate|Annual hours|Annual billings|
|————|-———:|————:|—————:|
|Attorney |$400 |1,150 |$460,000 |
|Paralegal 1|$175 |1,150 |$201,250 |
|Paralegal 2|$175 |1,150 |$201,250 |
|**Total** | |**3,450** |**$862,500** |
Software as a percentage of annual billings
$9,600 ÷ $862,500 × 100 = 1.1%
Even if you collect only 80% of those billings
Collected revenue: $690,000
$9,600 ÷ $690,000 × 100 = 1.4%
Five people have access to the system. Only three generate billable revenue in this example. The subscription still costs less than 2% of collections.
This example covers the subscription alone; implementation, processing fees, and optional add-ons are separate expenses (so maybe we get to 2%).
