What Does Outsourced Bookkeeping Actually Cost?

The Short Answer

For a US small business with clean transaction volume, outsourced bookkeeping typically runs $400 to $1,000 per month for ongoing monthly close work. Controller-level oversight and fractional CFO support layer on top of that. If you're paying far less, someone is skipping steps. If you're paying far more, you should know exactly what the premium buys.

The honest answer is "it depends," but it depends on a short, knowable list of things. Here's what actually moves the number.

The Five Things That Set Your Price

1. Transaction volume

This is the biggest driver. A consulting firm with 150 transactions a month is a different job than an e-commerce brand with 4,000. Most providers (including us) price in volume bands. Count your monthly transactions across all bank accounts, credit cards, and payment processors. That's the number to quote from.

2. Number of accounts and entities

Each bank account, credit card, loan, and payment processor (Stripe, Shopify, PayPal) adds reconciliation work. Multiple legal entities multiply it. Each one needs its own books, plus intercompany entries.

3. Catch-up state

If your books are current, you pay the ongoing rate. If they're three months behind, or three years behind, there's a one-time catch-up project first. Any quote that ignores a backlog is either naive or planning to bill it later.

4. Complexity of your revenue

Simple invoicing is cheap to book. Usage-based SaaS billing, marketplace payouts with fees netted out, inventory COGS, or multi-currency sales each add a layer. Complexity, not headcount, is what makes books expensive.

5. What "done" means to you

There's a difference between "transactions categorized" and "books closed, reconciled, and reported by the 10th with a variance note." The second is a monthly close process with review. Make sure your quote specifies which one you're buying.

What a Good Monthly Package Includes

At minimum, a legitimate monthly bookkeeping engagement should include:

• Full transaction categorization across all accounts
• Bank and credit card reconciliations: every account, every month, to the statement
• Accounts receivable and payable tracking (or clean handoff to your invoicing tool)
• Monthly financial statements: P&L and balance sheet, delivered on a fixed schedule
• A named reviewer: a second set of eyes before reports go out
• A fixed monthly price with the volume band stated in writing

Red Flags in a Cheap Quote

No reconciliation mentioned. Categorization without reconciliation means nobody is checking the books against reality. This is the most commonly skipped step at the low end.

Hourly pricing with no cap. Hourly billing punishes you for the provider's inefficiency and makes your cost unpredictable. Fixed monthly pricing is the norm for good reason.

"Reports on request." Close should happen on a calendar, not when you ask. If there's no stated delivery date, there is no close process.

No mention of who's reviewing. One person doing data entry with no review layer is how errors compound for a year before anyone notices.

How to Compare Quotes

Ask every provider the same five questions:

1. What exactly is included each month, in writing?
2. Which volume band am I in, and what happens when I outgrow it?
3. What's the delivery date for monthly reports?
4. Who reviews the work before I see it?
5. What does catch-up cost if my books are behind?

The cheapest quote is rarely the cheapest outcome. Books that have to be redone cost double: once for the cheap provider, once for the cleanup.

Our Approach

We publish our pricing: three tiers with the volume bands and scope stated up front, and a fixed catch-up rate if you're behind. Book a call and we'll tell you which tier fits in about fifteen minutes, based on your actual transaction count.