Guides · the head question

How much does a bookkeeper cost? Depends which of three things you're buying.

Hourly time, an app subscription, or a fixed-fee reviewed service — three genuinely different products that all answer to "bookkeeper." Here's each model with real figures, what's included, and the cleanup math that makes cheap expensive.

Figures: our published pricing + provider figures verified mid-2026 ("confirm with provider"). Hourly framed qualitatively — rates vary too much to quote responsibly. What our ranges cover.

Real numbers, dated Three honest verdicts

Quick answer

It depends which of three products you're buying: hourly time (unbudgetable, varies with market and volume), an app subscription (lower hundreds monthly, though scope is limited), or a fixed-fee reviewed service from $550 a month at our published rates. The real trap is saving on the cheapest option and then paying $1,800–$6,000 for the cleanup it created.

A table of published bookkeeping prices by model: hourly bookkeeping varies too widely to quote; monthly subscription packages from online bookkeeping services run from around $200 a month to $700 and up, per NerdWallet; Pilot Essentials is listed at $99 a month; Bench's plans are $199, $399 or $649 a month; Intuit Expert Full Service starts at $300 a month plus a cleanup fee and the QuickBooks Online subscription; and Everholt & Co.'s fixed fee is $550–$1,800 a month. — Price the service and the chance of a later cleanup together: repairing a year of skipped work costs $1,800–$6,000 at our published rates.

What a bookkeeper costs by model: published monthly figures, checked September 2026
Model	Published price	Who keeps the books
Hourly bookkeeper	Varies too widely to quote; the total arrives when the clock stops	A person billing time
Monthly subscription packages, per NerdWallet	From around $200 a month to $700 and up	Automation first, with review behind it
Pilot Essentials	$99 a month	AI categorizes, reconciles and closes the month
Bench	$199, $399 or $649 a month	A dedicated bookkeeper on Bench's own software
Intuit Expert Full Service	From $300 a month, plus a cleanup fee and QuickBooks Online	A dedicated Intuit bookkeeper in your QuickBooks Online company
Everholt & Co., fixed fee	$550–$1,800 a month	Reconciled to source and reviewed before delivery, in your own file
Sources: NerdWallet, pilot.com, bench.co, Intuit. Checked: 2026-09-28 and 2026-09-29.

The three models

Same word, three different products.

1 · Hourly

A person billing time. Rates vary widely by market and skill level — too widely to quote responsibly, which is itself the point: your monthly cost depends on your volume and their speed, and you learn the total when the clock stops. Rational for tiny, steady books with a trusted person who genuinely reconciles to source. Structurally unbudgetable past that.

2 · App-based subscription

Automation first, pooled or AI review behind it, a genuinely lower entry price. Verified figures, checked September 2026: QuickBooks Live Full-Service from ~$300/mo plus a cleanup fee and the required QBO subscription (with published scope exclusions); app-based competitors increasingly split a cheap AI-only tier from a scope-priced human-reviewed tier — confirm current figures with each provider. Honest value for very simple books — read the scope before buying.

3 · Fixed-fee service

Every account reconciled to source and a monthly close to a fixed standard, at one written number scoped to your actual volume. Each month's close goes through the documented review before you see the reports. Our published range: from $550/mo, within $550–$1,800 — every number current on the pricing page. Monthly bookkeeping is its home page.

The cleanup mechanism, plainly: books nobody checks fail quietly — a wrong rule repeats, reconciliation drifts, and the books look fine until a CPA or lender needs them to be right. Skipped work doesn't disappear; it accrues, and unwinding it later costs more in corrective labor than keeping it current would have. Repairing a year of it costs $1,800–$6,000 at our published cleanup rates (the general guide · the QuickBooks-file version). Price the service and the probability of that repair — that's the real total cost of a bookkeeper. The deeper model comparison lives at reviewed bookkeeping against software-only.

Figure data as a table

The cheap-bookkeeping math, on illustrative numbers
Line	Amount	What it is
Saved	+$1,800	$150 a month for 12 months
The repair	−$3,900	One cleanup at the middle of the published range
Net result	−$2,100	Before a year of decisions made on wrong numbers

The math that makes cheap expensive, on illustrative numbers: $150/month saved for a year is $1,800 — a $3,900 mid-range cleanup at the end wipes it out, before counting the cost of a year of decisions made on numbers that were quietly wrong.

