A CPA firm looking at offshore staffing will often start with two numbers.
Maybe the U.S. accountant it wants to hire is going to cost $70,000 a year. Meanwhile, an India-based provider has quoted around $2,000 a month.
On paper, there isn’t much to debate.
The problem is that you are not really comparing $70,000 with $24,000. One is a salary. The other is a service fee, and both have costs sitting around them that the headline number does not show.
There is also a more basic question firms sometimes skip: are the two people capable of doing the same work?
That is where a useful cost of outsourcing accounting services comparison has to begin.
If you are looking for a working budget, current provider pricing gives a reasonable starting point.
Resource / Model | India |
Basic bookkeeping | $8–$18/hour |
Experienced/senior accounting | $18–$30/hour |
U.S. tax preparation support | $15–$25/hour |
Dedicated offshore FTE | $1,600–$5,000/month |
Sources: CapacityHive’s 2026–27 pricing guide lists India bookkeeping at $8–$18/hour and dedicated full-time offshore staff at $1,600–$5,000/month.
QX Accounting’s 2026 pricing guide lists India entry-level support at $8–$14/hour and senior-level work at $18–$28/hour. For U.S. tax-preparation support, KMK Ventures publishes a $15–$25/hour range.
A dedicated offshore resource at the monthly range above works out to approximately $14,400 to $30,000 per year.
The spread matters. Outsourced bookkeeping costs can start around $8 an hour, while an experienced accountant who can own a multi-entity close is a different hire.
If the work needs judgment, the lower rate can quickly be offset by more questions and more review.
A U.S. accountant’s salary is easy to put into a spreadsheet. The rest of the cost is less tidy.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median annual wage for accountants and auditors at $83,680. For accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping, and payroll services specifically, the median is $81,490.
Robert Half’s 2026 finance and accounting job-market data gives a better sense of the spread by role:
So a $50,000 to $60,000 starting salary can be realistic for a newer hire. If the role needs someone who can handle difficult reconciliations, prior-period cleanup, several entities, or less supervision, you are probably shopping in a different salary band.
For full-time private-industry employees, BLS compensation data shows wages at around 68.5% of total compensation, with benefits making up the remaining 31.5%.
That benefit figure already includes paid leave, insurance, retirement and savings contributions, and legally required employer costs such as Social Security and Medicare.
If you use that BLS ratio, do not add payroll taxes again. If you build the cost from your firm’s actual benefits instead, the IRS currently lists the employer Social Security rate at 6.2%, subject to the wage limit, and Medicare at 1.45%.
For illustration, Robert Half’s 2026 national midpoint for a staff accountant is $73,750. Using the broad BLS ratio, that becomes roughly $107,700 in total compensation.
A small remote firm may spend less on benefits than a large regional practice, so this should be treated as a working example rather than a CPA-firm benchmark.
You may also have costs for:
Management time is easy to miss because nobody sends an invoice for it. If a manager spends dozens of hours training a new hire and checking early work, that time still belongs in the staffing decision.
Let’s compare a U.S. staff accountant with a dedicated offshore resource using the same assumptions.
Before doing the math, write down what the role actually needs:
A senior U.S. accountant should not be compared with a junior offshore bookkeeper just because the result produces a bigger percentage saving.
If the role needs someone who can own a monthly close, work through unusual transactions, and send a reasonably clean file to a manager, price that capability on both sides.
Using the $73,750 staff-accountant salary above, the broad BLS compensation ratio gives us roughly $107,700 in total compensation.
Now add only the firm-specific costs that actually apply.
For illustration, say the firm expects another $4,500 for recruiting, equipment, software, and setup during the first year.
That produces an estimated U.S. cost of:
$107,700 + $4,500 = $112,200
This is an example, not a CPA-firm benchmark. If your recruiting cost is zero, use zero. If your benefits are lower than the BLS average, use your actual benefits.
At the top of the current dedicated-FTE range, the provider fee would be:
$2,500 × 12 = $30,000 per year
In many arrangements, recruitment, local payroll and benefits, office infrastructure, HR administration, and replacement support are already built into that monthly fee. You should still confirm what the provider includes.
The CPA firm may continue to pay for client-specific software, onboarding, internal review, and some management time.
Suppose we allow another $6,000 for those costs during the year.
That gives us:
$30,000 + $6,000 = $36,000
The percentage can then be calculated as:
Savings % = (U.S. fully loaded cost − offshore total cost) ÷ U.S. fully loaded cost × 100
Using the illustrative figures:
($112,200 − $36,000) ÷ $112,200 × 100 = about 68%
This example assumes the offshore accountant can handle the same responsibilities as the U.S. staff accountant at a comparable quality level.
That 68% is not a promise. Change the U.S. salary, benefit package, offshore seniority, provider fee, or internal review burden and the answer changes too.
Published claims of 40% to 80% savings are easier to assess once you can see the assumptions underneath them.
There is one cost that deserves its own check: what happens after the work comes back.
Suppose an offshore accountant spends four hours preparing a set of workpapers.
In one firm, the manager reviews them for 30 minutes, leaves a couple of comments, and moves on. In another, the manager spends three hours rebuilding schedules, correcting classifications, and chasing missing support.
The offshore rate could be identical in both cases. The economics are not.
