How to price accounting services in the UK

Most small practices sell fixed fees, but every fixed fee is really a time estimate multiplied by a rate. So build your prices in this order:

1. 1Work out a chargeable-hour rate: a year of practice costs plus the pay you want, divided by the hours you can charge to clients.
2. 2Estimate the hours each service really takes for a typical client, using your own time records.
3. 3Multiply, adjust for complexity, and round to a fixed fee.
4. 4Bundle regular work into a monthly package, and check every price against published fee benchmarks.

Value pricing, where the fee reflects what the work is worth to the client, can sit on top of this for advisory work. But you still need to know your cost per hour, or you won't know which clients lose you money.

Use your own figures from the last year. The usual lines for a small practice:

• Software: accounts production, tax, practice management, bookkeeping and MTD-compatible tools.
• Professional indemnity insurance, which your professional body will usually require.
• Professional body membership and anti-money laundering supervision.
• CPD and technical updates.
• Office or home office costs, IT and data security.
• Phone, website and marketing.
• Staff, if you have them, including employer's National Insurance at 15% above £5,000 a year and pension contributions.

Fewer than the hours at your desk. Practice admin, chasing records, onboarding and anti-money laundering checks, CPD, marketing and answering quick client questions you never bill for all come out of the week.

Use your time records for the last year. Take your chargeable hours and divide by the hours you worked. That share, often well under three quarters for a sole practitioner, is what your rate rests on.

Workload isn't even, either. Online Self Assessment returns for 2025 to 2026 must reach HMRC by 11:59pm on 31 January 2027, so December and January are full while other months are lighter. Price your January rush work so it isn't cheaper than the rest of the year.

These figures are examples to show the sum. They aren't averages for accountants and they aren't Ringzel customer data.

1. 1Working time: 46 weeks × 37.5 hours = 1,725 hours.
2. 2Chargeable time: 65% of that, so 1,121.25 hours.
3. 3Break-even rate: £63,000 ÷ 1,121.25 = £56.19 an hour.
4. 4Add a 10% margin: about £62 for each chargeable hour.

As a sole trader on £50,000 of profit, 2026 to 2027 rates give Income Tax of £7,486 and Class 4 National Insurance of £2,245.80.

Now turn the rate into fees, with example timings:

For one limited company client, the accounts, the director's return and the bookkeeping come to £1,956 a year, or £163 a month. Both the return and accounts fees sit inside the ranges most accountants reported in the survey below.

The fullest independent figures come from a 2024 survey by IRIS Software Group:

Firms also publish their own ranges. These are advertised prices rather than surveys, so treat them as a rough guide:

• Self Assessment: Sleek lists £150 to £400 plus VAT as typical, with sole traders at £200 to £350 and company directors at £250 to £400 (September 2026).
• Limited company packages: GoForma gives £60 to £250 a month for typical advertised fixed fees, depending on size (September 2026).
• Bookkeeping: Alto Accounting estimates £20 to £50 an hour, or £150 to £950 a month on a retainer (September 2026).
• Payroll: Alto Accounting puts a standard service at £4 to £12 per employee a month, with a minimum monthly fee of £25 to £50 (October 2026).

Source for the table: IRIS survey of UK accountants, an anonymous poll run in February and March 2024 and published on 14 May 2024.

Clients like fixed fees because they know the cost upfront. You like them because getting faster raises your effective rate. The risk is scope creep, so write down what each package includes and how extra work is charged.

Your fee rules come from your professional body, so check your own. Two examples:

• ICAEW's guidance on its Code of Ethics says members should give fee quotes or the basis for fees in writing, normally in the engagement letter, explain any fee above a quote or estimate, and give a breakdown on request.
• ACCA says letters of engagement are mandatory and should set out the work to be done and the basis on which fees will be charged.

A clear engagement letter is also your best defence against scope creep. When a client asks for something outside it, you have something to point to.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax adds quarterly updates for sole traders and landlords. It applies from 6 April 2026 for qualifying income over £50,000 in 2024 to 2025, from April 2027 over £30,000 and from April 2028 over £20,000. HMRC has said it won't apply penalty points for late quarterly updates in the first tax year, 2026 to 2027.

That's new, regular work, so price it as such. Time the quarterly updates and the final declaration for a few typical clients, then add them to your packages as a separate line, rather than absorbing them into last year's Self Assessment fee.

Accountancy is standard-rated, so once your practice goes over the £90,000 VAT registration threshold in the last 12 months, you add 20% VAT to your fees. VAT-registered business clients can usually reclaim it; individuals can't. Show whether your published prices include VAT.

1. 1Review fees once a year, ideally at a fixed point such as your year end, and write the review into your engagement letters.
2. 2Use time records to find clients whose fee no longer covers the work.
3. 3Give notice in writing and explain what's changed, such as MTD or more transactions.
4. 4Reprice or let go of clients who take the most time for the least fee.

A fee that hasn't moved in two years while software, insurance and wages have gone up is a cut in your rate.

Prospective clients often ring two or three practices and go with the first that answers, and in January you're least able to pick up. The cost of a missed call is the client's yearly value multiplied by the chance they'd have signed.

At the example package of £1,956 a year, a limited company enquiry that signs one time in four is worth about £489 a call in the first year, and more every year they stay. Put your own figures into our missed call calculator, and see whether an AI receptionist is worth it. Our guide to marketing for accountants covers how to bring more of those enquiries in.