LawPay Pricing: Fees, Trust Rules and What to Ask

LawPay's US pricing page prints a $19 monthly plan fee, 2.99% + $0.30 on Visa, Mastercard and Discover, 3.90% + $0.30 on American Express and 1% on eChecks. It says "No Contract - Monthly Billing," shows no setup or cancellation fee, and leaves some costs to card network pass-through fees and a sales call.

Quick answer

Take the printed rates and add the pass-through fees LawPay says may apply, because that sum, not the headline rate, is what a month costs. Work out your own card-versus-eCheck mix: at the printed rates a payment by Visa costs about three times what the same payment costs by eCheck. Then get the open items in the table below answered in writing before you sign. The rules for trust money come from your state bar (in Canada, your law society), not LawPay, and this is not legal advice; I am not a lawyer.

What does LawPay's pricing page print?

One plan, "No Contract - Monthly Billing," at $19 a month, plus a custom pricing option "to discuss special processing or technical requirements" (LawPay pricing, checked 2026-10-17). The per-payment rates are below, and the page has no calculator.

The refund, payout and 4.95% figures come from LawPay's card processing page, and its Pay Later page repeats 5.95% (LawPay, checked 2026-10-17; LawPay, checked 2026-10-17).

Two entries need care, the Pay Later conflict and a Visa fixed network fee on the pass-through list that the pricing page says varies by merchant category, locations and volume, so that number comes only from LawPay. The page also says LawPay may not charge certain card network fees now but may start later, on a prospective basis.

What did one imaginary month cost?

Illustrative: every number below is made up for an imaginary three-lawyer firm, and none comes from a client. The rates are LawPay's printed ones cited above, and the pass-through fees are left out except the $7.99 allocation.

Add the $7.99 allocation, assuming it applies to this firm, and the month reaches $1,600.99, or about 2.67% of $60,000. The formula is amount x percentage, plus count x $0.30 on cards, plus the monthly fee. Now suppose the $15,000 of eCheck payments had come in on Visa instead, as 30 card payments: 30 x $0.30 = $9 plus $15,000 x 2.99% = $448.50, so $457.50 against $150, a $307.50 difference in that one month. Nudging clients to the bank option is worth a line in your engagement letter, provided the clients agree.

Where do the fees come out when client money is in trust?

ABA Model Rule 1.15 says fees and expenses paid in advance go into a client trust account and are withdrawn only as fees are earned or expenses incurred, and it lets a lawyer put the lawyer's own money into that account only to pay bank service charges (ABA, checked 2026-10-17 via the Internet Archive copy of 2026-10-02). If a processor takes its fee out of a retainer, the trust account holds less than the client paid in. It is a model rule, and each state bar sets its own version.

LawPay's own guide says a processor should "keep unearned trust deposits whole, without charging processing fees against them" and should pull card fees from the firm's operating account while payments go into trust (LawPay, checked 2026-10-17). Its Pay Later page says of trust payments that "we will never debit any fees from the trust account" (LawPay, checked 2026-10-17). Its Pennsylvania Bar page claims earned and unearned fees are separated with no third-party debiting (LawPay, checked 2026-10-17).

One official opinion shows why the question matters. In a 2014 informal opinion for Connecticut lawyers, the Connecticut Bar Association's Professional Ethics Committee said that, absent the client's written agreement otherwise, a lawyer must pay card processing fees from the lawyer's own funds, and must immediately put the lawyer's own money into the trust account if a fee is debited from a client's advance payment (Connecticut Bar Association, checked 2026-10-17). It recommended a setup where card fees and chargebacks come out of the operating account. A vendor saying it is compliant is not the same as your bar saying so.

Ask your bar, and read your processing agreement for the account the fees are debited from. In Canada, 14 law societies mandated by the provinces and territories regulate lawyers (Federation of Law Societies of Canada, checked 2026-10-17), each with its own rules; the Law Society of BC, for one, applies its trust assurance standards to every lawyer who handles trust funds for clients or third parties (Law Society of BC, checked 2026-10-17). None of this is legal advice, and I am not a lawyer.

Can I pass the card fee to the client?

LawPay offers surcharging, which means adding a fee to a card payment. Its support page says you request activation, that it cannot be applied to debit card payments or trust account transactions, and that it is available except if your practice is in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New York or Puerto Rico (LawPay Support, checked 2026-10-17). Its guide adds that a surcharge generally cannot exceed 3% in the US, and that failing to send notice of intent to surcharge violates Mastercard's network rules (LawPay, checked 2026-10-17).

That is a vendor describing its own feature. Whether passing a card fee to a client is permitted for a lawyer is a question for your state bar; the same guide points to ABA Rule 1.5 on reasonable fees.

What are Pay Later and the bar member offers?

Pay Later is LawPay's client financing option, powered by Affirm. The client applies for a loan from Affirm, a third-party lender, and if approved the firm receives the full invoiced amount upfront; LawPay says Pay Later is not the lender (LawPay, checked 2026-10-17). The same page says the firm pays 5.95% of the transaction value and may not pass that cost to the client, that it supports transactions from $150 to $30,000, and that funds settle by ACH within 1 to 5 business days depending on account type. Entity clients borrowing for business purposes are excluded.

Member offers are narrow. The Pennsylvania Bar page offers three months with no monthly fee for new customers in the US who sign up, adds that "payment transaction processing fees still apply," and says the offer cannot be combined with others (LawPay, checked 2026-10-17). The saving is the monthly fee only: $57 at the printed $19.

Who owns LawPay, and what does it connect to?

LawPay's about page says it is "part of 8am" (LawPay, checked 2026-10-17), and 8am's story page says 8am was formerly AffiniPay and that LawPay was its first product (8am, checked 2026-10-17). MyCase, CasePeer and DocketWise carry the same 8am name, and LawPay's integrations page says MyCase, as an 8am product, includes LawPay at no extra cost. That page counts 67 integrations, including Clio, PracticePanther, Smokeball and QuickBooks Online (LawPay integrations, checked 2026-10-17). For how Clio's own payments compare, see the Clio and MyCase pricing post.

Does a LawPay payment show which ad brought the client?

No. What LawPay records is a payment, and its features page describes reporting on aging invoices, receivables and trust accounting, with a QuickBooks Online integration for automatic uploads (LawPay, checked 2026-10-17). 8am's developer documentation describes an API, a connection other software uses to read the data, through which a merchant can retrieve and search its own card and eCheck transactions (8am, checked 2026-10-17). Nothing on those pages records which ad or search brought the client.

The payment is still the best revenue figure for judging marketing, because it is money received, not a lead count. For it to answer an advertising question, each payment has to tie to a matter whose lead source was recorded at intake; the law firm CRM field list covers which fields. The step after that, deciding what amount to send back to Google Ads, is in what value to send offline conversions. The same payment records are what fees per signed case is built from.

What should I ask LawPay before signing?

• What is my all-in monthly cost at my volume, including every pass-through fee that may apply?
• Is my Pay Later rate 5.95% or 4.95%?
• What is the fee per chargeback, and how does a dispute on a trust deposit get handled?
• Is there any monthly minimum, and what is not included in the PCI line?
• Does my account get Next Day Payments, and what is the standard payout speed without it?
• If I get custom pricing, does the no-contract wording still hold?
• Which account are the fees debited from, in writing, and does my bar agree?
• For a Canadian firm: are the $15 and $20 plan prices in CAD, and are eChecks offered?