How Much Bookkeeping Services Cost in 2026: What the Providers Publish

What bookkeeping services cost, at the national online providers that publish a price, runs from $99 to $399 a month at the entry tier, read from each vendor’s own pricing page in September 2026. The spread is four to one and the plans at either end are not the same product: at $99 Pilot gives you cash-basis books kept by software with no bookkeeper assigned, while at $395 Xendoo gives you weekly bookkeeping by a dedicated team. Almost none of these plans includes a tax return, and assuming otherwise is an expensive mistake.

The short version: budget $250 to $400 a month for real bookkeeping by a human on a small set of books, add $1,000 to $2,450 a year for the tax filing unless you are on one of the two plans that bundles it, and price the clean-up separately, because it is quoted as a project and it is where a first-year engagement gets expensive.

What bookkeeping services cost at each national provider

Every price is the vendor’s own published list price as of September 2026. None of this is survey data, and no representative survey of outsourced bookkeeping prices exists. The nearest thing to one comes from the other side of the market: Ignition’s 2025 pricing benchmark, a survey of 219 of its own US accounting-firm customers fielded in July 2025, found 29% of those firms charging $250 to $499 a month for bookkeeping and accounting and 27.1% charging $500 to $749. That is not a representative sample and an accounting firm’s monthly fee is a different product from a national provider’s plan, but it puts the $99 to $399 entry prices below in context: only 4.3% of the firms surveyed charged under $250 a month.

One more Intuit price belongs beside that table without sitting in it. Expert Assisted is $59 a month, and it buys guidance from a QuickBooks-certified expert while you keep your own books. It is not bookkeeping done for you, and nobody is assigned to your file.

A pricing note to carry into any quote you compare: Pilot currently displays its Core prices with a 20 percent discount applied over a struck-through list price, so the lowest band shows at $240 against a list price of $299. Price the decision on the list figure and treat the discount as a promotion.

What pushes you up a tier

Four different variables move the price across these nine plans, and only one of them is the amount of bookkeeping work you actually generate.

• Monthly expenses. Pilot and Xendoo both band on total monthly spending, and QuickBooks Live re-evaluates your band quarterly against your average expenses in QuickBooks. A business with large, simple spending is penalized by this model: a month made up of rent, payroll and two supplier payments is very little bookkeeping and can still move you up a band.
• Revenue. Bench uses it once, as a qualifier rather than a band: Light is for businesses doing $250,000 a year or less, and above that the price is $399.
• Transaction count. 1-800Accountant describes its dedicated-bookkeeper service as starting at 75 monthly transactions. This is the variable that actually tracks the work.
• Accounting basis. Accrual is a gate, not a preference. Pilot Essentials is cash only and accrual requires Core. Xendoo Essential is cash, Growth is described as cash or modified accrual, and full accrual moves you to the unpriced Custom plan. If a lender or an investor expects accrual statements, say so before you compare prices, because it removes the cheapest tier from the list.

Pilot publishes the clearest band table of the group, which is a useful picture of how steeply the tiered model climbs. Prices are per month, billed annually, keyed to the top of each expense band:

Bookkeeper360 publishes no bands at all, only “starting at” floors, so its $399 is a beginning rather than a price.

Catch-up and clean-up, where it is published

The first invoice is rarely the monthly fee. If your books are behind, every provider treats the backlog as separate work, and only some publish a number.

• Merritt: $200 a month for months needing full entry, described as a 20 percent discount on its usual rate, and $100 a month for months needing minimal work, under roughly 20 transactions.
• Xendoo: catch-up bookkeeping from $295 a month.
• Bookkeeper360: onboarding and prior bookkeeping from $1,000 per project, covering chart of accounts work, QuickBooks or Xero setup, cleanup of uncategorized transactions, reconciliations and catch-up entries.
• Bench: free for the current year when you sign up for an annual plan. More than a year behind is a custom flat quote with no published price.
• QuickBooks Live: Intuit states that Full Service begins with a flat cleanup and setup fee for the first month of service, and never states the amount.
• Pilot and 1-800Accountant: both offer catch-up work; neither publishes a price.

Worked through, nine months behind at Merritt costs 9 × $200 = $1,800 before the $250 monthly service starts, so year one is $1,800 + $3,000 = $4,800. That is the arithmetic to run before you compare monthly headline rates, because it is the number that varies most between two businesses paying the same monthly fee.

Tax filing is the item that breaks the comparison

Only two of the plans above include a business tax return: 1-800Accountant’s Starter tier and Bench’s $649 Bookkeeping + Tax. Everywhere else the return is a separate annual purchase, and the published prices are substantial:

• Pilot: single-member LLC from $1,000 a year, partnerships and S corps from $2,000, C corps from $2,450, all of which must be bought alongside Pilot bookkeeping
• Xendoo: tax services from $1,245 a year, personal returns from $595
• Bookkeeper360: business tax from $1,000 a year, business and personal from $1,500
• Bench: full-service tax at $300 a month, or $2,880 a year, standalone
• Merritt: does not sell it, and says so plainly

Three worked totals for a full year, using published list prices:

A sole proprietor with modest spending. Pilot Essentials at $99 a month is $1,188 a year, plus the single-member LLC tax package from $1,000, giving $2,188 a year for cash-basis books kept without a bookkeeper. Merritt at $250 a month is $3,000 a year with no return at all, so this buyer has to add a preparer separately.

