What a Signed MVA Case Should Actually Cost You in 2026 (Cost-Per-Case Math)

Ask ten PI firms what a lead costs and you'll get ten confident answers. Ask what a signed case costs — all-in — and most of the room goes quiet. That silence is where lead vendors make their money, because a $150 lead and a $600 lead can't be compared until you know what each one actually turns into.

This is the math we run with every firm before they buy anything from us, and it's the math you should run against every vendor you currently pay — including your own ad account.

Cost per signed case = total spend on a source ÷ cases signed from that source. Total spend means everything: lead fees, ad spend pass-throughs, and the intake labor burned working that source's leads. Cases signed means retainers executed — not qualified leads, not appointments, signatures.

Work an example. You buy 100 shared MVA leads at $150 — $15,000. Your intake team contacts 40% of them (typical for unverified shared leads), qualifies half of those contacted, and signs a third of the qualified: about 6–7 cases. Add roughly 60 hours of intake labor at a $35 loaded rate ($2,100), and your true cost per signed case is around $2,550–2,850. Now run the same math on 'cheap' $80 leads with a 25% contact rate, and watch the number climb past $3,500 while the invoice looks smaller.

Contact rate is the biggest lever and the least discussed. Every lead you can't reach is pure cost with zero chance of revenue — it inflates cost per signed case faster than any price hike. This is mechanical: OTP phone verification (the claimant types a PIN from their own phone) removes wrong numbers and accidental clicks before you're ever billed, which is why our working assumption for verified inquiries is an 80%+ contact rate versus 30–40% on shared batches.

Exclusivity is second. A resold lead makes your close rate a footrace: four firms, one claimant, first dialer wins. Exclusive routing means your sign rate reflects your intake quality, not your speed-dial. Speed is third — an intake call within minutes, while the claimant still wants to talk, versus a spreadsheet row delivered hours later. Everything else (scripts, follow-up cadence, intake training) matters, but only after those three.

For standard MVA inventory, we target $4,500 per signed case and write a replacement review into the agreement if the campaign runs over after leads are reasonably worked. Whether $4,500 is good for your firm depends on your average fee: against a $12,000 average fee it's a 2.7x return before case costs; against $25,000 it's a rounding error. The point isn't the specific target — it's that the target exists, on paper, with a remedy attached.

If a vendor won't put a cost-per-signed-case frame in writing, they're selling you clicks with extra steps. Run the audit on your last 90 days: every source in a column, invoices plus labor on top, signatures on the bottom. Then compare sources on that one line — and cut or renegotiate anything that can't defend its number.