How much does a bookkeeper cost for a small business, and how is bookkeeping priced — hourly, a monthly fixed fee, by transaction volume, or as a catch-up project?

What does each pricing structure actually buy?

Each basis buys something different and leaves an underestimate with a different party:

The hourly and fixed-fee rows borrow the logic that the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), the rules federal agencies use when they buy, applies to time-and-materials and firm-fixed-price contracts. The volume-band and catch-up rows extend that logic and do not come from the FAR. FAR 16.202-1 says a firm-fixed-price contract places on the contractor maximum risk and full responsibility for all costs and resulting profit or loss. FAR 16.601 says a time-and-materials contract gives the contractor no positive profit incentive for cost control or labor efficiency, and such a contract includes a ceiling price that the contractor exceeds at its own risk. Ask for the same protection on hourly bookkeeping: an estimate of hours and a cap that is not exceeded without your written approval.

A fixed-fee provider protects itself through scope instead: the 2024 CAS benchmark survey report from CPA.com and the AICPA's Private Companies Practice Section says practices on fixed fees need to regularly reassess fees and monitor out-of-scope work. Volume pricing writes its bands down. Pilot's pricing page (undated), for example, defines one bookkeeping plan by a ceiling on the client's monthly expenses, and a higher plan includes bill management only up to a stated number of vendor bills a month.

What does published pricing show, and where is there none?

The CAS benchmark survey states its method: it opened on May 1 and ran for 13 weeks, 206 respondents self-selected to take part, and the report gives medians. The respondents are accounting firms' client advisory services (CAS) practices, and more than 65% of the revenue they reported came from transactional accounting and controllership.

Its typical-fee finding is a median "typical monthly fee" of $3,000 across all respondents, and $4,000 among firms whose CAS leadership had a formal written business plan. The same passage gives a second measure: median average annual client revenue of $27,761 for firms with a written CAS business plan, which the report says is nearly $10,000 above all respondents. That puts all respondents at roughly $18,000 a year, about $1,500 a month. Treat $3,000 as the fee these practices call typical, not as what their average client pays. Read it as exactly that statistic: the middle of what these practices reported in 2024, for work that often goes beyond bookkeeping. The report does not split it by client size or transaction volume. On structure, the same report says value billing is still rare but 84% of all respondents are shifting to fixed-fee billing.

No survey found publishes hourly bookkeeping rates, per-transaction prices, catch-up project fees or a bookkeeping-only monthly fee with its measure, date, population and method. One provider's advertised price is its own offer, not a market figure. Judge those quotes by the effort drivers below.

What moves your own price up or down?

Within any structure, price follows the work, and five drivers set most of the work:

• Transaction volume. Count the lines on your bank and card statements for a routine month and for your busiest month.
• Accounts and feeds. Each bank account, card, loan, payment processor and payroll account is another source to bring in and reconcile.
• Entities and complexity. A second entity, inventory, or invoices and bills to manage all add work.
• Condition of the records. Months never entered or reconciled are a separate project, covered below.
• How ready the paperwork arrives. Statements, receipts and bills that arrive complete each month take less time than ones the bookkeeper has to chase.

Place yourself before asking for quotes. One entity with few accounts, steady volume, current books and complete paperwork is the least work any structure can price, and each added driver raises the work and the price. The CAS median is not a target for a bookkeeping-only quote.

What is inside a quoted fee, and what is billed on top?

Two quotes with the same headline can cover very different work, so compare scopes line by line before prices. Intuit's Full Service Bookkeeping page (undated) shows how much a monthly fee can leave out: that service does not include sending invoices, paying bills, or managing inventory, accounts receivable or accounts payable, nor financial advisory services, tax advice, facilitating the filing of income or sales tax returns, creating or sending 1099s, or managing payroll, which the same page sells for an additional cost. The CAS survey report, by contrast, counts accounts receivable, accounts payable and payroll inside "transactional accounting and bookkeeping".

One-time items are often billed on top. In the 2024 CAS survey, 79% of all respondents charged a separate fee for new-client onboarding, 55% for technology setup and application connectivity, and 32% for an initial client assessment, and 66% passed the license fees for software they supply through as a separate charge. Ask each provider to name every one-time charge, such as onboarding, setup, catch-up and software billed to you.

If you also want payroll, sales-tax filings or tax return preparation, separate them before comparing anything: have each provider price them as their own lines, compare those lines with each other, and treat a bundle that will not be split as not yet comparable. That work still has to be done by someone; separating it only keeps the bookkeeping comparison like for like.

How do you put quotes on different bases onto one annual figure?

Work through these steps in order:

1. Take payroll, sales-tax filing and tax preparation out of every quote at each provider's own price for them.
2. Set any catch-up price aside to compare on its own.
3. Write one volume profile, month by month, in every measure the quotes price on — transactions, monthly expenses, vendor bills — and price every quote against it for 12 months.
4. Add every one-time or separately billed item, such as onboarding, setup and software billed to you.
5. Add an allowance for variability that fits the basis (extra hours for hourly work, overage for a capped fixed fee, a band change for volume pricing), and size every allowance on the same change in volume, such as a fifth more in every month.

