Start here
The Zest

What a trademark attorney costs in 2026: our flat fees, line by line

Written by

At Citrus Legal, a trademark attorney costs $650 for a search and written opinion, $1,800 to $3,700 to take a mark from search to filing and through examination, and $495 a month for ongoing portfolio counsel. Those are flat fees for the legal work. The USPTO's filing fee is separate, starts at $350 per class, and goes to the government.

I wrote a while back that nobody can give you one going rate for a trademark attorney, and that's still true across the market. What I can give you is ours, every line of it, so you have a real number to compare against.

Two bills, every time

Every trademark costs two things: the legal work and the government fee.

The government fee is set by the USPTO, charged per class, and the same no matter who files. The base application fee is $350 per class. Surcharges can be added, for example when the description of your goods or services is written from scratch instead of chosen from the USPTO's list. I walked through those fees in the article on what a trademark costs in 2026.

The legal fee is what the attorney charges. That's the number below. When you compare quotes from anyone, the first question is whether a price includes the USPTO fee or sits on top of it. Ours sits on top, and we say so on every package.

The search: $650

Seed is a full trademark search with a written opinion letter, and no filing.

The search covers federal trademark records, the records of all fifty states, and real-world use of names that were never registered. The opinion tells you, in writing, whether the name is worth building on and what the risks are.

Two details matter for your budget:

  • If the first name comes back high risk and you pick a different one, Seed includes one courtesy search of the alternative name.
  • If you move forward to a Grove or Harvest application, the $650 credits toward it.

Seed is the right starting point when the name is still being decided. It's the cheapest point at which to find out a name won't work.

Filing: $1,800 to $3,700

Three packages take a mark from search to filing. The difference between them is how many classes they cover and which problems they include.

Sprout, $1,800. A comprehensive search, a full opinion letter, and a one-class federal application. The owner name, the description of goods, the class and the filing basis are chosen deliberately, because several of those can't be corrected after filing.

Grove, $2,600. Everything in Sprout, plus a second class, specimen review, and every procedural Office Action response. Procedural responses are the disclaimers, amendments and clarifications an examining attorney asks for. Grove is the package most clients choose. Classes beyond two are $300 each, plus the USPTO fee.

Harvest, $3,700. Everything in Grove, plus every substantive Office Action response. Substantive refusals are the hard ones: likelihood of confusion with another registration, or a finding that the name is descriptive. Those take a written legal argument with evidence. Under Grove they're quoted separately before any work begins. Under Harvest they're already paid for. Appeals to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board are quoted separately in every package.

How do you choose between Grove and Harvest? The search tells you. It shows how likely a substantive refusal is, and if the risk is real, upgrading before filing costs less than paying for a substantive response later.

After registration: $495 a month

Orchard is ongoing counsel for a brand with more than one mark: a watch service over new filings, domains and handles, renewal and maintenance deadlines tracked, and enforcement letters when someone gets close. It also includes one contract review a month, up to five pages, with correspondence and a phone call with the attorney.

Registrations need maintenance filings between the fifth and sixth year and again every ten years, each with its own USPTO fee per class. Orchard is how those dates stop being your problem.

Contracts: from $249

Contract review starts at $249 and drafting at $397, for up to five pages, with one round of revisions and a call with the attorney. That's for Florida businesses. Trademark work is nationwide.

What a flat fee should tell you up front

Whoever you hire, the rules lawyers practice under expect the scope and the basis of the fee to be communicated, preferably in writing, before or soon after the work starts. That's the ABA's Model Rule 1.5, which most states have adopted in some form.

So ask any lawyer, including me, the same questions:

  1. Is the fee flat or hourly, and what exactly does it cover?
  2. Is the USPTO fee included or added on top?
  3. Is a search included, with a written opinion?
  4. How many classes does the price cover, and what does each added class cost?
  5. If there's an Office Action, what happens to the price?

Our answers are on the services page, and each one is in the engagement letter before you pay.

Where a lawyer's fee sits against the alternatives

You aren't required to hire anyone if you're based in the US. You can file on your own and pay only the USPTO fee. Online filing services charge their own service fee on top, and the USPTO points out that filing companies are not law firms.

The USPTO's own page puts both sides plainly: hiring an attorney raises your total cost because of the attorney's fees, and an attorney may also save you money. Which one describes you depends on the name, how crowded your field is, and what it would cost to start over with a new one. I compared the options in the article on LegalZoom for trademarks and in the article on why there's no single going rate.

If you'd like to see every package side by side, the details are on the services page, and the FAQs page answers most of what comes up before a first call.

Book a free 15-minute discovery call with the attorney (opens in a new tab)

(No legal advice is given on the discovery call. It's a chance to tell me what you're building and hear how the process works.)

Sources

This article is general information, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.

Start here