What a bookkeeper really costs
By Diane Jones, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor, 30+ years of bookkeepingUpdated August 2026
Owners ask me for a ballpark before anything else. It’s a fair question, and published bookkeeping prices are rare, so here’s what the market looks like before you talk to anyone, me included. These are the ranges I see quoted most in 2026. Big-city rates run higher, so treat them as a starting point.
The four ways bookkeepers charge
Nearly every bookkeeper prices one of four ways. Once you know which model you’re looking at, comparing quotes gets a lot easier.
| Model | Typical cost in 2026 | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Freelance bookkeeper, hourly | Roughly $30 to $60 per hour in most markets; specialists and big-city firms run higher | Fine for small, unpredictable work. The catch is that you can’t budget for it, and slower work costs you more |
| Monthly flat plan | $200 to $600 a month for most small businesses | The most common model. Same price every month, scoped to the volume and complexity of the file |
| Per-project cleanup | A few hundred dollars to several thousand, quoted per job | For fixing or rebuilding books. A fixed price after a file review protects you from open-ended hourly billing |
| In-house employee, salaried | $38,000 to $50,000 salary plus payroll taxes, benefits, software, and a desk | Makes sense at high volume. Most small businesses need five to ten hours a month, not forty a week |
Monthly plans: what $200 to $600 gets you
At the low end of that range, a solo operation or small business gets the essentials: transactions categorized, bank and credit card accounts reconciled, and monthly statements you can actually read. That’s a business with one or two accounts and modest transaction volume.
The middle of the range, $300 to $450, usually adds more accounts, higher volume, payroll runs recorded and reconciled, and things like class tracking by property or job. The top end, $500 to $600 and up, is for real complexity: multiple entities, trust accounts, job costing, heavy transaction counts. You’re paying for volume and for how much has to be reconciled. A good bookkeeper will tell you where you land before you commit.
I don’t publish tiers. I look at your file in a free review, then quote a flat monthly fee in writing based on your accounts, how many transactions run through an average month, your payroll, and how your industry needs the books structured. I ask for three to six months of recent bank and credit card statements first, because that is what shows me an average month. The inputs I use are on my pricing page. If what you want is an hour with someone who can read the reports with you, that’s a separate service. Financial business consulting is $85 an hour.
Cleanup projects
Cleanups get priced by three things: how many months need work, how many transactions an average month holds, and what condition the file is in. A few months of light tidying is a small project. A multi-year rebuild, several years of an active business put back together period by period until everything reconciles, is a different animal. Those big rebuilds happen to be my favorite kind of job. Almost nobody publishes cleanup prices, because the range is enormous and it depends on the file.
Whatever bookkeeper you talk to, insist on a fixed price in writing after they’ve actually looked at your file. Nobody can quote your file without opening it. And an hourly cleanup with no cap can run as long as it wants to. I do a free review first, then you get the price in writing before I touch anything. With me the payment schedule goes in the proposal, and on bigger cleanups I usually offer to split it into two payments.
Want a real number for your books?
The first call is free and takes about thirty minutes. Once I’ve looked at your file, you get a fixed price in writing, whether it’s a monthly plan or a cleanup. If your books don’t need me, I’ll tell you that too.
Set up my free callWhat moves the price
When two similar businesses get quoted very different numbers, one of these is usually why:
- Transaction volume. Two hundred transactions a month takes more hours than forty, every single month.
- Number of accounts. Each bank account, credit card, and loan is another reconciliation.
- Payroll complexity. Your payroll provider runs payroll, and every run still has to be recorded and reconciled in the books. Multi-state or contractor-heavy payroll takes more care.
- How far behind you are. Current books are maintenance. Eighteen months behind is a project, then maintenance.
- Industry complexity. Job costing for contractors, trust accounting for property managers, per-listing tracking for short-term rentals, fund tracking for nonprofits. That kind of setup takes longer to build and longer to keep up.
When cheap gets expensive
You’ll find national services advertising bookkeeping for around $150 a month, and offshore providers for less. The work is usually templated. Your transactions get pushed into generic categories by someone who’s never seen a business like yours, and questions get answered by whoever is on shift, through a ticket queue. Nobody catches the equipment loan booked as income, because catching that isn’t in the template.
Some businesses do fine with that, especially very simple ones. I meet the other ones, usually two years later, when the CPA sends the file back. Fixing templated books often costs more than the difference you saved.
The math against doing it yourself
Plenty of owners keep their own books, and some do it well. The arithmetic is still worth running. Say the books take you six hours a month, which is typical once you count categorizing, chasing receipts, and untangling the things that don’t match. If an hour of your working time is worth $75 in billable work, sales calls, or jobs finished, that’s $450 a month you’re spending to avoid a plan in the $200 to $300 range. Even at $50 an hour you’re about at break-even, and that’s before errors. Errors are where DIY books get expensive: missed deductions, misbooked loans, a CPA billing extra hours to reconstruct things in April. If you’re not sure you’re at that point yet, I wrote up the signs a business is ready for a bookkeeper separately.
Questions I hear a lot
Is a bookkeeper worth it for a small business?
What’s the cheapest way to get clean books?
Why do so many bookkeepers hide their pricing?
From a Google review
Accurate, detailed and personable; three of many qualities that Diane brings to the table every single day. There is no one I would trust more than Diane with my bookkeeping.
Diane is very competent and dependable. She has been working in the bookkeeping, finance, and records area for many years and does great work. Her services are recommended.
I’m a bookkeeper, not a tax preparer or attorney. For tax and legal questions, confirm the details with your CPA. I keep the books that make their job easier.
A Form 990 on extension is due November 16, 2026. Your CPA needs reconciled, fund-level books to finish it, and that’s the part I do.
Filed an extension for 2025? Those returns are due October 15, 2026. Your CPA needs a reconciled 2025 file before then, and the sooner I see it the more room we both have.
1099s for your subs and vendors are due February 1, 2027, and they’re built from a full year of entered payments. If 2026 is behind, the last weeks of the year are the time to catch it up.
1099s for your subs and vendors are due February 1, 2027, the same day your payroll provider sends W-2s. If the 2026 books aren’t entered yet, that’s the first thing I’d fix.
S corporation and partnership returns are due March 15, 2027. Your CPA needs a reconciled 2026 file to file on time.
Individual returns are due April 15, 2027. A reconciled 2026 file is what your CPA needs to file, or to file the extension with real numbers.