Here is the calculation with invented figures, for a business with about 250 transactions and $40,000 of expenses in a routine month, 400 transactions and $70,000 of expenses in each of three peak months, and payroll for four employees:

• Quote A, hourly. It charges $55 an hour and estimates 10 hours in a routine month, 15 in a peak month and 6 hours of setup, with no payroll.
• Quote B, fixed monthly. It charges $600 a month for up to 300 transactions, $75 for each further 100 or part of 100, a $450 onboarding fee, and payroll as an add-on.
• Quote C, volume band. It charges $700 a month for monthly expenses up to $50,000 and $850 above that, including payroll at a stated $100 a month, with no setup fee.

Each allowance assumes a fifth more volume in every month. A's lines are hours at $55, and its allowance is 20% more hours on the monthly work (0.20 × 7,425), which matches a fifth more volume if hours rise with volume; an hourly overrun falls on you. B's peak months each carry one overage block, and a fifth more adds a second in each (3 × 75), while routine months reach exactly 300. C's lines leave out payroll's $100 (9 × 600 and 3 × 750); a fifth more takes routine months to $48,000, still under the band edge, and peak months already pay the top band, so its allowance is 0.00. Had routine months crossed $50,000, C's allowance would be 1,350.00 (9 × 150) and its total 9,000.00, above B's. Payroll is then compared on its own lines.

C had the highest headline monthly figure and the lowest comparable total. A had the lowest-looking number, the highest total and the only overrun set by the provider's own hours rather than by a volume you can count, which is why a lower hourly rate means nothing without an estimate of hours.

Which structure suits your situation, and who carries an overrun?

How predictable your volume is decides which structure protects you:

Each basis calls for its own questions before you accept:

Why is a backlog priced as its own project first?

If your books are behind, incomplete or were never properly kept, have the catch-up scoped and priced as its own engagement before you treat any monthly figure as the price. The backlog decides what the catch-up costs and what the monthly work really involves; until someone has examined the records, any figure for either is an estimate, not a price.

Providers package cleanup differently. Intuit's Full Service Bookkeeping page (undated) sells a one-time cleanup as its own service, and quotes its monthly service "after initial cleanup fee", with cleanup as the service's first phase, in its first month. Ask whether cleanup is a separate price, part of the first month or excluded, and how far back it reaches.

A catch-up can be priced per month of backlog, as a fixed price after an assessment, or hourly under a cap. Whatever the basis, confirm the monthly fee again once the catch-up has shown your real volume.

When should the fee be repriced?

A fixed fee agreed against one volume stops fitting as the business changes, so agree the mechanism at the start, not once the provider is already losing money on the work. The CAS survey report tells practices to build a pricing re-evaluation cycle so that growing clients' volumes of transactions or additional services are not given away, and a change-order process so that out-of-scope work is priced. In the 2024 CAS survey, 71% of all respondents re-evaluated pricing annually, 12% quarterly and 8% on a volume trigger or change of service request. Write your triggers down, running in both directions:

• Volume crosses a stated band for a stated number of consecutive months.
• A bank account, card, entity, location or payment platform is added or closed.
• Payroll, inventory, invoicing or bill work joins or leaves the scope.
• The scheduled annual review date arrives.

Measure volume triggers from records you can check yourself, such as your own bank and card statements, not only from the provider's count.

What must the fee terms say in writing?

For a price that is comparable now and enforceable later, the written terms should cover these points:

• Basis and rate. The fee is stated as hourly, fixed or banded, with its rate, increment or band table.
• Scope. Each included task is listed, including cash or accrual basis and the business day after month-end by which reports arrive, and exclusions such as payroll, sales-tax filings, tax returns, invoicing, bill payment and inventory are named.
• Volume assumption. The transactions, accounts and entities the fee assumes are stated, with how they are counted.
• Extra charges. Overage and out-of-scope rates are set, and out-of-scope work starts only with your written approval.
• One-time fees. Onboarding, setup, software and catch-up each carry a price, and the catch-up has its own written scope.
• Hourly cap. Hourly work has an estimate and a ceiling that needs your approval to exceed.
• Repricing. The triggers, the notice period and the two-way adjustment are written down.

The rest of the engagement letter, including who answers for the accuracy of the books, is a separate question.

What does a quote far outside the norm signal?

A quote far above or below the others, or far from what your drivers predict, usually signals a different scope, not a different value. A much lower quote may exclude work the others include, set a low volume cap with overage, rest on optimistic hours, leave out the backlog, or come from someone who has not seen your records. A much higher one may include controllership or advisory work, fold in catch-up, payroll or tax work, or price in uncertainty about unexamined records. Set a quote against the CAS figures — both of them — only if it covers similar bundled work.

To find out which, ask the outlier to itemize its scope, state the volume it assumed and what happens above it, say whether it examined your records, and price any catch-up separately. The cheapest scope can cost the most if its errors later need a catch-up project to unwind.