Back Office Support for Small Business: 3 Costs

Back office support for a small business, say a 10-person Las Vegas law firm or a dealership's accounting desk, costs $500 to $1,500 a month for basic outsourced bookkeeping in price guides published in January and July 2026. A full-time bookkeeper on payroll runs $5,333 to $7,667 a month once benefits, payroll taxes and overhead are counted. That is the July 2026 estimate of $64,000 to $92,000 a year in Breakwater's outsourced bookkeeping cost guide, divided by 12.

What changed: the Bureau of Labor Statistics median for bookkeeping clerks is now $50,670 for the 2025 data year, up from the $49,210 May 2024 figure that a July 2026 price list still quotes. Automation, the third option, has no published monthly price in any source used here, and this post says so instead of inventing one.

What back office support costs a small business each month in 2026

Four sources carry every number in this post. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook page for bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks gives national pay and job counts for the 2025 data year, drawn from government employment statistics and not from a survey of small businesses. The other three are price guides from firms that sell the service: SDO CPA's outsourced accounting cost guide from January 2026, Breakwater's guide from July 2026, and Catalyst CPA's 2026 bookkeeper price list, also dated July 2026.

None of the three vendors discloses a sample. Catalyst cites a Slate Ridge Finance 2026 cost survey and an AICPA 2024 benchmark survey without giving sample sizes. Read the ranges as asking prices published by sellers, not as a market survey.

	Hire on payroll	Outsource monthly	Automate the routine work
Monthly cost range	$5,333 to $7,667 full time (Breakwater's $64,000 to $92,000 a year, divided by 12). Catalyst's $70,000 to $85,000 gives $5,833 to $7,083.	$500 to $1,500 basic (Breakwater, SDO). $1,500 to $3,000 standard and $2,500 to $5,000 with a controller (Breakwater). $100 to $400 basic virtual plans (Catalyst).	No price in any of the four sources. Inferred: worth at most the tier drop it produces in the outsource column.
What the number includes	Salary, benefits, payroll taxes and overhead (Breakwater).	A defined monthly scope on retainer, the most common model per SDO, priced by volume or complexity tier (Breakwater).	Inferred, our definition: software doing repeat entry, invoice routing and reconciliation prep.
What the number leaves out	Controller or CFO work, and cover when the one person is out.	Payroll add-ons of $5 to $15 per employee per month (Catalyst). Controller work, from $2,500 (Breakwater) or $3,500 (SDO).	Build cost, upkeep and the person who reviews exceptions. All unpriced here.
Who it fits by transaction volume	No threshold published. Inferred: enough work to fill most of a 2,080-hour year.	No threshold published. Inferred: well under full-time hours.	Inferred: many repeat, rule-based transactions.
Source and date	Breakwater and Catalyst, July 2026.	Breakwater and Catalyst, July 2026. SDO CPA, January 2026.	None. Every cell is our inference, October 2026.

Two things stand out. At the bottom of each range, a payroll bookkeeper costs 10.7 times the basic outsourced tier: $5,333 divided by $500. At the top the gap narrows to 5.1 times, $7,667 divided by $1,500.

The second is the automation column, which is inference from top to bottom. The sources are bookkeeping vendors, not software vendors, so none of them prices it. We would rather mark a cell as inferred than fill it with a number we cannot show you.

The BLS anchor: $24.36 an hour and 6 percent fewer jobs by 2035

BLS measure, bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks	Figure
Median annual pay, 2025	$50,670
Median hourly pay, 2025	$24.36
Jobs, 2025	1,532,400
Projected change, 2025 to 2035	Decline of 6 percent, about 85,600 jobs
Projected openings per year	About 144,100

These are national figures from the only source here that is not selling anything. A Nevada or Las Vegas number would need the BLS area wage table, which we did not pull for this post, so do not read $50,670 as a local wage.

Divide the annual median by the hourly median and you get the hours behind it: $50,670 divided by $24.36 is 2,080, a standard year of 40 hours for 52 weeks. That lets you turn any payroll figure into an hourly one. Breakwater's loaded $64,000 to $92,000, spread over 2,080 hours, is $30.77 to $44.23 an hour.

Now compare the outsourced hourly rates. Catalyst lists general bookkeepers at $50 to $150 per hour, and SDO lists $75 to $200 depending on expertise. Per hour, the employee is the cheapest option on the list, even fully loaded.

