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Bookkeeping cost estimator
Bookkeeping fees follow volume, not revenue. Transactions, bank and card accounts, payroll and sales tax registrations are what move the number. Enter yours and see which flat-fee plan fits and what it costs a month.
- Built by a team of Certified Accountants, CPAs and Enrolled Agents
- 2026 figures
- Estimate only, not advice
Based on Somani Global's published plans: Micro from $99 (under 50 transactions), Starter $299, Growth $599, Enterprise $999 a month, plus $50 per state per month for sales tax filing and $50 per payroll cycle on Starter. Catch-up bookkeeping is quoted as a fixed project after a free review. Your written quote is the number that counts.
What drives a bookkeeping fee
Not revenue. A consultancy billing $2 million through 40 invoices a year is less work than a store doing $300,000 through 2,000 card transactions. Four things set the price: how many transactions have to be categorised and reconciled each month, how many bank and card accounts feed them, whether payroll and sales tax filings ride along, and how far behind the books are when we start.
What a flat fee should include
- Every bank and card feed reconciled to the statement, monthly, not quarterly.
- Categorisation to a chart of accounts built for your entity and state, so year-end is not a re-do.
- A monthly profit and loss, balance sheet and cash summary, with someone who will explain a line if asked.
- A CPA review of the close before reports go out.
- Year-end financials that a tax preparer can use without questions.
- A named person who replies, within a stated time.
What it should not include is surprise hourly billing. If a fee is quoted per hour, the incentive runs the wrong way.
Catch-up: the part nobody prices upfront
Books that are six or eighteen months behind cannot be fixed inside a monthly fee. Every catch-up is a project: gather statements, rebuild the feeds, categorise everything, reconcile each month in order, and produce a set of financials that can be trusted. We quote it as a fixed price after a free look at the file, then move you to a monthly plan. Typical turnaround is two to four weeks depending on volume and how many statements are missing.
QuickBooks Online or Xero
Either works; the fee is the same. You own the subscription and the file, we work inside it with accountant access. Switching between them is possible but rarely worth it mid-year; the main reasons to move are multi-currency (Xero is stronger) and US payroll integration (QuickBooks is stronger).
Questions people ask
Does the fee include tax returns?
No. The business return is quoted separately, from $99, prepared from the same books. Year-end financials on every plan are tax-ready, and most clients bundle both.
What counts as a transaction?
Each line on a bank or card statement: a sale deposit, an expense, a transfer, a fee. Payouts from Shopify or Stripe count once each; the sales behind them are reconciled from the platform report.
Is there a contract?
No long-term contract. Monthly plans run month to month; catch-up projects are fixed-price and paid on delivery.
Can you take over from another bookkeeper mid-year?
Yes. We review the file, note what needs correcting, quote any clean-up as a fixed project and continue from the last reconciled month.
Who does the work?
A dedicated bookkeeper on our Mumbai team, with a CPA in the team reviewing the month-end close. One point of contact, replies within 8 hours.
How accurate is this estimator?
It matches our published plans. The written quote after the free call is the number that counts; it can be lower if your volumes are at the bottom of a band.
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