Original research · 2026
The Conveyancing Conversion Report 2026
Enquiry-to-instruction benchmarks across 22 UK law firms. 36,463 closed conveyancing enquiries, August 2025 to August 2026.
- Closed enquiries analysed
- 36,463Closed enquiries analysed
- UK law firms on one platform
- 22UK law firms on one platform
- Panel conversion rate
- 9.9%Panel conversion rate
- Of wins land within seven days
- 80.5%Of wins land within seven days
Nine in ten conveyancing quotes never become instructions.
We hold the enquiry-to-instruction record for 22 UK law firms on one platform. What separates the firm converting at 24.7% from the one converting at 1.4% is not its website, its domain authority, or how many leads it takes.
When instructions are actually won
Share of 3,614 won instructions, by days elapsed between enquiry and win.
- Same day42.8%
- Day 1 to 211.3%
- Day 3 to 726.4%
- Day 8 onward19.5%
Five findings
80.5%
The seven day window
80.5% of instructions are won within seven days of the enquiry arriving, and 42.8% are won on the day it arrives. Median time to a win: 1.7 days.
17.6x
The conversion gap
17.6x separates the best and worst converting firms on the same platform, taking largely the same leads. The range runs from 1.4% to 24.7%.
+0.80
Direct enquiry share
Rank correlation between the share of enquiries arriving direct and conversion. Firms above 12% direct convert at 17.6%. Firms under 6.5% convert at 6.6%.
+0.56
Star rating
Correlation between Google star rating and conversion. Firms rated 4.6 and above convert at 17.8%; firms below 4.2 convert at 8.7%.
-0.17
Review count
The number of reviews a firm holds tells you nothing. Neither does domain authority, or lead volume.
Method: where this data comes from
legalbuzz runs the lead management platform these firms use. Conveyancing enquiries arrive into it, are quoted from it, and are marked won or lost in it. That gives us, for every enquiry across every firm: the arrival timestamp, the outcome, and the timestamp of that outcome.
A conveyancing department sees its own conversion rate and has nothing to compare it against. Panel and comparison-site providers know their aggregate conversion and have no commercial reason to publish it. We are in the unusual position of holding the same funnel, structured the same way, for 22 firms at once.
| Sub-accounts queried | 31 |
|---|---|
| Total opportunities | 50,281 |
| Firms meeting the 100-closed threshold | 22 |
| Closed opportunities analysed | 36,463 |
| Instructions won | 3,614 |
| Lost | 32,849 |
| Panel conversion rate | 9.9% |
Period: August 2025 to August 2026. Firms are anonymised throughout. We do not see client matter files.
Read this first: 93% of these enquiries are shared
Weighted across the panel, roughly 93% of these opportunities arrive from comparison sites rather than direct to the firm.
So 9.9% is a comparison-site conversion rate, not a general conveyancing one. These are shared, price-led enquiries where three or four firms quote the same client within the same hour.
It also explains the seven-day window rather than merely describing it. When four firms receive the same enquiry simultaneously, response speed is not a refinement of the sales process. It is the sales process.
Finding one: the seven day window
80.5% of all instructions are won within seven days. The median win takes 1.7 days. The median recorded loss takes 11.6 days. Firms are not losing these enquiries on day 10. They lost them in the first 48 hours and found out on day 10.
| Won same day | 42.8% |
|---|---|
| Won within 2 days | 54.1% |
| Won within 7 days | 80.5% |
| Median days to win | 1.7 |
| Median days to recorded loss | 11.6 |
| Losses recorded between day 8 and 14 | 67.9% |
n = 3,614 wins, 32,849 losses.
A conveyancing enquiry has a shelf life of about 48 hours. Almost everything a firm does after that is administration of a decision already made.