Illustrative example — not client data. Assumptions stated.

Assumptions: the cheaper option costs the same fixed amount less every month for twelve months, and its skipped reconciliation leaves that whole year needing a one-time cleanup at year end. The cleanup figure is a round number inside our published cleanup range ($1,800–$6,000), not a quote. CPA time, late fees and the cost of decisions made on wrong numbers are left out.

Want the fixed-fee number for your books, not a range? The free assessment scopes it from your actual volume — in writing.

Free books review

FAQ · Updated October 2026

The head query, answered from every angle.

How much does a bookkeeper cost?

It depends on which of the three models you're buying. Hourly bookkeepers bill by time — rates vary widely by market and skill level, and the monthly total depends entirely on your volume. App-based services publish flat subscriptions, typically in the lower hundreds per month (QuickBooks Live Full-Service from ~$300/mo plus fees and the required QBO subscription; startup-focused services like Pilot, which now publish an AI-only entry tier alongside a scope-based human-reviewed tier — confirm current figures with each provider). A fixed-fee service like ours runs from $550/month, inside a published $550–$1,800 range, scoped in writing to your actual volume and complexity. The models differ more in what's included than in sticker price.

What does a bookkeeper's fee actually include?

The question that sorts the market. At minimum it should include transaction categorization, reconciliation of every account to source, and a monthly close with statements. Things that vary: whether reconciliation actually happens (some cheap services categorize without reconciling), AP/AR support, payroll support, and whether anyone reviews the work before delivery. Two $550 quotes can be entirely different products — ask for the included list in writing.

Is an hourly bookkeeper cheaper than a fixed fee?

Sometimes, for genuinely tiny books — a couple of hours a month at a modest rate can beat any flat fee. The structural trouble with hourly is the unknown: your cost scales with your busy months, you can't budget it, and the incentive runs backward (slower work earns more). Fixed-fee flips all three: known number, scoped to facts, efficiency rewarded. That's why we work on fixed fees — and why we publish the ranges.

Why are app-based services cheaper?

Genuinely because automation does the first pass and pooled teams handle exceptions — that's a real cost structure, honestly cheaper, and for very simple books it can be a fair buy. What the price doesn't include is full operational scope (QuickBooks Live's published exclusions are extensive — no AP/AR, payroll, invoicing, or advisory) or judgment on the transactions automation gets confidently wrong. The model question has its own page.

What's the real cost of cheap bookkeeping?

The cleanup. Bookkeeping that miscategorizes quietly for a year produces books that must be repaired before a CPA can file from them — and a one-time cleanup runs $1,800–$6,000 at our published rates. The arithmetic is brutal: a year of modest monthly savings rarely covers even a mid-range cleanup, and that is before counting the year of decisions made on wrong numbers. Cheap bookkeeping that needs cleanup is the most expensive kind sold.

How much does our monthly bookkeeping cost?

From $550/month, inside our published $550–$1,800 range, depending on transaction volume, account count, and which services you need — one fixed fee, agreed in writing once the free books review is done, no hourly billing ever. If the books need repair before monthly work starts, a cleanup or catch-up comes first, as one fixed fee within $1,800–$6,000. Every number is on our pricing page — published, current, and the same ones we quote from.

Is it cheaper to hire an in-house bookkeeper?

Rarely, for a small business — and it's worth saying plainly because it's the fourth option people quietly price. A full-time bookkeeper is a salary in the mid five figures before payroll taxes, benefits, software, and the management of that person, and it only pays off when your books actually generate 40 hours a week of work. In-house starts making sense when daily invoicing, AP/AR, and payroll volume genuinely fill a role; below that threshold you're paying full-time money for part-time work. Every outsourced model on this page exists because of that math.

How do you choose between the three models?

By complexity and consequence, honestly: very simple books plus a tight budget plus willingness to review monthly yourself → an app-based service is a rational buy. Tiny books with a trusted hourly bookkeeper who reconciles to source → also rational. Real volume, payroll or inventory, a CPA or lender relying on the numbers, or just the desire for a review before anything is delivered → a fixed-fee, reviewed service is what that profile needs. We'd rather tell you which you are on a free call than sell past it.

Provider figures are published terms as of mid-2026 — confirm current rates with each provider. QuickBooks Live and Pilot are trademarks of their owners; no affiliation. Our own numbers: pricing · all guides.