Useful measures include:
The four-hour example above is the kind of review trap discussed in our pillar guide, The Good, Bad and Ugly of Outsourced Accounting Services for CPAs.
A firm with steady monthly bookkeeping does not need the same pricing model as one looking for help during tax season.
A dedicated FTE usually means a fixed monthly fee for a defined accountant or team member. Current market pricing is roughly $1,600 to $5,000 per month in India.
This can suit:
Because the firm is buying ongoing capacity, it is also the cleanest model to compare with an employee.
Hourly pricing is often more practical for cleanup, catch-up work, temporary projects, and seasonal demand.
Current ranges are roughly:
A firm that only needs extra help for a few months may prefer this to paying for a dedicated resource all year.
Some providers charge per tax return, per client, per cleanup project, or for a defined scope of work.
This can work well where volume is easy to count. Tax-season overflow is a good example because the firm can buy capacity for the period in which it actually needs it.
Two India-based providers can quote different prices for what sounds like the same role because the service behind each quote may not be the same.
A junior bookkeeper should cost less than an experienced accountant or senior reviewer. Multi-entity work, month-end ownership, complex cleanup, or U.S. tax preparation will usually push the rate higher.
Routine transaction coding is easier to price than work involving judgment or frequent exceptions. Compare the scope, not just the job title.
A shared production pool can be cheaper because staff are spread across several clients. A dedicated accountant generally costs more, but the same person keeps learning your clients, SOPs, and review preferences.
Ask whether the quote covers preparation only or includes another quality layer.
Credfino, for example, uses a multi-layer approach on suitable work:
Preparer → Checker → Senior Reviewer
That is a different service from buying preparation alone.
The fee may also include office infrastructure, security controls, HR, recruitment, local benefits, management, training, and replacement support. Other providers may bill some of these separately.
A 12-month dedicated role may be priced differently from three months of tax-season support or a one-off cleanup.
When quotes are far apart, compare seniority, scope, review, and included services before comparing the final number.
The provider fee is not always the whole offshore budget. A CPA firm can still incur costs of its own after the engagement starts.
The resource needs to learn your SOPs, client history, workpaper expectations, communication style, and escalation rules. Managers should expect some involvement during the first few weeks.
The firm’s review responsibility remains. A provider-side reviewer may reduce rework, but the CPA firm still needs appropriate internal oversight.
Firms sometimes discover during onboarding that their processes were never documented clearly enough for someone new to follow. Turning that knowledge into usable SOPs takes time.
Confirm which licenses are included. Your firm may still pay for QuickBooks, tax software, practice-management access, or other client-specific systems.
If the assigned resource leaves, your team may need to spend time bringing the replacement up to speed even when the provider handles recruitment.
One bookkeeping and tax firm owner who partnered with Credfino had a related problem while her practice was growing.
She had hired and trained people in the U.S., but initially needed part-time bookkeeping capacity rather than another full-time employee. Monthly and quarterly reporting was already taking too much of her own time.
The offshore setup gave her another way to add capacity, and the resource level was later adjusted when the work called for a more experienced bookkeeper.
The answer changes with the amount and pattern of work.
If your firm has 15 hours of cleanup work this month and very little recurring volume, an hourly or project arrangement may be the practical choice. Paying for a dedicated accountant all year would leave capacity sitting unused.
If you have 100 to 120 hours of recurring bookkeeping, reconciliations, or close work every month, the calculation looks different.
A dedicated resource can start to make sense because there is enough steady work for the person to learn the clients and stay productive.
A third situation is seasonal demand. A firm may have a manageable workload for most of the year but need substantially more preparation capacity during tax season.
Hourly, per-return, or seasonal staffing can be easier to justify than permanent U.S. headcount for a short peak.
Whatever the model, the firm still needs someone who can define the work, train the resource on firm-specific processes, and review the output. If those pieces are missing, the cost comparison can look good on paper while the managers remain overloaded.
At Credfino, we help CPA firms decide which accounting work can move offshore, match that work with people at the right experience level, and establish the review process before production begins.
That may mean a dedicated accountant for recurring work, flexible capacity for a seasonal need, or a stronger review layer when the work is more complex.
If you are comparing a U.S. hire with accounting outsourcing to India, start with the work and the capacity you actually need. Credfino can help you put the numbers and the staffing model side by side before you make the decision.
Current 2026 market pricing is roughly 8–18 per hour for bookkeeping, 18–30 per hour for more experienced accounting support, and $1,600–$5,000/month for a dedicated offshore FTE. Pricing changes with experience, scope, and what the provider includes.
Published provider estimates commonly fall between 40% and 80%. CapacityHive’s 2026–27 pricing guide uses that range for India versus onshore hiring, while QX publishes examples in the high-60s to mid-70s. Treat these as provider estimates, not a fixed saving for every firm.
India-based outsourcing is often less expensive than an equivalent U.S. hire for recurring production work. The difference narrows when the offshore resource needs heavy supervision or repeated rework.
Depending on the provider, it may include recruitment, local compensation and benefits, office infrastructure, HR, training, and replacement support. Review and client-specific software vary by provider.
Not automatically. Dedicated pricing generally fits steady monthly work, while hourly or project pricing can suit seasonal or irregular demand.
Not necessarily. Experience, first-pass quality, continuity, and senior review time all affect the real offshore accounting cost.
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