Copy for Originals · Google Ads for law firms · Comparison + calculator
Entry prices on each vendor’s own pricing page, read October 31, 2026: CallRail $50 a month on a yearly plan ($55 monthly), WhatConverts $30 a month with a $30 usage credit, CallTrackingMetrics $65 a month billed yearly ($79 monthly) and CallScaler $65 a month on its yearly option ($95 monthly), each plus usage; Invoca gives quotes only. This comparison is an independent read of those vendors’ own price, terms and help pages by Copy for Originals, not a list written by a vendor, and the calculator below turns your numbers and minutes into a monthly estimate for each.
Every price, rate and quotation on this page was checked word for word against the saved source text on October 31, 2026; the calculator’s totals are arithmetic on those rates, with the calculator’s own assumptions labelled in its rules. Educational only, not legal advice. No lawyer reviewed this page.
Call tracking gives each ad or marketing source its own phone number, so a law firm can see which ads produce calls and count those calls as conversions in Google Ads. Google can do this itself with its own forwarding numbers, which it provides on a website at no cost; a call tracking vendor instead rents the firm tracking numbers by the month, records the calls under its own settings, and posts them back to Google Ads as conversions.
Google’s own route. Google’s help page says: “Tracking call conversions from ads and from a website and importing call conversions require Google forwarding numbers.” Numbers that replace your business number on your site are “dynamically-generated Google forwarding numbers” that come “without any cost to you.” Google counts a call as a conversion in one of two ways, “by analyzing call recordings using Google’s AI to identify high-quality leads, or by counting calls that last longer than a minimum duration you set.”
Two things come with it. Google’s call recording setting “is now enabled by default to allow for AI-powered lead qualification,” except where the advertiser turned it off earlier or Google identified the business as healthcare or financial services, and callers hear “a short automated message at the beginning of the call” saying the call will be recorded. And Google’s forwarding numbers are Google’s: they “can change or be reassigned,” and “you can’t use your Google forwarding number outside of the call reporting, and website call conversion tracking.” What Google records and keeps is covered in our page on whether Google records calls to law firms.
A vendor’s route. The firm pays a plan fee plus usage for numbers and minutes, gets recordings kept under the vendor’s retention rules, and can send calls to Google Ads tied to the ad click. Google also accepts call conversions “that you track in another system,” and offline conversions matched by the Google click ID, which is how a firm reports a lead that later signs; our guide to tracking signed cases back to Google Ads clicks covers that import. This page is part of the Google Ads for law firms guide.
On the vendors’ own pricing pages on October 31, 2026, the cheapest plans were WhatConverts Call Tracking at $30 a month (with a $30 usage credit), CallRail Lead Tracking at $50 a month on a yearly plan or $55 monthly, CallTrackingMetrics Marketing Lite at $65 a month billed yearly or $79 monthly, and CallScaler Call Tracking at $65 a month on its yearly option or $95 monthly. Every one of them charges for numbers and minutes on top, in different ways, so the plan fee alone doesn’t rank them.
| CallRail | WhatConverts | CallTrackingMetrics | CallScaler | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | Lead Tracking: $50/mo on the yearly toggle (the page loads on it), $55/mo on monthly, “plus additional usage” | Call Tracking: $30/mo “+ $0 /usage,” with a “$30 Free Usage Credit” | Marketing Lite: $65/mo billed yearly, $79/mo billed monthly, $60/mo billed every 2 years, “+ usage” | Call Tracking: $65 per month on the yearly toggle (the page loads on it, “Save $360/yr”), $95 on monthly, “+ usage” |
| Other plans (yearly / monthly) | Lead Tracking Complete 95 / 105; Lead Conversion 150 / 165; Lead Conversion Complete 195 / 215 per month | Plus $60, Pro $100, Elite $160 per month (single account; no yearly price read) | Marketing Pro $149 / $179 per month ($135 every 2 years); a third tier from $274 a month on annual pricing; Enterprise from $1,999 a month | Only the Call Tracking plan was read |
| Included each month | “packages that start with 5 numbers & 250 minutes”; 5 local numbers on every plan | The usage credit covers phone numbers (including disabled ones), incoming call minutes and incoming texts; whether any number is included before the credit is not stated | Nothing: “our plans do not come with any included numbers or minutes” | Not stated; usage runs off “a prepaid usage balance that deducts in real time” |
| Extra local number | $3 each | $2.50 each (all four single-account plans) | $2/mo (United States) | $0.50/mo |
| Extra local minute | $0.06 (“includes transcription,” “Additional fees may apply”) | 4.5¢ (all four single-account plans) | $0.04 (call forwarding, United States) | $0.045 |
| Minute rounding | Each call rounded up to the nearest minute, then summed | Rounded up to the nearest full minute (“A call lasting 1-60 seconds is billed as 1 minute”) | Not stated | Not stated |
| Transcription | The local minute price “includes transcription” (“*Additional fees may apply”) | 2¢ per minute, an add-on outside the usage credit | Marketing Lite: $.02 a minute, with a basic AI summary; Marketing Pro: 3,000 transcribed minutes included; included minutes “do not renew each month” | AI transcription $0.006 per 15 seconds |
| Web form tracking | Only on the two Complete plans, 1,000 form submissions included | Plus card: “Track Calls, Forms and Chat”; the Call Tracking card names calls and texts | Marketing Pro: 5,000 form submissions included; Marketing Lite not stated | Not priced on the pricing page read |
| Usage over the plan | Billed on top of the base fee; “not refundable under any circumstances” | Billed at the plan’s rates once the credit is used | Every number and minute is usage | Deducted from the prepaid balance |
Invoca is the fifth tool in this comparison and shows no price: its pricing page has “Get Your Quote” for its Pro tier, which includes “6,000 annual local or toll-free numbers” and “5 custom Signals.” Its billing terms say that a customer that uses its entire Base Call Volume “plus ten percent (10%)” before the end of the order term moves up to “the next tier of then-current Invoca Platform pricing.”
