How Much Does a CPA Cost in 2026? Real Fees by Service
Most published CPA pricing is either a shrug ("it depends") or a single number that falls apart the moment your situation is slightly unusual. Here is what CPAs actually charge in 2026, broken down by the thing you are buying, plus the factors that move a quote up or down.
The short answer
| What you're buying | Typical 2026 range |
|---|---|
| Hourly rate, individual CPA | $180–350/hr |
| Hourly rate, partner at a larger firm | $300–600/hr |
| Personal return (1040, straightforward) | $250–600 |
| Personal return with rentals, K-1s, or multi-state | $600–1,500 |
| Small business return (1120-S, 1065) | $800–2,500 |
| Monthly bookkeeping + advisory retainer | $500–2,500/mo |
| Compiled financial statements | $1,200–3,000 |
| Reviewed financial statements | $2,500–8,000 |
| Audited financial statements | $10,000–35,000+ |
| IRS audit representation | $200–450/hr, often $3,000–10,000 total |
These are US ranges for small and mid-sized businesses. Big-four and specialist practices sit well above them.
What actually moves the number
Entity type does more than revenue. A sole proprietor with $2M in sales and one bank account is cheaper to serve than a two-member LLC with $300k, inter-company transfers, and an S-corp election filed late. Complexity is about the number of moving parts, not the size of the top line.
The state of your books. This is the single biggest swing factor, and the one you control. A CPA handed clean, reconciled books quotes from their standard range. A CPA handed a shoebox quotes for cleanup first — often $200–1,000 per backlogged month before the actual return is touched. If your books are behind, fixing that with a bookkeeper first is almost always cheaper than paying CPA rates to do it.
Multi-state anything. Employees, property, or meaningful sales in more than one state each add a return and the nexus analysis behind it. Budget $150–400 per extra state return.
When you show up. A firm quoting in February for an April deadline prices differently than one quoting in October. Some add explicit rush fees of 25–50%; most simply decline. The cheapest thing you can do is start early.
How you're billed. Hourly is still common for advisory and cleanup work, but fixed-fee and monthly retainers have largely taken over compliance work. Retainers are usually the better deal if you have questions during the year — hourly billing quietly discourages you from calling, which is the opposite of what you want from an advisor.
Where a CPA is worth it, and where it isn't
You need a CPA specifically for audits, reviews, representation before the IRS, and anything requiring a signed attestation. Those are licensed activities — an unlicensed accountant legally cannot do them.
For a lot of routine work, you don't. Monthly bookkeeping, payroll, AP/AR, and straightforward returns are done well by bookkeepers and enrolled agents at meaningfully lower rates. A common and sensible arrangement for a small business is a bookkeeper monthly at $300–800 and a CPA annually for the return and planning. Paying CPA hourly rates for transaction categorisation is the most frequent avoidable expense we see in this market.
If you're weighing the roles against each other, we've written a longer comparison of bookkeepers, accountants, and CPAs, and a companion piece on what bookkeepers cost.
Four questions that make quotes comparable
Firms scope work differently, so two quotes for "the return" often cover different things. Ask each firm:
- What exactly is included, and what triggers extra billing? Get the boundary in writing — especially whether questions during the year are billable.
- Who does the work? A partner rate with the file handled by a first-year associate is a different product than the partner doing it.
- What do you need from me, and by when? Firms that answer this precisely tend to be the ones that don't surprise you later.
- Have you filed for businesses like mine? Industry familiarity shows up as fewer questions and fewer missed deductions.
Lowering the bill without lowering the quality
- Keep the books current. Every hour a CPA spends reconciling is an hour at their rate rather than a bookkeeper's.
- Send everything at once. Piecemeal delivery means re-opening the file, and re-opening the file is billable.
- Ask about off-season work. Planning done in September gets more attention and often a better rate than the same conversation in March.
- Match the credential to the task. An enrolled agent can represent you before the IRS and typically charges less than a CPA for return preparation.
Finding one
Fees vary more by market than most people expect — the same S-corp return runs noticeably higher in San Francisco or New York than in most of the country. Browse CPAs and accounting firms by city to see who works near you, or search the full directory by service and software. Every profile links straight to the firm's own site, and firms we've matched to a state licence roster are marked as licensed, with their address of record.