Bookkeeping firm bundles and pricing tiers in 2027

What to take away

The bookkeeping firm bundles and pricing tiers in 2027 that follow use typical US market ranges, not quotes from any single firm.

This article covers firm operations and pricing structure, not tax, legal or accounting advice on your own return, entity or client engagement.

Requirements vary by state and municipality, so confirm them with your state board of accountancy, your secretary of state and your own CPA or attorney.

The four bundles most firms sell in 2027, and what each one costs

Four tiers cover most small-business work. Firm names for them differ; the scope boundaries do not.

Transaction count decides where a quote lands inside its band. A starter client with 75 transactions a month sits near the bottom; 250 transactions pushes it to the top.

A bundle is a fixed list of deliverables plus a monthly transaction ceiling, a close deadline and a named exclusions list. Anything outside that list is quoted separately.

The scope decisions behind those four tiers are set out in the bookkeeping firm service menu. How the tiers stack into a published offer is covered in the bookkeeping firm services and packages guide.

The five packages behind every tier

Almost every tier is built from five packages.

Catch-up and cleanup are two different jobs and they need two quotes. Catch-up means entering missing periods. Cleanup means investigating what is already there: unreconciled accounts, undeposited funds and clearing accounts that never zeroed.

Quote cleanup hourly with a capped estimate after a paid diagnostic. The diagnostic is the deliverable. Sell the two as one line and the firm eats the investigation time.

A package you cannot staff is a promise you will break. Check who does the work before it goes on the menu. Every package needs one owner inside the firm and one named contact on the client side.

Industry packages re-scope the same five

An industry package is not a new service. It is core monthly bookkeeping plus a chart of accounts built for the trade and reporting that matches how the owner reads the business.

A restaurant package tracks daily sales by daypart, tip liability and third-party delivery clearing accounts. A contractor package tracks job costing, retainage and progress billing. An e-commerce package tracks marketplace settlements, refunds and inventory cost of goods sold.

Each one costs more to build and more to maintain, so charge a setup fee and a higher monthly rate.

What national providers published in 2026

The table below records 2026 published price signals, not 2027 quotes.

Published plan pages give you a price to check a quote against.

Those figures come from published plan pages and marketplace listings as of 2026, before software and tax. Check the transaction ceiling a provider applies before you use its price as a benchmark.

How to price a tier without guessing

Start with hours, not with what the firm down the road charges. Estimate the monthly hours the work takes, multiply by the loaded hourly cost of whoever does it, then add your target margin.

Worked example with your own figures. Let H be monthly hours, C the loaded hourly cost, and M your target margin as a decimal. Your floor price is (H x C) / (1 - M).

If a starter client takes 3 hours at a loaded cost of 45, the cost is 135. At a 40% margin the floor is 225 a month, which sits at the bottom of the starter band above.

A virtual finance desk that takes 20 hours at a loaded cost of 55 costs 1,100. At a 40% margin the floor is about 1,833 a month, inside the $1,500 to $4,000 band.

Substitute your own H, C and M; the arithmetic holds either way. Loaded cost is where estimates go wrong, since payroll taxes and benefits commonly add 20% to 30% to a wage rate.

Review tier margins every quarter. A tier that was profitable at twenty clients can drift once the work moves to a cheaper, slower pair of hands.

Then check the tier against utilization. A tier that eats review time from a senior bookkeeper carries a higher effective cost than its hours suggest, which is why the services that carry a real margin are the ones with defined ceilings.

Scope creep and the change order process

The ceiling is what keeps a tier priced. Work past the ceiling is not absorbed; it gets a change order with its own quote and its own start date.

Add-ons that should never sit inside a monthly tier

Payroll coordination, an AP desk and an AR desk each need their own volume ceiling and their own line on the quote.

Payroll coordination typically adds $100 to $300 a month for one to four runs, plus a $250 to $500 setup fee for a new provider process.

