How much does bookkeeping cost for a small business?

Most small businesses pay somewhere between $300 and $800 a month for outsourced bookkeeping. Very simple books can come in under that. High transaction volume, multiple accounts, payroll, and messy history push it higher. Cleanup and catch-up work is usually priced as a separate project.

I don’t post my own pricing, and I’ll explain why in a minute. But I’d rather you walk into any bookkeeping conversation, with me or anyone else, knowing the honest shape of the market. Owners consistently overestimate this cost, and that overestimate keeps them stuck doing midnight bookkeeping for years.

The market, roughly

Ranges you’ll commonly see quoted in the US:

Option	Typical cost	What you get
DIY with software	$0-70/month + your hours	Software, and everything depends on you
Freelance/hourly help	$25-60/hour	Task help; quality varies widely
Monthly bookkeeping service	$300-800/month	Categorizing, reconciliation, monthly reports
High-volume/complex books	$800-2,500/month	Multiple accounts, payroll, AP/AR, heavy volume
In-house part-time bookkeeper	$25-35/hour + overhead	On-site help, if you have the workload

Treat these as orientation, not quotes. Every practice prices its own way, and your books are the variable that matters.

What actually moves the price

When I review a prospective client’s books before quoting, here’s what I’m weighing:

1. Transaction volume. 50 transactions a month and 900 are different amounts of work. This is the biggest single factor.
2. Number of accounts. Each bank account, credit card, loan, and payment platform (Stripe, Square, Shopify) needs its own reconciliation.
3. The state of your books today. Current and accurate means we start clean. Months of backlog or years of miscategorization means a catch-up or cleanup project first.
4. Payroll. Employees add recording work and precision requirements.
5. AP/AR needs. Bill tracking and invoice follow-up are add-on workloads.
6. Reporting depth. Standard monthly statements versus product-line breakdowns, location tracking, or lender-ready packages.

Why quotes beat posted prices

A posted price is a package, and packages fit nobody. Price too high and simple businesses overpay. Price too low and the bookkeeper cuts corners to make the math work, which shows up later as your problem.

My process instead: a free consultation, then a review of your current books, then a quote in plain language with clear expectations and timelines. There is a minimum monthly engagement, and cleanup projects come paired with ongoing service, because books that get fixed and then abandoned drift right back to broken.

The cost of not hiring anyone

The comparison owners skip is what the current setup costs:

• Your hours. However many evenings a month you spend on the books, multiplied by what your time earns when it’s pointed at your business.
• Errors. Overstated income, missed deductions, and unreconciled drift have real dollar costs at tax time.
• Decisions made blind. Hiring, pricing, and spending choices made without trustworthy numbers. This one doesn’t show up on any invoice, and it’s the most expensive item on the list.
• The CPA premium. Handing messy records to a tax preparer means paying their rates to sort it out, in their busiest season.

When owners finally make the call, the most common reaction isn’t sticker shock. It’s some version of “that’s it?” followed by “I should have done this 2 years ago.”

The bottom line

Bookkeeping for a typical small business costs a few hundred dollars a month, scales with complexity, and usually replaces a larger invisible cost you’re already paying in hours and errors. Whoever you talk to, make sure they review your books before they price, and be suspicious of any number produced without looking.