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Hourly billing stays dominant amongst small, midsize companies, new 8am knowledge reveals
Hourly billing is considerably outpacing flat payment preparations at small and midsize regulation companies, regardless of widespread predictions in regards to the loss of life of the billable hour, in accordance with new knowledge from skilled enterprise platform 8am. (Picture from Shutterstock)
Hourly billing is considerably outpacing flat payment preparations at small and midsize regulation companies, regardless of widespread predictions in regards to the loss of life of the billable hour, in accordance with new knowledge from skilled enterprise platform 8am.
The 8am SMB Law Billing and Payments Report, which was launched Thursday, reveals that 48% of those companies invoice completely by the hour, whereas solely 10% completely use flat charges. The remaining 42% reportedly use a mixture of hourly billing and flat payment preparations.
“All too typically, companies are making consequential selections about how they invoice and obtain funds with out actual benchmarks to measure in opposition to,” mentioned Tanya Hendricks, the chief product officer at 8am, in a news release. “Flat payment tendencies are a first-rate instance—the trade narrative suggests many are transferring in that route, however our knowledge reveals most SMB companies haven’t.”
8am’s report, which analyzes billing and cost tendencies for the primary half of 2026, additionally reveals that small and midsize companies billed extra however not due to greater hourly charges. Hourly charges remained unchanged throughout all agency sizes besides midsize companies, and their hours spent per case remained largely flat. Nevertheless, what small and midsize companies earned per hour billed elevated between 3% and 5%, whereas their whole billings elevated between 5% and eight% every month.
“With charges and hours being comparatively flat, the driving force for change was an enchancment in how a lot recorded time made it onto an bill,” in accordance with the report.
Amongst 8am’s different key findings, small and midsize companies have barely improved collections. Practically 60% of companies had extra invoices paid in full, in comparison with 58% the prior yr. In the meantime, 26% had fewer invoices go late, in comparison with 27% final yr.
“The image that’s rising is one in all companies getting extra disciplined: getting paid extra reliably, billing extra of what they’ve already earned, and making extra deliberate selections about how they receives a commission,” Hendricks additionally mentioned.
The SMB Legislation Billing and Funds Report is predicated on billing and cost knowledge from greater than 60,000 companies that use 8am’s MyCase and LawPay platforms.
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