Ask 5 accounting firms what they charge and you will get 4 phone-call invitations and maybe one number. Here is the actual math, including when the answer should be "do not hire us yet."

The short answer

For an owner-operated service business doing roughly $500K to $5M in revenue, full monthly accounting typically costs $750 to $2,000 per month. That range should include bookkeeping, payroll, tax planning and preparation, and regular advisory time.

Our own Core Package starts at $750 per month, flat, and scales with the drivers below. Other reputable flat-fee firms land in the same neighborhood. When you see a much lower number, look for what got unbundled.

The 5 things that actually move the price

  1. Transaction volume. 100 transactions a month reconcile faster than 1,000. This is the biggest single driver.
  2. Employees on payroll. Each employee adds calculations, withholdings, filings, and state-level reporting like unemployment insurance and workers' compensation. Payroll is also where mistakes cost real penalty money, which is why it is priced with care.
  3. Filing requirements. These vary by state and city: sales tax (often destination-based), gross-receipts or franchise taxes in states that levy them, city business taxes, and multi-state work each add recurring filings. Two businesses with identical revenue can carry very different filing loads depending on where they operate and sell.
  4. Entity structure. A single LLC is simpler than an S-corp with a holding company. More entities, more returns, more coordination.
  5. The state of your books today. Catch-up and cleanup are one-time projects, scoped separately. A year of neglected books does not make the monthly fee higher forever; it makes month one a project.

Compare against the real alternatives

A part-time bookkeeper. At $25 to $40 per hour for 10 to 15 hours a month, you are at $300 to $600 monthly for bookkeeping only. No payroll filings, no tax returns, no planning, and you manage the person. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median bookkeeper wage in that band before any benefits or your management time.

An in-house accountant. A full-time hire typically costs $60,000 to $90,000 plus taxes and benefits depending on your market, before they file a single return. This starts making sense somewhere past 40 employees or heavy daily invoicing, not before.

DIY plus an annual tax preparer. Honest answer: below roughly $500K in revenue with no employees, this can be the right call. The tipping points are your first employees, your first painful April, or the month you realize you are making pricing decisions on 90-day-old numbers.

What "included advice" should mean

The line that separates a bookkeeping vendor from an accounting firm worth $750 or more per month is whether someone sits down with you on a schedule and explains what the numbers say to do next. If your monthly fee does not include that conversation, you are buying data entry, and you should pay data-entry prices.

If you want the exact number for your business, we scope it in writing after one 30-minute call, and if the honest answer is that you do not need us yet, that is what you will hear.

Questions owners ask about this

Why do accounting firms hide their prices?

Usually because pricing is hourly and unpredictable, or because the firm wants you on the phone before you can compare. Flat-fee firms can publish a starting number because the scope is defined up front. Ours starts at $750 per month and the exact figure goes in writing before any work starts.

What should be included at $750 to $2,000 per month?

At minimum: monthly bookkeeping with reconciled accounts, payroll with all payroll tax filings, business tax preparation, sales tax and other state filings where they apply, and scheduled time with someone who explains the numbers. If any of those are extra, price the package with them added before comparing.

Is monthly accounting worth it compared to an annual tax appointment?

If the business has employees, real revenue, or a tax bill that surprised you, yes. Planning during the year routinely saves multiples of the fee, and current books turn pricing and hiring decisions from guesses into math. If none of that describes you yet, an annual preparer is genuinely fine.