What a bookkeeper really costs in Canada: hire, outsource or automate

What a bookkeeper is paid in Alberta

Start with the wage, because it is the only number most owners look at. Alberta's own wage survey puts accounting technicians and bookkeepers, occupation code NOC 12200, at an average of $29.84 an hour, or $52,450.00 a year ¹.

Job Bank's table for the same work in Alberta runs from 20.00 an hour at the low end to 50.96 at the high end, with a median of 30.00 ². The reference period is 2023-2024, so read it as a floor on today's pay rather than a quote.

Where a candidate sits in that range depends on what you want them to carry. Data entry and bank reconciliation sit at the low end. Payroll and sales tax filings sit in the middle. A clean year-end file your accountant does not have to rebuild sits at the top. Decide that before you post the job, because it is the difference between the low end and the high end of that range ².

Employer costs sit on top of the wage

You also pay the employer half of the Canada Pension Plan. In 2026 the rate is 5.95%, matching the employee, to a maximum of $4,230.45 per employee ³. That maximum is a ceiling, not a bill. It applies at maximum pensionable earnings of $74,600, and a bookkeeper's average salary ¹ sits below that line ³.

Employment Insurance works the same way, except the employer pays more than the employee does. The employer premium is 1.4 times the employee premium, which caps the employer at $1,572.30 for 2026 ⁴. The employee rate is 1.63% on maximum annual insurable earnings of $68,900, for an employee maximum of $1,123.07 ⁴.

Then vacation pay. In Alberta an employee with 1 to 4 years of service earns 2 weeks of vacation and 4% of yearly wages, rising to 3 weeks and 6% at 5 years or more ⁵. That is the legal minimum, before you offer anything beyond it.

None of this is an argument against hiring. It is an argument for budgeting the wage ¹ plus CPP ³, EI ⁴ and vacation pay ⁵ as one figure from day one, instead of meeting them one at a time.

Payroll deadlines carry penalties

Hiring also puts you on the CRA's calendar. You open a payroll account, take income tax, CPP and EI off every cheque, and send the money in. For a regular remitter the due date is the 15th day of the month after you paid your staff ⁶.

Miss it and the penalty is 3% if you are 1 to 3 days late, 5% at 4 or 5 days, 7% at 6 or 7 days, and 10% if it is more than 7 days late or you send nothing at all ⁶. A second assessment in the same calendar year can double that to 20% where the failure was knowing or grossly negligent, and the penalty applies to amounts over $500 ⁶.

So if you hire, put the remittance date in the same calendar as your invoicing and treat it as a hard deadline ⁶. The wage is predictable. The calendar is the part that costs extra.

Outsourced services price by transaction count

An outsourced service is a flat monthly fee for someone else's bookkeeper. No payroll account, no vacation pay, no cover to arrange when they are away. Canadian providers that publish prices mostly price by how many transactions you push through, not by how big your business is.

Get Online Bookkeeping lists Starter at $159.00 a month for up to 50 transactions a month, Professional at $359.00 for up to 150, and Premium at $659.00 for up to 500 with payroll processing for up to 3 employees ⁷. Outsource Bookkeeping lists Starter at $500 a month for up to 50 transactions and Standard at $800 a month for unlimited transactions ⁸.

In Calgary, J.K. Ehler Financial Solutions publishes flat-rate packages from $249/mo plus GST, then Build at $449, Growth at $699 and Scale at $1,349, each plus GST ⁹. It is the only one of the three pages that says plainly that tax is on top. Assume GST applies to the others too, and ask.

Notice that two of these providers charge $159.00 and $500 for the same transaction count ⁷⁸. The gap is about what else is bundled: sales tax filings, payroll, monthly reports, and how quickly someone answers you. Get that list in writing before you compare the fees ⁷⁸⁹.

Accounting software costs the least per month

If you are willing to do the work yourself, the software is cheap. Xero's Canadian Starter plan is $25 per month, and Xero states its prices are in Canadian dollars and exclude applicable taxes ¹⁰. Standard is $60 and Premium is $80 ¹⁰. The page also advertises $5 per month for the first 3 months, which is a promotion and not the ongoing price ¹⁰.

Zoho Books, billed monthly, lists a free plan at C$0, Standard at C$20, Professional at C$35 and Premium at C$50, with Elite at C$200 and Ultimate at C$350 ¹¹. Those prices are in Canadian dollars and exclude local taxes ¹¹. For a sole proprietor with a short list of transactions, the free tier is often enough.

Put the software beside the cheapest published service tier ⁹ and the difference is not features. It is labour. You are deciding whether you or somebody else spends the evenings on it.

Either way, the subscription only buys a place to put the data. It does not categorise your transactions, chase a missing receipt, or notice that the bank feed counted one deposit twice.

You still answer for the records

Automating does not move the obligation off you. The CRA expects you to keep your records and supporting documents for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to, unless it gives you written permission to destroy them sooner ¹².

Bank feeds import lines. They do not decide what a line means. A transfer between your own accounts, an owner draw and a cost of goods purchase can look identical to the feed, and a wrong guess carries straight through to your year-end.

And the late remittance penalty applies whether a person or an app missed the date ⁶. Automation moves the work. It does not move the responsibility.

Count your transactions before you choose

Pull last month's bank and credit card statements and count the lines. Every service price above is tied to that count ⁷⁸, so it is the one number you need before you talk to anybody.

No employees and a low count: software plus a bookkeeper or accountant for a review every few months. At $25 a month ¹⁰, or C$20, or nothing at all on a free tier ¹¹, that is the cheapest honest option, as long as you really do sit down and categorise every week.

Employees, or a count above a service's entry tier: pay a service. From $249 a month plus GST ⁹, or $159.00 to $659.00 ⁷, or $500 to $800 ⁸, you are paying one flat fee instead of a wage ¹ plus CPP ³, EI ⁴ and vacation pay ⁵. Hire your own bookkeeper when the books are one part of a wider admin role you need filled all month, because then you are paying for a person's day and not for a transaction count ¹.

Ready-made accounting software plus a monthly service covers almost every small business on this list. Custom work only earns its keep when your jobs, quotes or timesheets live in another system and somebody is retyping the same numbers into the books a second time.