Outsourcing wins on the monthly bill only because you buy fewer hours. The low payroll figure of $5,333 a month buys about 71 hours at $75 an hour, since $5,333 divided by $75 is 71.1. The employee gives you about 173 hours a month, which is 2,080 divided by 12. So the first question is not which option is cheaper. It is how many hours of this work you have.

The projection needs a careful reading too. BLS expects employment to fall 6 percent from 2025 to 2035, about 85,600 jobs, while still projecting about 144,100 openings a year, mostly from workers leaving or retiring. The extract we worked from does not quote a cause for the decline, so we will not assign one. The practical point for an owner is turnover: most openings come from people leaving the seat, and a one-person back office has no cover when that happens.

The vendors' savings claims check out, but only against a full-time seat

Breakwater says outsourcing saves 40 to 60 percent against full-time hiring. You can reproduce that. The top of its standard tier is $3,000 a month, or $36,000 a year. Against $64,000 that is a saving of 44 percent, and against $92,000 it is 61 percent.

SDO says outsourcing at $2,500 a month, or $30,000 a year, saves 60 to 75 percent. Its comparison is a full-time accountant at $83,000 to $121,000 or more a year, counting salary, benefits, payroll taxes, software, training and management time. The arithmetic gives 64 percent at the low end and 75 percent at the high end. Note the role: that is an accountant, not a bookkeeping clerk, so it is a different comparison from Breakwater's.

Both claims assume the alternative is a full-time person. Most small offices do not have 2,080 hours of bookkeeping. Assume yours has 10 hours a week. At the BLS median of $24.36 that is 520 hours and $12,667 a year in wages, or $1,056 a month.

Add Catalyst's benefits ratio of roughly 42 percent of wages and the figure rises to $17,987 a year, or $1,499 a month. Treat that as a ceiling, because the 42 percent ratio is quoted for a full-time hire and a part-time role may carry less. Either way, a part-time employee lands between $1,056 and $1,499 a month, which sits inside the $500 to $1,500 basic outsourced tier.

So against a part-time hire, the saving runs from nothing at the top of the tier to about two thirds at the bottom. The 40 to 60 percent headline does not transfer.

A skeptical owner will point out that these are sellers estimating the cost of the thing they compete with. Fair. One check is available: take the 2025 BLS median of $50,670, apply Catalyst's 42 percent, and you get $21,281 in benefits and $71,951 in total, or $5,996 a month. That falls inside Breakwater's range and inside Catalyst's own $70,000 to $85,000. The wage half of the payroll number rests on government data. The benefits ratio is Catalyst's, and nothing in these sources lets us verify it independently.

Automation has no published price here, so measure it as a tier drop

None of the four sources prices automation, and we are not going to supply a figure they do not carry. What they do support is a way to value it. Breakwater's guide says most firms price by transaction volume or complexity tier, not by the hour.

Here is the inference, labeled as one. If software takes over the repeat entry so that fewer transactions need a person, the lever you are pulling is the tier. The gap between Breakwater's standard tier and its basic tier is somewhere between zero, because the two ranges meet at $1,500, and $2,500 a month, which is $3,000 minus $500. That is the most a drop from standard to basic can be worth, and whether a firm will actually reprice you is something to get in writing.

On the payroll side the unit is hours. At the loaded rates of $30.77 to $44.23, freeing 10 hours a week is 520 hours, worth about $16,000 to $23,000 a year. That value is real only if the hours leave payroll or move to work you would otherwise pay someone else to do. A salaried bookkeeper costs the same whether or not they are keying invoices.

That gives you a test for any automation quote, including ours: set the price against the tier drop or the hours it produces over 12 months. If the vendor cannot say which one it moves, the quote is not ready. We describe what we build on the back office automation page, and the same test applies there.

The routine work rarely stops at the ledger. Intake forms, invoice approvals and the handoff between a CRM and the accounting system are general business automation, and connecting systems that do not talk to each other is AI integration work.

Two worked examples: a 6-person law firm and a 45-employee restaurant

Both examples are our assumptions, built only from the published ranges above.