Gusto has listed its simplest payroll plan near $40 a month plus about $6 per employee. QuickBooks Payroll Core has listed in the mid $40s a month plus about $6 per employee. Some firms price per run instead, commonly $25 to $75.

Set the provider process, the approval step and the reconciliation back to the ledger. Under IRS Publication 15, an employer that outsources payroll and related tax work generally remains responsible for withholding, reporting, depositing and paying those taxes.

That responsibility is the reason payroll coordination is priced separately. It is also the reason the client signs off on every run.

Payroll, AP release and management reporting each carry duties the client cannot outsource by signing a contract.

An AP desk typically quotes at $300 to $1,200 a month, or $3 to $8 per bill past a few hundred bills. An AR desk typically quotes at $300 to $1,000 a month, or $1.50 to $5 per invoice.

An AP desk needs bill volume, coding rules and approval limits. It also needs payment preparation, vendor maintenance and a cutoff date. An AR desk needs invoice inputs, customer count and receipt posting. Aging, follow-up and write-off approval sit with it. Put both in writing before the first invoice goes out.

Specialized books and what they change about price

Ecommerce books carry these essentials: marketplace settlement clearing accounts, processor fees, refunds and chargebacks, and inventory cost of goods sold at period end.

Contractor job-cost books carry many items: job cost by phase, change orders, retainage receivable and payable, and progress billing against a schedule of values.

Property books carry these entities and financial items: one class or set of books per property, the rent roll, owner funds, mortgage and escrow accounts, and tenant security deposits.

Nonprofit books carry funds or restrictions, grants, programs, contributions and board reporting.

Each of those adds reconciliation surface, so each adds hours.

Ecommerce books typically add 25% to 50% over a comparable single-channel close. Every channel and processor creates its own settlement to reconcile.

Job-cost books typically add $300 to $800 a month over a plain monthly close, driven by change orders, retention and progress billing.

Property books commonly quote at $50 to $100 per unit a month once rent rolls, owner funds and loans are in scope.

Nonprofit books with restricted funds and grant reporting typically quote at $500 to $1,200 a month.

Multi-entity close adds intercompany activity, shared costs and a consolidated view, and it is the tier most likely to be underpriced. Each extra entity commonly adds $250 to $600 a month.

Checks to make before you publish a tier

IRS Publication 583 covers why businesses keep records, what counts as supporting documentation, electronic-record requirements and bank reconciliation. Read it before you write a scope that promises records you cannot produce.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics profile of bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks describes the work as recording, classifying, checking and reconciling financial data, and notes the shift toward analytical tasks.

That shift is the argument for pricing review time, not keystrokes. It is also the reason to start from setting bookkeeping firm prices that cover costs and leave a margin rather than from a competitor's rate card.

A tier is finished when it is priced, written down and testable. The version a client actually buys is the one that goes into a bookkeeping firm quote, line by line, with the ceilings and the exclusions spelled out.

Common questions

What should a starter tier actually include?

One entity, a defined account set, monthly reconciliation, basic statements and a transaction ceiling. Typical quotes run $200 to $350 a month. Anything past that ceiling is quoted as an add-on.

How do I price catch-up work?

As a separate project with its own quote, its own agreed period and its own end date. A two-year cleanup commonly quotes at $1,500 to $4,000 one time, and older books push that higher.

Recurring monthly books start on a fixed date after the cleanup closes, so the client can see where one ends and the other begins.

How much should a virtual finance desk cost?

Typically $1,500 to $4,000 a month. Meeting load, payroll headcount and AP or AR volume move the number most. Price the meetings as their own line if the owner wants a weekly call.

When should a client be on quarterly books instead of monthly?

Only when transaction volume, decision needs and account risk genuinely support a slower close. If the client needs numbers to make weekly calls, quarterly books will not carry the weight and the relationship will not last.

Do I need to state licensing or supervision rules in the package?

No, and you should not. State the scope you will perform and refer the client to their own CPA or attorney for anything outside it. Licensing and supervision requirements are set by your state board of accountancy, not by your brochure.