You don't need a CPA license to do bookkeeping. You don't need an accounting degree. What you need is QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor certification (free through Intuit) and enough discipline to reconcile accounts accurately every month.
Total startup cost: under $500. The ProAdvisor cert is free. QuickBooks Online for your own business is $30 to $35 a month. A basic LLC and business checking account runs $150 to $200 depending on your state. That's the whole list.
The software decision that sets your income ceiling: the trainers charging $200 to $400 per client per month use QuickBooks Online and bill clients directly through it. The ones charging $75 to $100 are using desktop software or spreadsheets and doing everything manually. The software isn't just a tool — it's the signal to clients that you're running a professional operation, and it's what lets you handle 8 to 12 clients without burning out on manual entry.
The pricing trap new bookkeepers fall into: hourly billing. At $25 to $40 an hour, you're capped by your hours and you're competing with offshore services that charge $8 to $15. The bookkeepers at $4,000 to $6,000 a month charge flat monthly retainers — $200 to $500 per client depending on transaction volume. Retainers are predictable for you and cheaper-feeling for the client, and the work rarely actually changes month to month once you've set up the system.
The client type that makes or breaks year one: small service businesses with 50 to 200 transactions per month — a solo contractor, a med spa, a restaurant. They're big enough to need clean books but small enough that a part-time bookkeeper is all they can afford. Stay away from retail and e-commerce in year one — inventory reconciliation is its own specialty and the margin per hour is much lower.
The full plan — ProAdvisor certification path, retainer pricing by client type, the LinkedIn outreach sequence that lands the first three clients, and the red-flag client types to decline — is here:
See the full bookkeeping business plan →
Free to read. No card required.