Monthly and yearly prices are written here as each page shows them. CallRail’s page loads on its yearly toggle and says “Save up to 10% with a yearly plan”; CallScaler’s page also loads on yearly. CallTrackingMetrics lists its monthly, yearly and two-year prices side by side. For WhatConverts this comparison has one monthly price per plan. Pick the column you’d actually buy before comparing.
All four record calls, but on different terms: CallRail includes recording in the base price of every plan, CallTrackingMetrics includes it free on every plan, WhatConverts lists recordings on its Call Tracking plan, and CallScaler prices advanced call recording at $0.005 a minute. CallRail keeps communication records for 25 months, WhatConverts keeps recordings up to five years by default, CallTrackingMetrics lists 5 years of data retention below Enterprise, and CallScaler’s own pages give two different answers.
| CallRail | WhatConverts | CallTrackingMetrics | CallScaler | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Call recording | “included in the base price of all pricing plans”; can’t be paused mid-call, can be turned off per tracking number | Call Tracking card: “See call transcripts, recordings, location data and more”; Call Recording is an optional feature on a tracking number | “included for free on all plans”; encryption and other advanced features from $0.004 a minute | “Advanced Call Recording” $0.005 a minute; a basic recording price is not stated |
| Recording notice tools | Automated greetings that “can alert callers that the line is being recorded” | Call Greeting and Call Whisper options on a tracking number | Default message: “For quality assurance, this call may be recorded.” | “greeting and whisper message tools to help with compliance” |
| How long data is kept | Communication records, which may include call recordings, kept 25 months, then deleted; “It’s not possible to extend the data retention period” | Call recordings kept “for up to five years” by default; longer storage $0.001 per recording per month | “Data retention” 5 years on Marketing Lite, Marketing Pro and Sales Engage, “Indefinitely” on Enterprise; whether that covers recordings is not stated | Two statements (see below): 5 years on every plan at no extra cost, or “Configurable; 5-year addon available” |
| Sends calls to Google Ads by click ID | Yes: “gclid, wbraid, and gbraid”; needs visitor tracking and auto-tagging | Sends “each incoming Google Ads lead as a conversion”; the pages read don’t name a click ID | Yes: Google Ads Direct Connect, “for any activity with a GCLID, GBRAID, or WBRAID” | Yes, per its feature page: “matches phone calls to ad clicks via gclid” |
| Which plan has the Google Ads integration | Not stated | Plan cards: Plus. Full comparison table: all four single-account plans (see below) | All four plans, Marketing Lite included | Not stated |
| Website number pools | Only calls to the website pool with a source of Google Ads report as conversions | Not stated | Not on Marketing Lite; on Marketing Pro and above | Not stated |
| Local Services Ads | Set-up steps put a CallRail number in the LSA profile through Google support | Set-up steps via Google support; LSA conversions not sent to Google Ads “unless you’re using Enhanced Conversions” | Google LSA integration ticked on all four plans | Law-firm page: “Assign a dedicated tracking number to your Local Services Ads profile” |
| For law firms | 18% off Call Tracking for Clio customers and State Bar of Georgia members (new customers) | Not stated | Clio Grow integration on all four plans | Has a law-firm page; no offer stated |
Where a vendor’s own pages disagree, both statements are given here.
