What to charge for accounting and bookkeeping services: US rates and how to set your fees
How to price your accounting or bookkeeping practice: real US fee benchmarks, the pricing models that beat hourly billing, a worked example, and how to win the fee you quote.
Most US bookkeepers charge around 30 to 60 dollars an hour, or a flat monthly fee of roughly 200 to 700 dollars depending on transaction volume and complexity. Tax and accounting work runs higher. Set your fee from the value and the time a client actually takes, not the going rate, and price the job rather than the hour wherever you can.
This guide is written for the person running the practice, not the business owner trying to figure out what an accountant will cost them. It gives you the US benchmark rates, then the part most pricing articles skip: how to choose a pricing model, how to price a real client end to end, and why a confident fee is worthless if the new-client call rings out to voicemail.
What actually drives an accounting fee
The going rate tells you almost nothing on its own, because two clients who look identical on paper can take wildly different amounts of work. Before you quote anything, the fee should flex with a handful of real drivers:
- Volume. Transactions per month, bank lines, sales invoices, expenses. A sole proprietor with thirty transactions is a different job from a shop with three thousand.
- Complexity. Sales tax across multiple states, payroll, several income streams, foreign currency, inventory, a messy ledger that needs cleaning up first.
- Frequency. Monthly financials cost more than an annual catch-up, but they also make you stickier and smooth out your cash flow.
- Scope. Bookkeeping only, or bookkeeping plus year-end financials, plus the tax return, plus payroll, plus advice when they call with a question.
- Region and client size. Coastal metros carry a clear premium, and a growing S-corp will pay more than a side-hustle sole proprietor for the same line of work.
Get those drivers straight in your head and the benchmark numbers below become a starting frame, not a price list.
US rate benchmarks: what to charge clients
Here are the going rates across US practices, as benchmarks to price against rather than fixed figures. Treat them as the going rate, not your rate: they tell you whether you are roughly in the right area, not whether the number covers your costs and pays you a wage.
| Service | Typical US fee | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bookkeeping, hourly | Around 30 to 60 dollars an hour | Higher for certified, sales-tax or metro work |
| Bookkeeping, monthly package | Around 200 to 700 dollars a month | Scales with transactions, sales tax and payroll |
| Sole proprietor return (1040 Schedule C) | Around 300 to 700 dollars | Personal return with business schedule |
| Small S-corp or LLC return and financials | Around 1,000 to 2,500 dollars a year | Year-end financials plus the business return |
| Payroll | Around 5 to 15 dollars per check | Plus a small monthly or setup fee |
| Sales tax filings | Around 50 to 150 dollars per filing | Often folded into a monthly package |
| CPA advisory, hourly | Around 150 to 400 dollars an hour | Financials, planning, ad hoc advice |
High-cost metros and specialist work sit at the top of each range; routine sole-proprietor work sits at the bottom. The numbers move every year, so use them to gut-check a quote rather than to copy. The real skill is choosing the right model to deliver the fee in, which is the next section.
Pricing models: hourly vs flat vs value vs tiered
How you package the fee matters as much as the number. Most practices grow out of hourly billing the moment they get any good at the work, and for one simple reason: hourly pricing punishes you for being efficient.
| Model | Best for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly | Costing a job internally; one-off cleanup work | Penalizes efficiency; clients query every minute |
| Flat per job | Defined deliverables like a tax return or year-end | You wear the cost if scope creeps |
| Flat monthly | Ongoing bookkeeping and compliance retainers | Needs a clear scope and an annual review |
| Value pricing | Advisory and outcomes a client clearly values | Harder to anchor; needs trust and a track record |
| Tiered packages | Productizing your offer across client sizes | Tiers must map to real differences in work |
For most practices the sweet spot is a flat monthly fee for a clearly defined scope, reviewed once a year. It gives the client a predictable number, it stops you billing your own speed away, and it turns the sales conversation from "what is your hourly rate" into "what do I get for that". Hold the hourly figure back as an internal costing tool, not your headline price.
Value pricing, where you charge for the outcome rather than the inputs, earns the most per hour once you have the reputation to support it. Tiered packages, say a Starter, Growth and Complete tier, let you productize that so a prospect can place themselves and you quote in minutes rather than days.
A worked example: pricing a small S-corp
Benchmarks are abstract, so price a real one. Take a small S-corp: sales-tax registered, around 150 transactions a month, two people on payroll, reasonably tidy records. They want bookkeeping, sales tax, payroll, year-end financials and the business return, all in.
