“How much does a bookkeeper cost?” is the first question most owners ask, and the answers they find are confident and useless. One widely read article, from a company that sells accounting software, gives a range of “$300 to $1,500 per month” and cites nothing for it.1 A range that wide tells you only that the answer depends on something. This article is about what it depends on.
Everything below is either a number you can open the source for, or arithmetic you can redo. Where there is no good data, it says so.
What the surveys can and cannot tell you
There is no current, representative survey of what independent bookkeepers charge in the United States. Here is what does exist.
- Intuit’s rate survey of accounting professionals, taken in late 2021, reported an average of $66 an hour for bookkeepers. It had almost 900 respondents, fewer than half of whom gave a rate, and it is now five years old.2
- A 2025 benchmark by Ignition, a billing software company, found that monthly bookkeeping “most commonly” ran $250 to $499 among 219 firms. Those firms were Ignition’s own customers, and that band was the answer of 29% of them, not a median.3
- The large professional surveys, from the CPA institute and the National Society of Accountants, do not publish bookkeeping fees in their public summaries.
The same Intuit survey holds one finding that has aged better than its dollar figures: monthly bookkeeping was billed by the hour by half of respondents and at a fixed fee by the other half, while catch-up and clean-up work was mostly billed by the hour.2 How a bookkeeper charges tells you as much as what they charge.
The ways bookkeeping is priced
By the hour. Simple to understand and easy to start. The risk sits with you: the bill moves with how long things take, and you find out afterward.
A fixed monthly fee. The bookkeeper estimates the work and quotes one figure. An accounting-profession journal describes the leading practices as charging “a fixed monthly fee based on the estimated hours their engagement will require, as well as its scope and complexity,” and notes that clients value the certainty.4 The risk moves to the bookkeeper, which is why a fixed fee always comes with a defined scope, and why work outside it is quoted separately.
Tiers. A fixed fee set by a formula: your monthly expenses, your transaction count, or the number of accounts. This is how the national services price, because it lets them quote without a conversation.
Catch-up and clean-up, priced apart. Bringing neglected books up to date is a project, not a subscription, and nearly everyone prices it separately. There is no standard method. Among the services below it is charged per month of backlog, per project, as a flat quote, and as a one-time fee.
What published prices show
Several national bookkeeping services publish their prices. They are not the same thing as a local bookkeeper, and the differences matter, but they are the one part of this market where the numbers are public.
| Service | Per month |
|---|---|
| Merritt Bookkeeping One flat price. No payroll or tax. Catch-up is $200 for each month behind. | $250 |
| QuickBooks Live After a one-time clean-up fee. Set by your monthly expenses and re-assessed every three months. Excludes invoicing, bill pay, payroll, 1099s, and tax. | from $300 |
| Bench $199 if revenue is $250,000 a year or less; $649 with tax filing. Earlier years are quoted separately. | $399 |
| Xendoo Set by monthly expenses and number of accounts; higher tiers are $695 and $995. Catch-up from $295 a month. | from $395 |
| Bookkeeper360 $599 for weekly service. Onboarding and prior-period work from $1,000; payroll from $200 a month. | from $399 |
| Bookkeeper.com Set by annual revenue and monthly transactions; higher tiers are $599 and $799. Software not included. | from $399 |
| inDinero Accrual-basis plan from $1,250. | from $750 |
Read the small print in that table rather than the right-hand column. Two patterns stand out.
The entry price is for a small, simple business. Every tiered service raises its price with expenses, transactions, or accounts, and Intuit re-assesses the tier each quarter. The figure in the advertisement is where the scale starts.
The entry price leaves things out. Intuit’s terms state that “cleanup is required prior to commencement of bookkeeping services and charged as a one-time fee” and that a “QuickBooks Online subscription [is] required.”5 Payroll, sales tax, invoicing, bill payment, 1099s, and tax returns are extras or absent on most of the list. None of that is hidden, and none of it is unreasonable. It means the comparison that matters is the cost of everything you need done, not the first number on the page.
What moves a quote
A bookkeeper pricing your work is estimating time. These are the things that determine it, and having the answers ready will get you a firmer quote from anyone.
| Question | Why it changes the price |
|---|---|
| How many bank, card, and loan accounts? | Each one is reconciled every month |
| Roughly how many transactions a month? | The largest single driver of time |
| How do customers pay you? | Card processors and marketplaces need their own reconciliation |
| Do you send invoices or pay bills on terms? | Receivables and payables add work, and may mean accrual-basis books |
| Do you have employees or regular contractors? | Payroll, and 1099s at year-end |
| Do you collect sales tax, and in how many states? | Each state is a separate return |
| Do you hold inventory? | Counting and costing it is a job of its own |
| When were the books last reconciled? | A backlog is priced separately from the monthly work |
| What reports do you need, and by when each month? | A lender’s deadline costs more than “when it’s ready” |
What doing it in-house costs
The alternative to hiring a service is hiring a person, or doing it yourself. For the first, there is good data.