Finding two: conversion ranges 17.6-fold
The panel median is 9.5%. The best firm converts at 24.7%. The worst converts at 1.4%. These firms sit on the same platform and, for the most part, buy from the same sources.
| Firm 01 | 271 | 67 | 24.7% | 15.4% | 4.8 | 323 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Firm 02 | 285 | 59 | 20.7% | 45.2% | 5.0 | 67 |
| Firm 03 | 921 | 161 | 17.5% | 21.1% | 4.2 | 67 |
| Firm 04 | 2,391 | 385 | 16.1% | 6.7% | 4.3 | 233 |
| Firm 05 | 2,972 | 460 | 15.5% | 8.9% | 4.2 | 202 |
| Firm 06 | 1,229 | 186 | 15.1% | 12.0% | 4.7 | 960 |
| Firm 07 | 332 | 36 | 10.8% | 9.0% | 4.6 | 163 |
| Firm 08 | 482 | 49 | 10.2% | 6.7% | 4.0 | 33 |
| Firm 09 | 897 | 91 | 10.1% | 13.2% | 4.5 | 41 |
| Firm 10 | 4,260 | 426 | 10.0% | 5.6% | 4.0 | 238 |
| Firm 11 | 513 | 49 | 9.6% | 10.7% | 4.5 | 54 |
| Firm 12 | 2,467 | 231 | 9.4% | 5.0% | 3.4 | 59 |
| Firm 13 | 725 | 65 | 9.0% | 11.9% | n/a | n/a |
| Firm 14 | 3,555 | 307 | 8.6% | 4.1% | 4.4 | 61 |
| Firm 15 | 1,229 | 95 | 7.7% | 6.1% | 3.0 | 27 |
| Firm 16 | 5,676 | 429 | 7.6% | 6.1% | 4.1 | 4,371 |
| Firm 17 | 4,154 | 303 | 7.3% | 3.3% | 3.0 | 65 |
| Firm 18 | 1,467 | 88 | 6.0% | 5.3% | 4.4 | 354 |
| Firm 19 | 1,965 | 109 | 5.5% | 3.3% | n/a | n/a |
| Firm 20 | 249 | 8 | 3.2% | 7.0% | n/a | n/a |
| Firm 21 | 285 | 8 | 2.8% | 5.6% | n/a | n/a |
| Firm 22 | 138 | 2 | 1.4% | 1.1% | n/a | n/a |
| Panel | 36,463 | 3,614 | 9.9% | 6.9% |
Firms anonymised. Direct share is the proportion of opportunities arriving outside the main comparison-site feed. Rating and review count from Google Business Profile at time of analysis.
What the gap is worth to you
Move the sliders to your own numbers. Nothing is sent anywhere.
- Your rate99 instructions
- Top quartile (15.1%)151 instructions
- Best firm on the panel (24.7%)247 instructions
Reaching top quartile from the same lead spend
+52 instructions
£62,400 in additional fee income a year
For a firm handling 1,000 conveyancing enquiries a year, the distance between the bottom quartile (7.3%) and the top quartile (15.1%) is 78 additional instructions a year from identical lead spend.
Finding three: direct enquiry share predicts conversion
Rank correlation between the share of enquiries arriving direct and the firm's conversion rate: +0.80 across 22 firms. At that sample size this is a strong relationship, not a directional hint.
| Share arriving direct | Firms | Average conversion |
|---|---|---|
| 12% or more | 5 | 17.6% |
| 6.5% to 12% | 7 | 10.6% |
| Under 6.5% | 10 | 6.6% |
A direct enquiry is one client talking to one firm. A comparison-site enquiry is one client holding four quotes and choosing on price and response speed.
This is the finding that connects search visibility to fee income. Every enquiry a firm generates through its own site, its own Google Business Profile, or its own reputation arrives on the higher-converting curve.
One caution. Direct share and conversion may both be driven by a third factor; for example, a firm that invests in its own marketing may also invest in its intake team. We cannot separate those with this dataset, and we are not claiming to. If you want the visibility side of that, see how our search work is built.
Finding four: rating predicts conversion, review count does not
Google rating correlates with conversion at +0.56. Review count correlates at -0.17, which is to say not at all.
| Google rating | Firms | Average conversion |
|---|---|---|
| 4.6 and above | 4 | 17.8% |
| 4.2 to 4.5 | 7 | 11.9% |
| Below 4.2 | 6 | 8.7% |
Firm 16 holds 4,371 reviews at 4.1 stars and converts at 7.6%. Firm 02 holds 67 reviews at 5.0 stars and converts at 20.7%. Sixty-five times the review volume, and a third of the conversion rate.
