Best bookkeeping services for small business

Ledgerbrook wrote this comparison and is one of the services in it. Every price below links to the page it came from, read in September 2026, and the entry for Ledgerbrook states what it does not do as plainly as the others.

The nine services at a glance

Service	Entry price	Books kept in	Best fit
Ledgerbrook Get a free file review	$99per client file, per month	Your own QuickBooks Online company	QuickBooks Online users who want a flat per-file price
Bench Bookkeeping Light	$199 a month	Bench’s own platform	Micro businesses with $250,000 or less in revenue
Merritt Bookkeeping	$250 a month	QuickBooks	Owners who want a small firm with a capped client list
Intuit Experts full-service	From $300 a month, after a cleanup fee	QuickBooks Online	Owners who want Intuit’s own bookkeepers
Xendoo Essential	$395 a month ($355 billed annually)	QuickBooks Online or Xero	Weekly bookkeeping, up to $50,000 monthly expenses
Pilot Core	From $399 a month	Not stated; existing QuickBooks on custom plans	Startups that need cash or accrual books for lenders and investors
Bookkeeper360	From $399 a month	QuickBooks Online or Xero	Bookkeeping with payroll and advisory from one firm
1-800Accountant Business Complete	$469 a month, billed annually	Not stated	Bookkeeping and tax returns in one bill
inDinero Essential	From $750 a month	QuickBooks Online or NetSuite	Controller-led accrual books, multi-entity

Entry prices are the lowest published plan with a person keeping the books. Most services step up with transactions, accounts, or monthly expenses, and nearly all price catch-up work separately.

How to pick, in four questions

1. Which software will the books live in? This decides more than price. A service on its own platform, like Bench, keeps your books in a system you would have to export from if you leave. A service working inside your own QuickBooks Online or Xero company leaves the file with you. In December 2024 Bench stopped operating with a few days’ notice and gave customers until March 2025 to download their data, before Employer.com bought it and restarted the service. Owners with books in their own QuickBooks file would not have needed the download.

2. Is the price capped by hours, revenue or expenses? Bench Light is for revenue up to $250,000. Xendoo Essential stops at $50,000 of monthly expenses. Pilot Core’s starting price covers $9,000 of monthly expenses and rises with them. Freelancers bill by the hour. None of these is a flaw, but each is a point where the price changes, and you should know which one you will hit first.

3. Do you need weekly books, or monthly? Monthly is enough for most small businesses and for tax. Weekly is worth paying for when cash is tight enough that a three-week-old balance is too old. Xendoo and Bookkeeper360 sell weekly plans.

4. Do you want tax in the same bill? 1-800Accountant and Bench sell bookkeeping and tax returns together. The others sell tax separately or not at all, which suits a business that already has a CPA.

Each service, briefly

Ledgerbrook

Monthly close inside your own QuickBooks Online company, priced at $99 or $199 per client file, per month, depending on accounts and volume. Every account reconciled, payroll entries and accruals posted, and a profit and loss and balance sheet by the 5th business day. Month to month, no annual contract and no hourly limit, so a busy month costs the same as a quiet one. It does not file tax returns, run payroll, or work in Xero or QuickBooks Desktop, and it is a small practice where one person works the whole file. Catch-up and cleanup are priced per month of backlog, on the pricing page.

Bench

Bench Bookkeeping Light is $199 a month for businesses with $250,000 or less in revenue, and the full bookkeeping plan is $399. Bench keeps the books on its own platform. Current-year catch-up is included with an annual plan; older backlog is quoted separately.

Merritt Bookkeeping

One plan, $250 a month, working in QuickBooks. Catch-up is $200 a month of backlog, and $100 for months with fewer than 20 transactions. Merritt says it keeps its client list small on purpose, so availability is by enquiry.

Intuit Experts

Intuit’s own full-service bookkeeping, formerly QuickBooks Live, starts at $300 a month after a one-time cleanup fee. The price tier is set by your average monthly expenses and reassessed every three months. Intuit’s help page says it does not send invoices, pay bills, give tax advice, file tax returns or manage payroll.

Xendoo

Weekly bookkeeping from $395 a month, or $355 billed annually, for up to $50,000 in monthly expenses and 4 accounts. Growth at $695 adds accounts and a tax consult. Catch-up starts at $295 a month of backlog.

Pilot

Pilot Core starts at $399 a month, a figure that covers $9,000 in monthly expenses and rises with them. It adds a US-based bookkeeper who handles, explains and reviews the books, and cash or accrual books drawn from bank, card, payroll, payables, inventory and payment platforms. Pilot’s cheaper plan is AI-run with no assigned bookkeeper, so it is left out of this comparison. Keeping an existing QuickBooks file is a custom plan.

Bookkeeper360

Monthly close from $399 a month and weekly from $599, in QuickBooks Online or Xero. Onboarding and prior-period cleanup start at $1,000 per project. Payroll, tax and advisory are sold by the same firm.

1-800Accountant

Business Complete, at $469 a month billed annually, bundles full-service bookkeeping from 75 monthly transactions with income tax return filing, quarterly estimated taxes and payroll setup. Bookkeeping is not sold on its own at that price, so it suits an owner who wants one provider for both.

inDinero

From $750 a month, with a controller and accrual accounting in QuickBooks Online or NetSuite. More than most small businesses need, and the right tier for a business with several entities, inventory or investors reading its statements.

What none of the prices include

Catch-up is almost always billed apart from the monthly fee. If your books are months behind, that is a separate bill, and it is often larger than the first year of monthly fees. The services above that publish one charge from $200 (Merritt) to $295 (Xendoo) per month of backlog, and Bookkeeper360 starts its onboarding projects at $1,000. Ledgerbrook’s is $99. What a QuickBooks cleanup costs compares the cleanup side in more detail.

Cheapest is a different question

This list is sorted by fit. If price is the deciding factor, affordable bookkeeping services sorts the same services from cheapest up and lists what each low price leaves out. For the wider cost of a freelancer or an in-house hire, see how much a bookkeeper costs.

If you are on QuickBooks Online and not sure which kind of file you have, send it for a free file review. It comes back with the months behind, the monthly band, and a fixed price, whether or not you hire Ledgerbrook.