How to Set an Hourly Rate for Part-Time Bookkeeping Work
A part-time bookkeeping side gig needs a rate that covers taxes, downtime, and scope creep. We walk through how to price it with confidence.
A question we see often in bookkeeping communities: a working bookkeeper picks up a side client and asks what hourly rate to quote. The instinct is to match the day-job wage, or to shade below it to look reasonable. That instinct quietly loses money, and the correction is mostly arithmetic.
Is your day-job wage the right starting point?
It is a reference point, not a benchmark. An employed wage arrives with attachments: the employer pays half of Social Security and Medicare, and often adds paid leave and retirement contributions. A freelance hour carries none of that.
Picture a common case. A bookkeeper earns just under $30 an hour in a staff role and plans to ask $25 for a side client. Self-employment tax alone takes about 15 percent of net freelance earnings, since you pay both the employee and the employer share. The side hour therefore nets less than the day-job hour before a single expense is counted.
What does a freelance rate need to cover?
More than the visible hour. Build in the tax, your own sick days, any insurance you carry, and your software. Then add the unbilled time you will spend on email, invoicing, and chasing your own payment.
To net the same as an employee, the headline rate has to sit comfortably above the old wage. If that feels greedy, remember the employer’s side of the paycheck you no longer receive.
Scope decides the price as much as hours
Consider a typical small client: a landscaping firm with five employees and about half a million dollars in annual sales. Payroll runs itself in QuickBooks apart from entering hours. The bookkeeper handles receivables, payables, and the follow-up on past-due invoices.
That last item is collections work. It is slow, it is repetitive, and it belongs in the scope as its own line, with its own limits. Decide in writing what the engagement includes: reconciliations, invoice entry, payment runs, statements, collection calls, month-end reports. Everything else becomes a change order.
Should you quote hourly or a flat monthly fee?
At a steady 15 to 20 hours a week, a fixed monthly fee often suits both sides. Your income becomes predictable; their invoice stops being a surprise. It also protects you when the work runs lighter than expected.
If you stay hourly, set a monthly minimum in the engagement letter. A quiet month should not become an unpaid month. Whichever model you choose, schedule a rate review after the first quarter, when the real hours are known.
Check your day job before you sign anything
Many public-sector employers have outside-employment or conflict-of-interest policies, and some require disclosure. Read your contract and the HR policy first. Keep side work off employer time, employer equipment, and employer software licenses.
What should you actually quote?
There is no single correct number, and honest advice will say so. Local market rates, certification, and the condition of the file all move the figure. Price upward from your own costs rather than downward from the client’s budget. In the scenario above, $25 an hour against a $30 employed wage points the wrong way: it is a discount dressed as a side gig.
The next step
Write a one-page engagement letter before you quote. List the tasks, the expected hours, the response times, the fee basis, any monthly minimum, and a review date. Agree in it who pays for any extra QuickBooks user access the work needs. Then name your number with a straight face and let the client respond. A small firm that wants clean books can afford a professional rate, and a rate set by apology is nearly impossible to raise later.