One gap rather than a conflict: CallRail’s help pages describe its Google Ads integration in detail, but the pages read don’t say which plans include it. Ask CallRail before choosing a plan for it.
Healthcare terms, the business associate agreements and HIPAA settings that CallRail, WhatConverts, CallTrackingMetrics and Invoca describe on their pages, are compared in our HIPAA conversion tracking guide. Why healthcare PPC experience transfers to law firm Google Ads covers what the two kinds of account share.
Yes, for two groups, and only for new CallRail customers. CallRail’s Clio page says: “Clio customers receive 18% off Call Tracking. Offer valid for new CallRail customers.” Its State Bar of Georgia page says: “State Bar of Georgia members receive an exclusive 18% off Call Tracking and 20% off Voice Assist. Offer valid for new CallRail customers.”
On the Clio page, Lead Tracking shows $55 struck through and $45 a month “plus additional usage.” The Georgia page shows the same $55 and $45 Lead Tracking cards. Neither page has a monthly or yearly toggle, and neither says how the $45 is billed, so compare it with both the $55 monthly and the $50 yearly price on CallRail’s main page. The State Bar of Georgia’s vendor directory carries the same offer text; the vendor supplies that listing.
This comparison found no lawyer or bar-member offer from WhatConverts, CallTrackingMetrics or CallScaler, and no other bar offer from CallRail. For a Clio firm, CallTrackingMetrics’ feature grid lists a Clio Grow integration on all four of its plans.
Federal law allows recording when one party to the call consents, but state laws differ, and the vendors say so themselves. The federal wiretap statute says it is not unlawful for a person not acting under color of law to intercept a call “where such person is a party to the communication or where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception”; CallRail’s help adds that “Some states require both parties to consent to any recorded conversation.”
The vendors’ own wording, in short:
This page doesn’t list the states: the research for it didn’t read state statutes. No lawyer reviewed this page. Before recording, check your state’s law and your bar’s rules with your own lawyer. Bar publications on recorded ad calls are on our page about Google’s call recording.
Google’s Local Services Ads help says the business phone number, “the phone number where your calls are routed to”, “must not be a tracking number” (Google, read October 31, 2026). Changing that number goes through Google support. CallRail and WhatConverts publish set-up steps that have Google support put one of their tracking numbers in that field, and CallScaler’s law-firm page says to assign a tracking number to the LSA profile. Google’s page names no exception, including for a number its support team enters. Before you follow a vendor’s LSA steps, ask Google support whether a tracking number is allowed on your account, and get the answer in writing. Your LSA lead reports already show charged leads by call, message and booking.
The number on the ad itself is a Google forwarding number that forwards calls to your business number, and in the US and Canada Google records all inbound calls through it, with a pre-recorded message to the caller first. Google’s page also says you may not hear the “Call from Google” message if any type of call forwarding or VoIP is set up on the business phone number.
Two vendor details matter if you go ahead. CallRail says LSAs “require a direct, manual number assignment in your LSA account” that “cannot be done via CallRail’s API.” WhatConverts says such calls are tracked in its account, “though conversions won’t be sent back to Google Ads unless you’re using Enhanced Conversions.”
The rules may move. Google says existing Local Services Ads campaigns “will be automatically migrated to a specialized Performance Max campaign type optimized specifically for pay-per-lead goals,” that in Google Ads “you can edit the phone number to which your call and message leads are routed in real time,” and that LSA performance reports “will not transition to Google Ads.” The August 2026 phase names home and storefront services; the late 2026 phase covers service-area businesses without storefronts; remaining categories move in 2027. Law firms aren’t named, and the migration page doesn’t say whether the tracking-number rule carries over. The Local Services Ads vs Google Ads guide for lawyers covers the move.
CallRail and CallTrackingMetrics say so in their help pages and name the same three Google click IDs (gclid, gbraid and wbraid); CallScaler’s feature page says it matches calls to ad clicks via gclid; WhatConverts says it sends each new Google Ads lead to Google Ads as a conversion without naming the click ID; and Invoca’s pricing page lists offline conversion import with a Google Ads integration.
Without a vendor, Google’s offline conversion import does the same job for a lead that signs later: you save the Google Click ID with the lead and, when that person “converts” in the offline world, “by signing a contract, for example,” you give that GCLID back to Google Ads. The signed-case tracking guide has the steps.
In the site’s own homepage scan of 87 Chicago personal injury firms (October 6, 2026), 34% of homepages ran call tracking, and CallRail was on 24 of the 30 sites with call tracking. Advertisers in the scan were more likely to show it: 22 of 42 advertisers (52%) against 8 of 45 non-advertisers (18%).
