The costs page the SRA transparency rules already require, and four other things a two partner UK firm can do for nothing

A two partner British firm with time and no money has a narrower set of options than general marketing advice assumes, and one unusually strong one that most firms in this position have not used. If you are a regulated practice, the single highest return page on your website may be one your own regulator already obliges you to publish. Start there, then work down this list.

The page the rules may already require you to publish

If you are a solicitors' practice in England and Wales, the SRA Transparency Rules apply, and we read Rule 1 from sra.org.uk on 22 October 2026. It requires that an authorised body which publishes as part of its usual business the availability of certain named services must publish cost information for them on its website.

The named services for individuals in Rule 1 include residential conveyancing comprising freehold or leasehold sales or purchases, or mortgages and re-mortgages; the collection and distribution of assets following a death where these are within the UK and the matters are not contested; the preparation and submission of immigration applications, excluding asylum applications; advice and representation at the First-tier Tribunal, Immigration and Asylum Chamber, on appeals against Home Office visa or immigration decisions, excluding asylum appeals; advice and representation at the Magistrates Court on summary only road traffic offences dealt with at a single hearing; and advice and representation for employees bringing unfair or wrongful dismissal claims before the Employment Tribunal.

The services in relation to businesses in that rule are advice and representation for employers defending unfair or wrongful dismissal claims at the Employment Tribunal, debt recovery up to the value of GBP 100,000, and advice, assistance and representation on licensing applications for business premises.

On what the costs information has to contain, the rule lists the total cost of the service or, where that is not practicable, the average cost or range of costs; the basis for the charges including any hourly rates or fixed fees; the experience and qualifications of anyone carrying out the work and of their supervisors; a description and the cost of any likely disbursements, with an average or range where the actual cost is not known; whether any fees or disbursements attract VAT and if so how much; and details of what is included in the displayed price, including the key stages and likely timescales for each stage.

Read that list as a marketing brief, because that is what it is. A page containing the price, the basis, the people, the disbursements, the VAT treatment and the stages with timescales is the most commercially useful page a small firm can publish, and the rule requires most of it anyway. Nothing here is legal advice, and whether the rule applies to your firm and your services is for you to confirm against the current rules, since we read it on one date.

The other four things that work with no budget

1. Write down the answers you already give. You and your partner answer the same ten questions on every enquiry call. Each one is a page. The material already exists and the questions are already the ones buyers ask.
2. Ask for specific introductions. Not a general referral request, which produces nothing. A named type of person, with a sentence somebody can forward in thirty seconds.
3. Answer questions where your buyers already gather. Trade bodies, local business groups and the one or two places online where your buyers ask each other things. Under your own name, without pitching.
4. Be findable under the words buyers use. Your firm name, your location, your specialism and the services you actually do, in text on your own site, with the variants people type.

What our British reading says about a firm this size

On 22 October 2026 we put a 198 question set of British buying questions to ChatGPT and Gemini, with the market written into the prompt because the country parameters on the search API are accepted and then ignored. In the 64 blind readings:

• 30 of the 64 named nobody at all, so in a meaningful share of these answers there is no incumbent.
• One single agency website was cited in 19 readings, which is proof that a company's own pages can carry this rather than needing a directory or a budget.
• Official hosts were read constantly: gov.uk in 16 readings, ico.org.uk in 7, asa.org.uk in 5 and legislation.gov.uk in 4. A firm whose published material is consistent with the authoritative sources on its own subject is in good company.

The encouraging part for two partners is that the thing being rewarded here is specificity, which is free, rather than volume, which is not.

What two partner British firms ask about marketing with no budget

Will publishing our prices lose us work? It loses you enquiries you would not have won and saves both partners the calls. Where a range is the honest answer, publish the range and what moves it, which is close to what the transparency rule asks for anyway.

How long until this produces work? Introductions work in weeks, pages work in months and keep working. Run both rather than choosing.

Should one partner own it? Yes, with two hours in the diary each week. Shared ownership at two people means it happens when both are free, which is never.

Do we need a new website? Almost never. You need the pages in text on whatever site you have. A rebuild is the usual way this budget disappears before anything is published.

Is social media worth the time? One platform, the one your buyers use, answered properly. For most professional firms in Britain that is one rather than four.

Start with the page the rules already describe

Of everything on this page, the costs page is the one to write first, and the SRA rule has effectively written the brief for you. Price or range, the basis, the people and their qualifications, the disbursements, the VAT treatment, the stages and the timescales. A two partner firm that publishes that document properly has the most useful page in its market and has also met an obligation, which is an unusual combination.

One honest caveat about the rule itself. We read it on a single date and rules change, so confirm the current version and whether it applies to your firm and your services before you rely on anything here. The point stands either way, which is that the document your regulator describes and the document your buyer wants are close to the same document, and most small practices have published neither.

Write the ten answers next, one evening each. Nothing else on this list produces as much for two people with no budget, and both of them cost time rather than money.

For the channel mix to run alongside the pages, see our page on choosing the marketing mix for a small British business on margin and repeat purchase.