Bookkeeping Rate Calculator

Bookkeeping is usually sold as a monthly retainer, but the retainer should still be built from a real hourly rate and a realistic estimate of monthly hours per client.

Recommended monthly retainer

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Recommended hourly rate

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Billable hours/year

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Max clients at this scope

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Bookkeeping-specific cost considerations

Hours per client scale with transaction volume, not just client count — a high-volume ecommerce client can take far more monthly hours than a simple service business.
Deadline-driven, compliance-linked work (tax filing season, month-end close) concentrates workload unevenly across the year — 70% average utilization can still mean much higher peak-season hours.
Software subscription costs (QuickBooks Online, Xero, receipt-scanning tools) scale with client count and should be reflected in overhead.

"Max clients at this scope" is a capacity ceiling based on average hours per client — actual capacity will vary with each client's real complexity.

Worked example

$65,000 income, $6,000 overhead, 48 weeks, 35 hrs/week, 70% utilization, 10% reserve, 12% margin, 8 hrs/month/client:

Billable hours: 48 × 35 × 0.70 = 1,176 hours/year (98/month)
Recommended rate: $71,000 ÷ (1 − 0.22) ÷ 1,176 ≈ $77.42/hour
Monthly retainer: 8 × $77.42 ≈ $619
Max clients: 98 ÷ 8 ≈ 12.3 clients at this scope

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Frequently asked questions

Should tax season work be priced separately from monthly bookkeeping?

Many bookkeepers price ongoing monthly bookkeeping and annual tax-prep coordination as separate line items, since the workload and skill set differ.

How do I price a client whose volume grows over time?

Revisit hours-per-client periodically and adjust the retainer — bookkeeping retainers are not "set and forget" once a client's transaction volume changes materially.

Price bookkeeping by complexity, not transaction count alone

Volume is visible, but cleanup quality, integrations, payroll, inventory and reporting expectations determine the real workload. Use the calculated rate to build packages only after the client records have been assessed.

Scope the monthly service

Confirm accounts, entities, monthly transactions, payroll and sales-tax responsibilities.
Charge onboarding or historical cleanup separately from recurring work.
Define the close date, client document deadline and reporting package.

Complexity signals

Commingled funds and unreconciled balances can make the first months much heavier.
App integrations reduce entry only when feeds and mappings are maintained correctly.
Advisory, tax filing and controller work should not disappear inside a basic bookkeeping fee.