An S corp with $60,000 in monthly expenses that needs accrual. Pilot Core at the $60,000 band is $559 a month billed annually, or $6,708 a year, plus S corp tax from $2,000, giving $8,708 a year. Bench Bookkeeping + Tax covers books and the return at $649 a month, or $6,230 paid annually, with no published statement of whether the books are kept on an accrual basis.

A business that wants payroll from the same vendor. Bookkeeper360 Monthly from $399 plus payroll from $200 is $599 a month, or $7,188 a year, plus business tax from $1,000, giving $8,188 a year as a floor. Every figure in that sum is a “starting at” price.

Comparing a $250 monthly bookkeeping subscription against a local firm’s all-in annual fee compares two different things. Total the year, including the return, before you decide either is cheaper.

What a national service does not do that a local firm does

• It cannot issue reviewed or audited financial statements. Only a CPA in a licensed firm can, and that work is not on any of these price lists. If a lender, investor or franchisor asks for reviewed or audited statements, this whole category is the wrong shelf.
• It usually will not sign your return unless you buy its tax product. Pilot requires its tax packages to be bought alongside its bookkeeping; Merritt declines the work entirely and instead works directly with whatever accountant you already use.
• Sales tax, payroll and state-level obligations are add-ons or absent. Bookkeeper360 prices sales tax from $125 a month and payroll from $200 a month. Xendoo sells no payroll on its pricing page.
• A dedicated person is not guaranteed. Merritt has no dedicated bookkeeper by design, stating that everyone collaborates on all clients so you never lose your bookkeeper. Pilot Essentials and Intuit’s Expert Assisted also assign nobody. That is a real trade: a team model survives turnover better and knows your business less well.
• The “CFO” tier is not a CFO. The packaged advisory tiers sold alongside these plans start from $1,500 a month at Xendoo, $1,750 at Pilot and $2,000 at Bookkeeper360. They are packaged service levels, so compare what each includes against what the role involves. See fractional CFO for what that role actually covers.

If the right answer is a person rather than a subscription, how much a bookkeeper costs works through the employee, freelance and accounting firm routes and what each one is priced on. If the right answer is keeping your own books, our guide to accounting software covers what each system does and costs.

The Bench episode, and why you should hold your own ledger

Bench is on the price list above because it is selling today. It is also the clearest lesson in this market about what you are handing over.

Bench shut down abruptly on December 27, 2024, without meaningful notice to customers or staff. Three days later, on December 30, 2024, it was acquired by Employer.com, a San Francisco payroll and onboarding company. Customers were given a choice between consenting to have their data transferred to the new owner and opting out to download it themselves, with a stated access window of December 30, 2024 to March 7, 2025. In January 2025 Bench filed for bankruptcy in Canada; press reports at the time put the debts at over $65 million and the customer base at more than 12,000 small businesses.

Bench’s own account is the part most write-ups get wrong. Its about page states that Bench “is owned by Employer.com, which acquired Bench in December 2024 and operates it as a dedicated bookkeeping business staffed by Bench’s in-house team”, that it “paused operations in December 2024 and was acquired within days by Employer.com, resuming service in January 2025”, and that it is fully operational and onboarding new and returning customers. Any page telling you Bench no longer exists is out of date.

The lesson is not about Bench. It is that a provider holding your ledger inside its own system can take your books offline on a timetable you do not control. Bench’s customers found that out two days after Christmas, and getting their records back meant working through the new owner’s process on the new owner’s deadline. Three practical rules follow:

• Keep the books in an accounting system you own. Bench’s fractional bookkeeper product works inside your existing QuickBooks file at $55 an hour plus a one-time $1,200 onboarding fee, and Bookkeeper360 sets you up on your own Xero or QuickBooks Online. Pilot only lets you keep your existing QuickBooks account and history on its quote-only Custom plan.
• Download a full export quarterly, including the general ledger, trial balance and bank reconciliation reports, and store it somewhere the provider cannot reach.
• Ask what happens on exit, in writing, before you sign: who holds the file, what format the export comes in, and how long you keep access after you stop paying.

How to find the right one

Count your monthly bank and card transactions and your average monthly expenses before you ask anyone for a price, because those two numbers set the band at most of these vendors. Decide whether you need accrual, since it removes the cheapest tiers. Ask what the clean-up will cost as a separate figure, ask whether a named person is assigned, and total the year including the tax return rather than comparing monthly headlines. If you would rather work with a firm that knows your state and can also sign the return, our directory lists accounting and CPA firms by state and city, and you can check a CPA license through the state board of accountancy or at CPAverify.

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