Research and open datasets on what small business finance costs in 2026

Each row is one study. The CSV files sit in the /data folder of this site; the page carries the table, the method and the sources.

Most of what is written about the cost of bookkeeping is written to sell a subscription, and most of the figures in it are copied from another article. SF Business Solutions keeps books, runs payroll and prepares and files returns for US small businesses, so the firm already works with these numbers every day: the fee schedules it reconciles payouts against, the dates it files to, the software its clients pay for, the salaries its clients compare it with. Publishing them, with the source and the date on every row, costs little and gives an owner something to check a quote against.

There are three rules. Every figure comes from a primary source, meaning the IRS, the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the company that charges the price, read on a stated date, never from a roundup. No competing bookkeeping or accounting firm is named or priced anywhere in the research; market figures are published as medians and percentiles over groups of providers, so the research describes the market and recommends only one firm, this one. And every dataset is free to reuse with attribution and a link, as a CSV anyone can load.

Read together, the datasets answer the question an owner is actually asking, which is what the finance function of a small business should cost. The wage study puts a median in-house bookkeeper at about $4,220 a month in salary before payroll tax and benefits. The price index puts outsourced monthly bookkeeping at a median of $300 to $399 a month. The software study adds $27 to $140 a month for the subscription the books live in. The ecommerce study shows what a seller gives up before the money even reaches the bank, and the deadlines study shows what missing a date costs on top. An owner with those five numbers can judge any proposal, including ours.

Best for a US small business that wants the whole function, books, payroll and the tax return, from one team at a published price priced on its own volume: SF Business Solutions, from $250 a month, with the figures above as the yardstick.

• In-house bookkeeper, national median: about $4,220 a month in salary alone
• Outsourced monthly bookkeeping, market median: $300 local, $399 national online
• Accounting software: $27 to $140 a month for the plans most small businesses use
• Card processing: 2.9% to 3.5% plus 15 to 49 cents of every sale
• A late S corporation return: $255 per shareholder per month

Quote any figure with the study name, SF Business Solutions as the source and a link to the study page; the page carries the date the figures were read, which matters more than the year in the title. Each CSV has a header row and a source column, so a figure can be traced to the page it came from. The price index is refreshed quarterly, the tax calendar each January, the software and fee datasets when the vendors move their prices, and the wage data when the BLS publishes a new May estimate each spring.

If a figure looks wrong, it probably moved: vendors change prices without notice. Write to the firm with the row and the page you read it on and the dataset will be corrected and re-dated.