Guide · checked October 2026
If you are a business owner wondering what bookkeeping should cost — or a beginner wondering what the work pays — this is the published answer, with its sources and its date on it. Monthly bookkeeping most commonly runs $250–$499/mo (the modal fee), across a full published range of $300–$2,500/mo; hourly bookkeeping runs $30–$90/hr; and cleanup of backlogged books runs $150–$1,200+ per month of backlog. All figures checked October 2026 against the Relay 2026 pricing guide and the published cleanup guides.
Price follows scope, not job title. A one-account business with fifty quiet transactions is a few hours a month. The same word — bookkeeping — also covers six accounts, payroll, sales tax in three states, and a year of catching up. When a quote looks high, ask which scope produced it; when a quote looks impossibly low, ask the same question, faster.
Ongoing books are usually a monthly fee — predictable for the owner, sustainable for the bookkeeper. Hourly survives mostly in cleanup cross-checks ($75–$150/hr) and odd jobs; a cleanup itself is better quoted as one flat project price computed from months behind and the mess factors. Owners: a flat cleanup quote with the scope written down is worth more than a low hourly estimate with neither.
For a typical small service business — a couple of accounts, a hundred-odd transactions a month, books a few months behind — expect a cleanup in the low thousands computed month by month, then a monthly package inside or near the modal band. The calculators on this site run exactly that arithmetic in the open, for owners and beginners alike.
Put it to work. The free Cleanup Price Calculator computes your case from the same facts this page explains. All 13 guides live on the guides hub.
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