These are figures from the study’s page, not from its data file: per-firm technology flags were kept out of the public data. Two caveats from the study apply. Tools loaded through Google Tag Manager or on inner pages are undercounted, and after its October 13, 2026 correction the study says the shares in its technology tables may be understated by up to about five percentage points. The method and the other tools it found are in the Chicago personal injury lead generation study.
At 5 tracking numbers and 600 minutes a month with transcription, on monthly billing, the vendors’ published rates come to $51.50 at WhatConverts, $76.00 at CallRail, $125.00 at CallTrackingMetrics and $138.90 at CallScaler. Enter your own figures below; every rate and rule the calculator uses is written out under it, with this example worked through.
| Vendor and plan | Plan fee | Numbers and minutes | Transcription | Total a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The calculator needs JavaScript. The rates, rules and a worked example are below. | ||||
| Vendor and plan | Fee, monthly billing | Fee, yearly billing | Included | Each number | Each minute | Transcription |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CallRail Lead Tracking | $55 | $50 | 5 numbers, 250 minutes | $3 over 5 | $0.06 over 250 | In the minute price |
| CallRail Lead Tracking Complete (forms) | $105 | $95 | 5 numbers, 250 minutes, 1,000 forms | $3 over 5 | $0.06 over 250 | In the minute price |
| CallRail Lead Tracking, Clio offer | $45 (billing not stated) | $45 (billing not stated) | as Lead Tracking | $3 over 5 | $0.06 over 250 | In the minute price |
| WhatConverts Call Tracking | $30 | $30 (no yearly price read) | $30 usage credit | $2.50 | $0.045 | $0.02 a minute, outside the credit |
| WhatConverts Plus (forms) | $60 | $60 (no yearly price read) | No credit stated | $2.50 | $0.045 | $0.02 a minute |
| CallTrackingMetrics Marketing Lite | $79 | $65 | Nothing | $2 | $0.04 | $0.02 a minute |
| CallTrackingMetrics Marketing Pro (forms) | $179 | $149 | 5,000 forms; 3,000 transcribed minutes, which “do not renew each month” | $2 | $0.04 | Not priced (see the rules) |
| CallScaler Call Tracking | $95 | $65 | Not stated | $0.50 | $0.045 | $0.006 per 15 seconds (counted as $0.024 a minute, the calculator’s assumption) |
| Vendor and plan | Arithmetic | Monthly billing | Yearly billing |
|---|---|---|---|
| WhatConverts Call Tracking | $30 + (5 × $2.50 = $12.50 for numbers + 600 × $0.045 = $27.00 for minutes − $30 credit = $9.50) + 600 × $0.02 = $12.00 transcription | $51.50 | $51.50 |
| CallRail Lead Tracking | $55 or $50 + $0 for numbers (5 included) + (600 − 250) × $0.06 = $21.00 for minutes; transcription included | $76.00 | $71.00 |
| CallTrackingMetrics Marketing Lite | $79 or $65 + 5 × $2 = $10.00 for numbers + 600 × $0.04 = $24.00 for minutes + 600 × $0.02 = $12.00 transcription | $125.00 | $111.00 |
| CallScaler Call Tracking | $95 or $65 + 5 × $0.50 = $2.50 for numbers + 600 × $0.045 = $27.00 for minutes + 600 × $0.024 = $14.40 transcription | $138.90 | $108.90 |
| Invoca | No published price | Quote | Quote |
A Clio customer new to CallRail would pay $45 + $21.00 = $66.00 for the same usage, if the $45 applies as shown. The order changes with your figures: with few minutes, plan fees decide; with many, the per-minute rates and transcription do.
Every price, rate and term on this page comes from the vendor’s own pricing, billing, terms, help or product pages, read on October 31, 2026; pages drawn by JavaScript were read in a browser with each monthly and yearly toggle. Google’s rules come from its Google Ads and Local Services help pages, read the same day, and the recording rule from the federal statute on govinfo.gov. No vendor was contacted, nothing was bought or tested, and the figures from Chicago come from this site’s own study.
CallRail is the tool the site’s Chicago scan found most often; WhatConverts and CallScaler appear in searches for call tracking for law firms and for “callrail vs whatconverts”; CallTrackingMetrics was added because it publishes its prices and its full plan grid; Invoca because its pricing page is a quote form. Other tools that show up in those searches, such as Retreaver, Dial800 and CloudTalk, weren’t read for this page.
Limits:
Disclosure. Copy for Originals, which publishes this site, sells Google Ads management. No vendor on this page paid for it or saw it before publication, and it carries no affiliate links: the site has joined no affiliate program (how this site makes money).
Each source was read on October 31, 2026. Dates in brackets are the source’s own; the others show none.