Fixed, Value or Hourly: Pricing Accounting Services Without Guessing
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- SpidNums
Most recurring compliance work — bookkeeping, GST/HST, payroll, year-ends — prices best as fixed-fee packages tied to a defined scope, because effort is predictable and clients value certainty. Hourly billing still fits genuinely unpredictable work such as CRA reviews. The price belongs in the engagement letter, revisited annually rather than renegotiated mid-file.
The three models and what each optimizes for
Hourly optimizes for the firm's risk on unpredictable work. Fixed fee optimizes for client certainty and for the firm's efficiency gains. Value pricing optimizes for outcomes but requires a client who can articulate the outcome — which most compliance clients cannot.
Why compliance work wants a fixed fee
A T2 for an owner-managed corporation with clean records takes roughly the same effort every year. Billing it hourly transfers the firm's efficiency gains to the client and penalizes the firm for getting faster. Fixed fee does the opposite.
Packaging: what goes in each tier
Build tiers from the services list, not from adjectives. 'Bookkeeping, quarterly GST/HST, annual T2, T4s for two employees' is a package. 'Premium' is not.
Scope boundaries: the clause that saves the margin
The exclusions list is worth more than the inclusions list, because it is the one you point at. CRA review correspondence, catch-up bookkeeping for prior periods and additional entities should be named as out of scope and separately priced.
Repricing legacy clients without losing them
Reprice at renewal, in writing, from the current services list, with the new scope visible alongside the new fee. A fee increase that arrives inside a document explaining what is included lands very differently from one that arrives in an email.
Where hourly still earns its keep
CRA reviews and audits, remediation of prior-year messes, and one-off advisory work with an undefined end point. If you genuinely cannot scope it, do not fix-price it.
Putting price into the engagement letter
A price that only exists in an invoice is a price the client has never agreed to. Building the letter from the priced services list means the fee, the scope and the signature are the same artefact.
Frequently asked questions
Should accounting firms charge fixed fees or hourly?
Fixed fees suit recurring compliance work where effort is predictable — bookkeeping, sales-tax returns, payroll and year-ends. Hourly still suits genuinely unpredictable work such as CRA reviews or prior-year remediation. Most firms should use both, deliberately.
How do you reprice an existing client?
At renewal, in writing, with the fee shown alongside the current scope. Reissuing the engagement letter from an up-to-date services list makes the increase part of a document about what the client receives, rather than a standalone message about money.
What should be excluded from a fixed-fee accounting package?
CRA review or audit correspondence, catch-up bookkeeping for periods before the engagement, additional entities, and one-off advisory work. Naming exclusions explicitly is what makes the out-of-scope conversation a pricing question rather than a dispute.
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