How Much Does Small-Business Bookkeeping Cost in 2026?

DIY software: $30–$200/month, plus your Sundays

Traditional accounting software looks cheap until you price the labor — yours. The subscription buys you empty ledgers and a bank feed; the categorizing, matching, and reconciling is your job, typically hours per month. Owners who fall behind (most do) often end up paying a bookkeeper on top of the software just to operate it. And multi-entity owners usually discover the quoted price is per company.

Freelance bookkeepers and services: $300–$800+/month

A part-time human bookkeeper typically runs a few hundred dollars a month for a simple business, climbing fast with transaction volume and entity count. You get real judgment — valuable for messy situations — but the workflow is batch-based: you hand over statements and a pile of receipts, and the books are current as of the last handoff. Questions wait for the next check-in.

Full-service firms: $1,000+/month

Outsourced accounting firms bundle bookkeeping with controller-level oversight. For businesses with employees, inventory, and complex reporting needs, the price can be justified. For a lean operator with a few LLCs and properties, it's usually far more machinery than the job requires.

The line item nobody prices: the lag

Every batch-based option — DIY or delegated — shares a hidden cost: the gap between spending money and recording it. That lag is where receipts vanish, details fade, deductions get lost, and tax season becomes a reconstruction project billed at CPA rates.

• DIY software: low sticker price, hours of your labor monthly
• Human bookkeeper: real judgment, batch workflow, per-entity costs add up
• Full-service firm: comprehensive, priced for bigger operations
• All of them: the recording lag quietly costs deductions

Where BusiB lands

BusiB is flat-priced: Solo at $129/month and Multi at $199/month, multiple entities included — no per-LLC surcharges, no hourly meter. The work happens at the moment of purchase: snap the receipt or tell Bea what the charge was for, and the books stay current without a monthly catch-up session from you or an invoice from someone else. There's a 14-day free trial, no credit card required, so you can price it against your current setup with your own real month of expenses.