There is a further pattern we are flagging as a hypothesis rather than a finding. Four firms in the panel have no findable Google Business Profile at all, and three of those four sit in the bottom four for conversion. With n = 4 that is not evidence, but it is the cheapest thing on this list for a firm to check.
Finding five: three things that do not predict conversion
Domain authority
No relationship with conversion. A firm's backlink profile affects whether an enquiry arrives. It has no measurable bearing on whether that enquiry becomes an instruction.
Review count
Correlation -0.17. Volume of reviews does not move conversion; the average rating does. A review-generation campaign that lifts count without lifting the average is moving the wrong number.
Lead volume
Correlation -0.09 (rank -0.03). Taking more leads does not degrade conversion, which is worth stating plainly because the opposite is widely assumed.
A correction, stated openly. On our first ten-firm panel, lead volume appeared to reduce conversion at rank correlation -0.68. When we widened the panel to all 22 firms, that fell to -0.03 and vanished. We are publishing the retraction because a benchmark is only worth having if the people producing it say when they were wrong.
What to do about it: four changes the data supports
- 1
Measure time to first quote in hours, not days
If 42.8% of wins land on day one and the median win takes 1.7 days, then a same-day response is not good service, it is the qualifying round. Most firms report on conversion rate and never report on response time, which is the variable that produces it.
- 2
Rebuild the follow-up sequence around days one to seven
80.5% of the available wins are decided inside that window, and the losses are simply logged later. Effort spent chasing enquiries at day 14 is being spent on enquiries that were lost on day two.
- 3
Treat star rating as a conversion asset, not a marketing one
The gradient is steep: 4.6 and above converts at roughly twice the rate of below 4.2. For a firm sitting at 3.9, this is likely a larger and cheaper lever than any increase in lead spend. Chase the average, not the count.
- 4
Grow direct enquiry share, and value it on conversion rather than cost per lead
A firm at 4% direct that reaches 12% is not just adding enquiries. On this panel it is moving onto a curve where the average firm converts at 17.6% instead of 6.6%. That is the case for owning your own search visibility, and it is a fee-income case rather than a traffic one.
Limitations: what this data cannot tell you
The panel is not the market
These are 22 firms on one lead management platform, weighted toward firms taking comparison-site volume. A firm running purely on referrals and repeat instructions would look nothing like this.
"Lost" is defined by each firm
Some mark an enquiry lost when the client says no; others when the file goes cold. That affects the timing of recorded losses more than it affects the win timings, which is why we lead on the win distribution.
Correlation is not causation anywhere in this report
Direct enquiry share, star rating and conversion may share upstream causes we cannot observe.
Rating data covers 17 of 22 firms
Five had no retrievable Google Business Profile data at the time of analysis, and the correlations in Finding 4 are calculated on the 17 that did.
How to cite this report
legalbuzz (2026). The Conveyancing Conversion Report: enquiry-to-instruction benchmarks across 22 UK law firms. Based on 36,463 closed conveyancing opportunities, August 2025 to August 2026.
Keep reading
Law firm marketing: what 36,463 enquiries actually show turns these findings into a spending order for your marketing budget.
Questions, answered
Questions about the data
How long do conveyancing enquiries take to convert?
42.8% of instructions are won on the day the enquiry arrives and 80.5% within seven days. The median win takes 1.7 days, while the median recorded loss takes 11.6 days.
What is a good conveyancing conversion rate?
Across 36,463 closed enquiries from 22 UK firms the panel converted at 9.9%, with a median of 9.5%. The top quartile converts at 15.1% or better and the best firm reaches 24.7%.
Does having more Google reviews increase conversion?
No. Review count correlates with conversion at -0.17, which is effectively no relationship. Average star rating correlates at +0.56: firms rated 4.6 and above convert at 17.8% against 8.7% for firms below 4.2.
Why do direct enquiries convert better than comparison site leads?
A direct enquirer has already chosen the firm and is confirming. A comparison-site enquirer is holding three or four quotes and choosing on price and response speed. Direct share correlates with conversion at +0.80 across the panel.