Assume a law firm with 6 people on payroll and about 10 hours a week of bookkeeping. Basic outsourced bookkeeping is $500 to $1,500 a month. Catalyst's payroll add-on of $5 to $15 per employee adds $30 to $90, for a total of $530 to $1,590. The part-time hire from the last section costs $1,056 to $1,499.

The two overlap. Outsourcing is clearly cheaper only if the firm quotes you in the lower half of its basic tier. If the books are complex, expect the complexity tier and not the transaction count to set the price. That last point is our inference from Breakwater's pricing note.

Now assume a restaurant with 45 employees, daily sales batches and a steady stream of vendor invoices. Put it in Breakwater's standard tier at $1,500 to $3,000. The payroll add-on is 45 times $5 to $15, or $225 to $675. The total is $1,725 to $3,675 a month, which is $20,700 to $44,100 a year.

Against a full-time bookkeeper at $64,000 to $92,000, the saving runs from 31 percent in the worst pairing to 77.5 percent in the best. Outsourcing wins on price in every pairing.

The conclusion flips when the scope grows. If the restaurant needs a controller, Breakwater's tier is $2,500 to $5,000, and with the same add-on the bill is $2,725 to $5,675 a month, or $32,700 to $68,100 a year. The top of that range is above the low end of the payroll range. A payroll bookkeeper is not a controller either, so the two are no longer the same purchase.

Watch the labels as well. SDO lists full outsourced accounting at $1,500 to $3,500 a month. Breakwater uses nearly the same label for $5,000 to $12,000 or more. The top figures differ by 3.4 times, so the words on the quote tell you little until the scope is written down.

Where these numbers do not hold

Every wage figure here is national. Las Vegas pay may sit above or below the BLS median, and we have not quoted the area table that would settle it.

Three of the four sources sell bookkeeping or accounting services and none discloses a sample. Breakwater's own components, salary of $44,000 to $55,000, benefits of $8,000 to $15,000, payroll taxes of $4,000 to $6,000 and overhead of $3,000 to $6,000, add up to $59,000 to $82,000. Its stated total is $64,000 to $92,000. The gap of $5,000 to $10,000 is not explained in the material we worked from.

Catalyst's loaded cost uses the May 2024 median of $49,210, one data year behind the current BLS page. No source gives a transaction count at which one option beats another, so the hours test in this post is our proxy, not a published threshold.

The analysis also does not cover tax preparation, audits, or any work that requires a licensed professional's judgment. And the automation column is inference throughout. If your decision turns on what automation costs, you need quotes, because this post cannot give you that number.

Questions owners ask

How much does back office support cost for a small business per month?

Published 2026 price guides put basic outsourced bookkeeping at $500 to $1,500 a month and standard service at $1,500 to $3,000. A full-time bookkeeper on payroll runs $5,333 to $7,667 a month using Breakwater's July 2026 loaded estimate. Payroll processing is often an add-on of $5 to $15 per employee per month.

Is it cheaper to hire a bookkeeper or outsource bookkeeping?

It depends on hours. Per hour, an employee at a loaded $30.77 to $44.23 is cheaper than outsourced rates of $50 to $200. Per month, outsourcing is cheaper when you need far fewer than the 2,080 hours a full-time year contains. At about 10 hours a week, a part-time hire and the basic outsourced tier cost roughly the same.

Will automation replace a bookkeeper at a small business?

The sources used here do not say so. BLS projects a 6 percent decline in bookkeeping clerk jobs from 2025 to 2035 while still expecting about 144,100 openings a year. None of the price guides puts a monthly cost on automation. The supportable claim is narrower: automation can reduce the hours or the transaction tier you pay for.

What to do this week

Three steps, none of which needs a vendor.

1. Log one month of hours and transactions. Have whoever does the books track time spent on bookkeeping, invoicing and data entry, and count bank lines, invoices sent and bills paid. Hours decide between payroll and outsourcing. The transaction count is what firms quote on.
2. Get two written quotes with the scope spelled out. Ask each firm which tier you fall in, the transaction limit of that tier, the payroll add-on per employee, and what happens to the price when you cross the limit. Compare the answers with the $500 to $1,500 and $1,500 to $3,000 ranges above.
3. Mark the repeat tasks. Go through the log and flag anything done the same way every time. Those are the automation candidates. Ask each firm whether removing them would move you down a tier, and by how much.

If you want a second opinion on that list, the free 15-minute audit on our back office automation page is the place to ask.