How Much Does Outsourced Accounting and Bookkeeping Cost?
There is no single sticker price for outsourced accounting. Most providers charge a fixed monthly fee scoped to your business, set by your revenue, headcount, and the work you hand off. This guide covers what moves the number and the ranges to expect.
What Sets the Price
Is Outsourcing Cheaper Than Hiring?
Compared to hiring in-house, outsourcing usually costs 40% to 60% less once you count the fully loaded cost of an employee, wages plus benefits, payroll taxes, and overhead.
Monthly pricing can sound steep at first. In the US we think in salaries, so reframe it. A $5,000 monthly fee works out to $60,000 a year, and a single in-house controller often costs $100,000 or more before benefits.
Run your own number with our cost-of-hiring breakdown and calculator template.
What Shapes the Monthly Fee
No two engagements are the same. A handful of factors decide where the monthly fee lands.
Volume
The more activity flowing through the books, the more there is to record and reconcile each month. Revenue is the usual proxy.
Complexity
Complexity is more than headcount. The nature of the workflows, accruals, and systems drives how much work the books take.
Service Scope
Coding bank activity through the monthly close and financials is the base. Add-ons like invoicing, payables, payroll, budgeting, and reporting build from there.
Industry
Job costing for professional services and inventory for ecommerce each carry their own accounting requirements.
Staffing Model
Where the team sits, onshore, offshore, or blended, and whether you get one or two people or a fuller team across the common roles, both move the price.
Systems
The more automated the accounting stack, the less manual time the books take each month.
The Right Mix of Roles, Not Just One
Accounting is not one job. It runs from day-to-day data entry up to controller-level oversight. Hire a single controller and you overpay to have them code transactions. Hire a single bookkeeper and you lack the higher-level skills. As a business grows, the work shifts across several roles, and an outsourced team can cover each one fractionally, so you pay for the right amount of each skill level.
$1M Revenue or Team of 5
$5M Revenue or Team of 25
$10M Revenue or Team of 50
Approximate role mix by business size. Bookkeeping-heavy early, with senior roles filling in as you grow.
Hourly vs Fixed Monthly
There are two ways an accounting partner can price the work. The model changes how the relationship runs, and it is why fixed monthly pricing has to be scoped rather than published as a flat rate.
Hourly Rate
- The way it has always been done.
- Can reward a provider for being slow, since more hours means more revenue.
- Bills ramp up fast and arrive unpredictably.
Fixed Monthly Price
- How modern accounting teams work.
- Rewards the provider for being efficient.
- You know the number up front and can plan around it.
What Outsourced Accounting Costs Per Month
Two quick ways to ballpark a monthly fee. Start with a percent of revenue, then check it against estimated ranges by size.
Method 1 · Percent of Revenue
Budget roughly 1% to 3% of revenue. Lighter, bookkeeping-heavy needs sit near 1%, and controller-level work or scope like sales invoicing moves toward 3%. The percentage runs a little higher for the smallest businesses and drifts below 1% as revenue grows past $10M.
Method 2 · Estimated Ranges
| Business Size | Estimated Monthly Range |
|---|---|
| Up to $1M revenue1 to 10 employees | $500 to $1,500 |
| $1M to $3M revenue10 to 30 employees | $1,000 to $4,000 |
| $3M to $5M revenue30 to 50 employees | $2,500 to $6,000 |
| $5M to $10M revenue50 to 100 employees | $4,000 to $7,500 |
| $10M to $20M revenue100 to 200 employees | $6,500+ |
Ranges overlap and are a general guide for fixed-monthly outsourced accounting providers, not a fixed price list. Your actual number depends on scope and complexity.
Frequently Asked Questions
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In most cases, yes, by roughly 40% to 60%. Once you load in benefits, payroll taxes, overhead, and the time to hire and manage, an in-house accountant costs well above the salary. Walk through it with our cost-of-hiring breakdown and calculator template.
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Both exist. Many modern teams use a fixed monthly fee, which gives you a number you can plan around and rewards the provider for working efficiently. Hourly billing is still common and can lead to bills that vary month to month.
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Fixed monthly pricing is scoped to your business, so an honest quote needs to understand your volume, complexity, and the work you want handled. That is why most providers price after a short scoping conversation. The ranges above get you in the neighborhood in the meantime.
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It varies. Some providers are month to month, others lock you into a term. We recommend keeping your options flexible, so you can scale up, scale down, or change course as the business shifts.
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More than basic bookkeeping. A proper outsourced provider runs like a fractional accounting department, so even the base covers day-to-day bookkeeping through a monthly close and financials, with process and oversight behind it. Add-ons like invoicing, payables, payroll coordination, budgeting, and reporting build from there. It is a step up from a single bookkeeper, built for maturing businesses.
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A single bookkeeper can only take you so far. One person has one skill level and a fixed set of hours, so higher-level work and busy stretches can outrun them. A fractional team brings a range of skill levels and the capacity to scale, so the work that needs a senior hand gets one, and coverage holds when someone is out.
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It starts with a short Zoom to understand your challenges and what you need. It is a conversation, not a pitch, and it tells us what you are looking for. From there we look under the hood at your current accounting setup to see what we would be taking on. Then we put together a proposal with a fixed monthly fee. Talk to us to begin.
“No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.”
Think of It as an Investment
Your accounting partner is more than a vendor. They become part of your team, there to help you grow and steady the harder stretches. Think of the fee as an investment in the business. Surrounding yourself with experts is how strong companies scale, and the right team pays for itself as you grow. Basis 365 has a track record across a range of outsourced accounting engagements. See our case studies and testimonials.