The national median wage for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks was $24.36 an hour in May 2025, or $50,670 a year.6 Few small businesses need a full-time bookkeeper, so take a part-time one at ten hours a week.
| Wages 520 hours at the median $24.36 | 12,667 |
|---|---|
| Employer Social Security and Medicare 7.65% of wages | 969 |
| Federal unemployment tax 0.6% of the first $7,000 | 42 |
| Per year | 13,678 |
| Per month | 1,140 |
Not included: state unemployment tax, workers’ compensation, paid time off, software, training, and your time supervising.
For a full-time employee the gap between wages and cost is wider. The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures what employers actually pay, and in establishments with fewer than 50 workers, wages are 74.1% of the total and benefits the other 25.9%.7 On that ratio, a bookkeeper paid the median $50,670 costs about $68,400 a year.
The less visible cost of an employee is not in either figure. One person keeping the books has no one checking the work, and no one covering when they are ill or leave. That is a control question as much as a cost one, and it applies equally to an owner doing the books alone on a Sunday night.
Making two quotes comparable
The insurer behind the CPA profession’s liability program advises its firms to write engagement letters that are “detailed and specific about what you are going to do for the client and how often,” and to “identify how fees will be calculated and charged.”8 That is a fair standard to hold any bookkeeper’s quote to, licensed or not. Ask each one the same questions and write the answers side by side.
| Question | What a good answer includes |
|---|---|
| What exactly is done each month? | Named tasks: which accounts are reconciled, which reports are produced |
| By what date will last month be closed? | A specific day, not “monthly” |
| Who will do the work? | A person you can reach, and who covers for them |
| What is not included? | A plain list: payroll, sales tax returns, 1099s, tax returns, catch-up |
| How is past work priced? | A method and an estimate, before it starts |
| What makes the fee change? | The trigger and the new amount, in writing |
| Who owns the accounting file? | You do |
| How does either of us end it? | Notice period, and that you keep the books and all access |
Keep the keys
The last two rows of that table deserve their own section, because they are where owners get stuck years later.
The accounting subscription should be in the business’s name. In QuickBooks Online, “by default, the person who sets up the account is the primary admin,” and regaining that role from someone who has gone can require proof of ownership.9 There is no need to give it up in the first place: a bookkeeper is invited as an accountant user, and such users “don’t count toward your user limit.” Every paid plan allows at least two.9 You set it up, you hold the top login, and you invite the bookkeeper in.
Bank access should be the least that does the job. Business banking usually lets an owner grant others limited access; one large bank, for example, offers access per account at levels of “no access,” “view only,” and “transact.”10 Bookkeeping needs to see transactions and statements. It does not need to move money, and a bookkeeper who is not handling bill payment should not want that ability.
Software is usually your cost as well, whoever does the books. As a guide, QuickBooks Online’s regular list prices run from $38 to $340 a month depending on plan, and Xero’s US plans from $27 to $97.11 Ask whether a quote includes it.
What to take from all this
There is no going rate to look up, and anyone who gives you one number without asking about your business is guessing. What you can do is control the comparison: know your own workload, ask for the scope and the deadline in writing, add up everything you need rather than the headline figure, and keep ownership of the file and the bank access. A price is only meaningful next to what it buys.
If you would like a quote from us, having answers to the nine questions in the table above makes it quick.
Sources
- Intuit QuickBooks blog, How much does a bookkeeper cost? Cited as an example of an unsourced range.
- Intuit, The results of the new Intuit rate survey are in and Average rates by region, state, credential, and more. Survey fielded November 2021.
- Ignition, 2025 U.S. Accounting and Tax Pricing Benchmark, August 21, 2025. Online survey of 219 of the company’s US customers.
- Journal of Accountancy, Insights from top-performing client advisory services practices, April 1, 2022.
- Intuit, QuickBooks Live Expert Full-Service Bookkeeping its help article Learn about the Intuit Experts bookkeeping service, updated August 3, 2026, and the terms printed with its product updates, which is where the quoted wording appears. Other prices in the table: Merritt Bookkeeping; Bench; Xendoo; Bookkeeper360; Bookkeeper.com; inDinero. All as shown on October 11, 2026.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks. Last modified August 27, 2026. Payroll tax rates: Internal Revenue Service, Publication 15 (2026) and Topic no. 759.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026, Table 6 (private industry by establishment size). Released September 9, 2026.
- Sarah Beckett Ference, CNA, Tips for writing CAS engagement letters, Journal of Accountancy, April 1, 2026.
- Intuit, Change the primary admin role; Invite accountant users to your QuickBooks Online company; Learn about usage limits, updated August 5, 2026.
- Chase, Business banking account management, describing its Access and Security Manager. Given as one bank’s example.
- Intuit, QuickBooks Online pricing, and Xero, Pricing plans. Regular prices as shown October 11, 2026, before promotional discounts.