Bookkeeping packages: how to price monthly hours

An hours-based bookkeeping package gives a client a set number of hours each month for a fixed price, with written rules for unused hours, overage and cleanup work. Price it from your hourly rate and three months of tracked time per client, then group clients into two or three tiers. Each month, show the client the hours used, the hours left and the work behind them.

Fixed-fee packages and hours-based packages

Fixed-fee and value-based pricing are the common ways to price bookkeeping. In Ignition’s 2024 U.S. Accounting and Tax Pricing Benchmark, a survey of 345 owners and decision-makers at accounting firms, 79% said they use one or the other for bookkeeping and accounting services (CPA Practice Advisor, 20 Nov 2024). A fixed-fee package is priced on scope: the bank accounts, a monthly transaction limit, payroll and reporting.

An hours-based package is priced on time instead. The client buys, say, 8 hours a month, and the agreement says what happens to hours left over and to work beyond them.

When hours-based packages fit

Hours fit when the work changes from month to month and you can’t write the scope down in advance. That’s the client who sends receipts late, opens new accounts, or needs help answering a lender or a sales tax notice. Advisory and ad hoc requests, such as calls and questions by email, are also hard to fit into a fixed fee.

Hours suit an owner who asks what the bookkeeper did this month, because the answer is a list of hours and entries. They don’t suit one who wants a single number, because once the hours are being counted, each question they send you starts to feel like a cost.

They fit less well when the work is standard and repeatable. A monthly close for a client with two bank accounts and steady volume takes about the same time each month, so a fixed fee is simpler for both sides. The same is true once you’ve automated most of the work. Bank feeds and rules cut your hours, which on an hours-based package cuts your revenue too, while on a fixed fee you keep the gain.

An hours-based package also depends on your time records, which you need to size the package and to see a client outgrowing it. Without reliable tracking you end up in disputes over the gaps.

You can combine the two, with a fixed fee for the monthly close and monthly hours for everything outside it. The terms below apply to the hours part.

The five terms to write down

Put these in the engagement letter before the first month.

1. Hours included each month: one number per tier.
2. The rate behind them: the package price divided by the hours. Overage and any extra hours shouldn’t be cheaper than this rate.
3. Unused hours: use it or lose it, roll over for a set number of months, or roll over with no end date. Bookkeeping has busy months (year-end, 1099s in January, quarterly sales tax), so a limited rollover, such as three months, lets hours from a quiet month cover part of a busy one.
4. Overage: the rate for time beyond the hours included, and the point at which you tell the client they’re close to the limit.
5. Cleanup and catch-up work: bringing old books up to date is billed separately, by the hour or as a quoted project, and never draws on the monthly hours.

Bill cleanup work separately

A new client can arrive with months of unreconciled accounts. That work happens once, but nobody knows its size until you open the file. NerdWallet (updated 13 Mar 2026) says cleanups often follow project-based pricing, which works when you can quote the job. When you can’t estimate it, bill it by the hour, on its own invoice lines, until the books are current, and start the package after that.

Keep cleanup out of the monthly hours in both cases. If it draws on them, the package looks too small from the first month. If you size the package to absorb it, the client goes on paying the larger price after the cleanup has ended.

How to size and price the tiers

Start by tracking time for every client for three months, fixed-fee clients included, and take each client’s middle month rather than the busiest.

Then set the hourly rate, starting from what you charge for ad hoc work today. For reference, median pay for bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks was $24.36 an hour in May 2025 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, read 13 Oct 2026). Upwork lists an average of $43 an hour for bookkeeping services, with some bookkeepers there charging $80 or more, according to the same NerdWallet page. The BLS figure is an employee’s wage and the Upwork figure is a freelancer’s price. A firm’s rate also has to cover software, review and the hours nobody bills.

Group clients into bands by their measured hours, and stop at two or three tiers, which are easier to explain than five. Price each tier as hours times rate. You can lower the rate a little on the bigger tiers in return for the commitment, or keep one rate everywhere so that overage needs no explanation. For overage itself, I’d bill at the ad hoc rate, because it gives a client who regularly runs over a reason to move up a tier.

An example, with made-up numbers and an ad hoc rate of $85 an hour:

Overage and cleanup are billed at $85 an hour. The Essentials price is close to the $300 or more a month that the NerdWallet page tells small businesses to expect for bookkeeping.

Look at the numbers again every quarter. A client with overage in two months out of three belongs in the next tier up. If a client’s hours expire every month, offer a smaller tier before they decide the package isn’t worth it.

What the client should see each month

A client on hours judges the package by the hours as well as by the reconciled accounts and reports, so send a short statement on the same day each month with:

• The hours at the start of the month, hours added, hours used, hours expired and hours left.
• The entries behind the hours used: date, person, what was done, hours.
• Any overage, and the invoice it goes on.
• Cleanup hours, shown apart from the package.
• When unused hours expire.

Warn the client before the hours run out, so that the invoice isn’t the first place they see overage. There’s a statement template you can copy in how to answer “how many hours do we have left?”. The invoice itself is covered in how to bill clients for hours.

Hours-based packages in Timebun

We build Timebun, which is time tracking, retainers and invoicing for firms that sell hours. In it, a tier is a retainer plan. The Standard tier from the table would be a plan with 8 hours per period and a price of $640, billed monthly.

Cleanup goes on a separate project set to Billed directly, with its own rate, so it never touches the client’s hours. It can go on the same draft invoice as any overage. You review that draft before it’s sent.

If you turn statements on, each client’s invoice recipients get a statement of hours once or twice a month. It shows the opening and closing balance, the hours added, used and expired, and every entry by project, and it comes with a CSV. Cleanup and overage are listed apart from the balance, as hours billed separately.

Rollover and overage work the same for every kind of firm, and how to bill clients for hours describes them. Between statements, clients check their balance in the client portal.

If you run a bookkeeping or accounting firm that sells monthly hours, see how Timebun works for accountants.