Cost it internally first, on time:
- Monthly bookkeeping and reconciliation: say four hours a month at an internal rate of 50 dollars, so about 200 dollars.
- Sales tax: roughly one hour a quarter, around 20 dollars a month spread.
- Payroll for two: a small fixed cost, say 40 dollars a month.
- Year-end financials and the business return: budget around 1,500 dollars a year, which is about 125 dollars a month spread.
That stacks to roughly 385 dollars a month on time alone. Now package it: quote a clean flat fee of 450 dollars a month, which covers the work, builds in a margin for the questions they will call with, and reads as a single confident number rather than a list of line items. If their records were a mess, or volume doubled, you would scope a higher tier, not quietly absorb the extra. That is the whole game: cost on time, quote on value, review every year.
Quote fast, and answer the call that asks for the quote
Here is the part no pricing guide tells you, and it is the one that decides whether your fees ever turn into income: a perfect fee is worthless if you are not there to quote it.
Most accounting and bookkeeping inquiries still start with a phone call, often from a business owner who has just fired their last accountant or panicked about a filing deadline. They are calling two or three practices, not one. Whoever picks up, sounds calm, and gets back with a clear number first tends to win, almost regardless of price. The practice that lets the call go to voicemail at 4pm on a Friday has lost the client before fees ever came up.
So speed-to-lead beats being the cheapest. The inquiry your website and referrals worked to generate is a retainer the marketing already paid for, and it walks straight to a competitor the moment the phone rings out. If you want more of those inquiries in the first place, our guide on how to get more accounting clients covers the channels that fill the pipeline and the lead-capture step most firms skip.
Common fee-setting mistakes
The numbers above will keep you in the right ballpark. These are the habits that quietly erode the year even when your rates look fine:
- Defaulting to hourly. It caps your earnings at the moment you get good and invites clients to audit your time. Cost on time, quote a flat fee.
- Never reviewing fees. Inflation, scope creep and a client who has grown all eat your margin. Put a fixed annual review date on every engagement.
- Absorbing scope creep. "Can you just also run the payroll" is a new line of work, not a favor. Re-scope and re-quote rather than swallowing it.
- Pricing against the firm down the street. You do not know their costs, their efficiency or their take-home. Build your fee from your own numbers, then check it against the benchmark, never the other way round.
The point is not the exact number
Your fees will differ from the worked example, and they should. A coastal metro, a specialism, a leaner software stack or a niche of higher-value clients all move the figure. What does not change is the method: understand the drivers, price the job not the hour, package it as a confident flat fee, and review it every year.
Run your own version this week on your three most awkward clients and you will almost certainly find one you are carrying at a loss. Then make sure the next inquiry actually reaches you: see how call answering for accountants fits the picture, and our roundup of the best accounting practice management software for the tools that keep your scoping, billing and reviews tight.
Frequently asked questions
- How much should a self-employed bookkeeper charge?
- A self-employed bookkeeper in the US should charge around 30 to 60 dollars an hour, or a flat monthly fee from roughly 200 dollars for a simple sole proprietor up to 700 dollars or more for a busy LLC or S-corp. The hourly figure is only a sanity check. Wherever you can, price the job from the value and the real time it takes, not the clock, because clients who clean up their records should not pay you less for getting faster at the work.
- How much should you pay someone to do your bookkeeping?
- Clients typically pay between 200 and 700 dollars a month for outsourced bookkeeping, scaling with transaction volume, sales tax, payroll and how clean their records are. As the practice setting that fee, your job is to anchor the price to the scope and the outcome, not the hours. Quote a clear monthly figure for a defined scope and the conversation moves from "what is your hourly rate" to "what do I get for that", which is the conversation you want.
- How much should a bookkeeper charge per hour?
- A US bookkeeper should charge roughly 30 to 60 dollars an hour, rising to 75 dollars or more for certified, sales-tax or controller-level work in higher-cost metros. But the hourly rate is a trap if it becomes your headline price: it punishes you for getting efficient and invites clients to question every minute. Use it to cost a job internally, then quote a flat fee for the scope.
- How much does a bookkeeper get paid in the US?
- An employed bookkeeper in the US earns roughly 40,000 to 55,000 dollars a year, but that salary number is not the same as what your practice should charge. As a self-employed bookkeeper your fee income has to cover your own software, liability insurance, self-employment tax, time off, retirement and unbilled admin before any of it becomes take-home pay. Price from your costs and target income, not from an employee salary.
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